Sanders, who endorsed Mamdani along with anti-Israel Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, criticized his party’s reluctance.
By Aaron Sull, Jewish Breaking News
Sen. Bernie Sanders joined forces with NYC mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani Saturday night in Brooklyn, as the anti-Israel duo rallied supporters against corporate influence in the nation’s largest city.
The 83-year-old Vermont senator brought his “Fighting Oligarchy” tour to Brooklyn College, where approximately 1,700 supporters packed the Leonard & Claire Tow Center for the Performing Arts.
Sanders praised Mamdani as “the future of the Democratic Party” while launching broadsides against wealthy donors and corporations.
“What are these oligarchs afraid of?” Sanders asked the crowd and then delivered a defiant message to Mamdani’s opponents: “To hell with you, we’re going to take you on.”
Mamdani responded with his own combative rhetoric, declaring to supporters, “It’s not going to be Donald Trump, it’s not going to be Bill Ackman, it’s not going to be DoorDash. We will choose our own mayor.”
The 33-year-old later led the crowd in chanting campaign slogans, asking, “We will freeze the?” to thunderous responses of “Rent!”
Early in his remarks, Mamdani faced a disruption when a man wearing a Cuban flag shirt approached the stage shouting, “You are a Communist.”
Security removed the protester as Mamdani quipped, “You know that something has changed when it’s not enough to call us democratic socialists anymore.”
Despite winning the Democratic primary in June by defeating former Governor Andrew Cuomo by nearly 13 points, Mamdani has struggled to unite his party.
Key Democratic leaders, including House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, and Governor Kathy Hochul, have withheld their endorsements, wary of his far-left positions and anti-Israel stance.
Sanders, who endorsed Mamdani along with anti-Israel Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, criticized his party’s reluctance, telling the crowd, “I find it hard to understand how the major Democratic leaders in New York state are not supporting the Democratic candidate.”
Mamdani, a state assemblyman from Queens and a prominent member of the Democratic Socialists of America, has often been at odds with pro-Israel institutions.
He has endorsed the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement and declined to affirm Israel’s status as a Jewish state—positions that have drawn sharp criticism from both Republican and centrist Democratic circles, who have accused him of crossing into antisemitic rhetoric, pointing to his past hesitation to condemn chants like “globalize the intifada.”
Business groups have also expressed particular alarm about Mamdani’s economic proposals.
His plans for dramatically expanding city government and imposing new taxes would require massive public spending that critics warn could drive businesses from the city and bankrupt municipal finances.
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