Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) said Monday his party has “gotten lucky” with the Democrats’ nominee for New York City mayor as Zohran Mamdani makes his case ahead of the November election.
“We’ve gotten lucky — bad for America, good for Republicans — with Mr. Mamdani in New York,” Kennedy told NewsNation’s Leland Vittert. “If I didn’t know better, I would think he was a Republican plant. If I didn’t know better, I’d think that Republicans had created Mr. Mamdani in a petri dish in a genomics lab.”
“He’s clearly from what I call the Gary Busey wing — the cray cray wing — of the Democratic Party. That’s bad for New York, but it’s certainly good for Republicans,” the Pelican State Republican added, mentioning the actor turned reality star.
Mamdani, a democratic socialist, recently shocked political observers with his win over political heavyweight and former Democratic New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo in the Big Apple’s primary. Cuomo is now running as an independent against Mamdani.
While Mamdani has faced criticism from within the party, some Democrats have defended his rise. In a Sunday interview, Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) pushed back against Democratic criticism of the mayoral candidate.
“I don’t know why they’re attacking him. I think it’s stupid when maybe we’re not in 100 percent agreement, right? But he has some ideas that are clearly, you know, attracting people. It’s OK to say, ‘I disagree with this, this and this, but I agree with that,’” Gallego said.
“But the idea that we’re again, we’re just going to throw out people that are really bringing in new ideas to the fold, exciting people just because they’re slightly to the right or to the left of us, I think, is dumb,” he added.
The Hill has reached out to Mamdani’s campaign for comment.
