Jon Stewart is wondering why Zohran Mamdani is “cast as a radical” even though he shares some “populist frustration” with Donald Trump.
While talking with Lina Khan on “The Weekly Show With Jon Stewart,” the host pondered the ways in which one political figure seemed extreme for asking the same questions that made the president seem smart in certain eyes.
“Mamdani and Trump, boy I don’t want to put those two things together but here we go down that path,” Stewart said. “Both have recognized a populist frustration but only one is cast as a radical. When Trump says ‘how the hell are we paying pharmaceutical subsidies and all these drugs cost us in America so much more than anywhere else,’ everyone goes yeah that’s a smart businessman. When Zohran says that they go, ‘C’mon Stalin!’”
“It’s interesting, this administration has actually done things that have put government more in business’ way than any administration in recent history,” Khan agreed.
Trump has been going after Mamdani ever since the 34-year-old became New York City’s mayor-elect on Election Day. During Mamdani’s victory speech, he dared Trump to “turn the volume up” and said that “to get to any of us, you will have to get through all of us,” after the president spent the run-up to the election hinting federal aid to NYC might slow down if Mamdani was elected. Trump told Bret Baier after the election the callout during the victory speech got the mayor-elect “off to a bad start” in his eyes.
“I think it’s a very dangerous statement for him to make. He has to be a little bit respectful of Washington, because if he’s not he doesn’t have a chance of succeeding,” Trump said at the time.
Baier then asked Trump if he planned to reach out to Mamdani, but the president was dismissive. “We’ll see what happens,” he said. “But I would think it would be more appropriate for him to reach out to us.”
