On June 25, a 33-year-old marxist Muslim named Zohran Mamdani won the Democratic mayoral primary in New York City. Over the following week, broadcast networks ABC, CBS, NBC, and PBS ran nearly an hour of coverage about the self-described democratic socialist candidate, spending less than two minutes on his numerous radical positions and scandals.
MRC analysts looked at all coverage of Zohran Mamdani on ABC, CBS, NBC’s flagship morning and evening news programs and Sunday shows, as well as all of PBS’s regular news shows, from June 25 through July 2, 2025. During the seven-day period following Mamdani’s electoral victory, these networks spent a combined 56 minutes and 26 seconds discussing the young socialist candidate — but only 85 seconds on any of his wildest policy prescriptions.
We identified five particularly damaging details about Mamdani’s candidacy to look for, including:
- Proposing a tax increase specifically for “whiter neighborhoods.”
- Pledging to offer illegal aliens taxpayer-funded health care.
- Vowing to turn Manhattan into an “LGBTQIA+ Sanctuary City,” including a $65 million “gender-affirming care” program.
- Repeatedly espousing overt communist views (including his stated desire to “seize the means of production”).
- Campaigning with a socialist influencer who once opined that “America deserved 9/11.”
ABC, CBS, and PBS ignored all five of the above issues. NBC ignored four of the five, but spent 85 seconds of airtime on his proposal to raise taxes on “whiter neighborhoods.” That discussion occurred during a lengthy interview with Mamdani himself during the June 29 edition of Meet The Press.
Instead, these networks chose to paint Mamdani as a political upstart with fresh economic ideas. The morning after his upset victory over former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, NBC News correspondent Emily Ikeda gushed:
“Mamdani ran to the left of Cuomo, focusing on affordability and pushing populist ideas, including free public buses, rent freezes, and city-owned grocery stores funded by higher taxes on the wealthy.”
That same day over on ABC’s Good Morning America, ABC News senior investigative reporter Aaron Katersky marveled that Mamdani’s victory signified a “seismic shift in New York City politics, and a possible harbinger for the Democratic Party.”
During Mamdani’s interview on Meet The Press, host Kristen Welker noted that President Trump had slammed him as a “communist.” But rather than press him on his cozy relationship with avowed Marxists and his overt communist rhetoric, she instead treated the remark as a reckless smear and gave him free rein to deny the allegation without pushback.
The media’s ongoing sanitization of Mamdani’s radicalism suggests not only that they support Mamdani, but also that they expect more prominent Demcorats to begin espousing similar views in the coming years. Should the Democratic Party lurch even further leftward to align with ideologues like Mamdani, expect plenty more media whitewashing to ensue.