New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamadani laughed off how his plan to increase taxes on New Yorkers might impact them, suggesting those complaining about his plans are making a mountain out of a mole hill.
During an appearance this week on "Andrew Schulz’s Flagrant with Akaash Singh" podcast, Mamdani defended his proposals to raise the corporate tax rate, shift more of the tax burden to "richer and whiter neighborhoods" and add a flat 2% income tax on earners making over $1 million — insisting his plan wouldn’t drive anyone out of the state. His critics, including Independent mayoral candidate and former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, disagree.
"The same people who will say, ‘Oh, we can’t afford free buses. We can't afford $700 million a year in making the slowest buses in America fast and free –'" Mamdani began during a discussion about how to best use political capital to benefit New Yorkers, before he was interrupted by the host of the podcast, Andrew Schulz.
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"I don't agree with that, I think you can. I also think this idea that New Yorkers are going to flee because of a 2% increase," Schulz interjected. "It's like, ‘I’ve been everywhere else. You're not going anywhere.' Bill Ackman's not going nowhere, he's going to be in the Hamptons all summer."
"There's only one place to write those tweets – New York City," Mamdani shot back as the group laughed amongst each other, referring to conservative billionaire Bill Ackman's active presence on X slamming his campaign and liberal New York policies.
"Your A/C goes out in July, in Miami, he's sweating writing tweets? There's no way," Schulz continued, before Mamdani chimed in amid all the laughter: "He's spending more money against me than I would even tax him. Every day, it's like a million dollars, a million dollars … you're going above-and-beyond."
Fox News Digital reached out to the Mamdani campaign for comment but did not immediately hear back.
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Cuomo, who is running as an Independent after losing to Mamdani in the primary, told Fox News's "America's Newsroom" this week that Mamdani’s democratic socialist policies would drive up taxes and push people to flee the city.
"You keep taxing businesses and wealthy people in New York City, there will be nobody left," Cuomo argued. "Well, Mamdani is a socialist Democrat, his answers are always the same — tax business, tax the rich, raise taxes, raise taxes, provide everything free. Free transportation, free food. Free, free, free," Cuomo continued. "New Yorkers know there is no free."
And Cuomo isn't alone in this assessment.
"The threat of people leaving high tax, high crime jurisdictions like New York and other places is real," Boca Raton, Florida's Republican mayor, Scott Singer, told Fox News Digital.
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"It's hard to predict how bad the economic situation is going to be, but Mamdani doubled down at last week's debate and said it's about time we raised taxes, and he was grateful for it," Singer added.
"When he's proposing a 17% marginal tax rate for New York City residents between state and local taxes, that's 17% that they can simply give up by moving here and with jobs more mobile because of technology and with companies finding great office space here, there's less and less reason for people to stay there."
