Zohran Mamdani responded to the Oct 7 massacres by blaming Israel and protesting outside Schumer’s home. Getting him to distance himself from calls to ‘globalize the intifada’, like the Muslim terrorist who set elderly Jewish women on fire in Boulder, was like pulling teeth. Meeting with his Jewish leftist allies, he clearly got this pre-scripted speech on how to respond to question about the conflict, emphasizing attacks on Israel, balanced with a call to free the hostages (which, tellingly, he neither describes as Jewish or Israeli) and no mentions of Hamas.

This playbook (mention the hostages, call for their release, attack Israel, lie about atrocities, don’t mention Hamas) is generally the one that a lot of Democrats are following. But it doesn’t hold up when Mamdani is asked about Hamas.

A woman asked Mamdani to condemn Hamas as a violent terrorist group. Mamdani responded with what is very obviously a pre-rehearsed word salad hitting all the above talking points, without making any mention of Hamas, but repeatedly condemning Israel, and claiming that all New Yorkers hate the Jewish State too.

He also pushed the Hamas ‘all for all’ approach, while attributing it to the hostages, which means releasing all the Hamas terrorists, including those which took part in the massacres of Oct 7.