OAN Staff Katherine Mosack
10:35 AM – Wednesday, September 3, 2025
Former New York City Democrat Mayor Bill de Blasio has thrown his support behind Democratic Socialist mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani.
He made his endorsement for Mamdani (D-N.Y.) via a New York Daily News article, praising him for his promises of “affordability for working-class citizens” of New York, “by relentlessly challenging the status quo.”
“We don’t just need Zohran Mamdani to be our mayor because he has the right ideas, or because they can be achieved. We need him because in his heart and in his bones he cannot accept a city that prices out the people who built it and keep it running,” de Blasio said.
The former mayor highlighted Mamdani’s “historic Democratic primary victory” earlier this summer, which shows the overwhelming support his campaign promises have garnered him among New Yorkers.
De Blasio (D-N.Y.) also pointed out some “similarities” between himself and the current candidate, which sheds some light on why he chose Mamdani over sitting-Mayor Eric Adams and former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo — as they are both more moderate than Mamdani.
Mamdani’s political agenda includes “a rent freeze for more than two million tenants” and taxpayer-funded child care for all children from six weeks old to five years old. As a candidate with a similar vision that was “recklessly idealistic,” de Blasio claims he had also promised affordable housing and pre-K for all, according to his official endorsement.
“Labeling my agenda as infeasible masked their true problem with it: an unwillingness to cede power and opportunity to working people,” de Blasio stated. “In 2025, the same overheated condemnations yield the same result as in 2013: not only does the public want what Mamdani is proposing, it actually all can be done.”
De Blasio went on to assert that he believes New York City needs a “bold” leader who will stand up to the conservative Trump White House.
De Blasio also appeared on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” to reiterate his endorsement — pushing back against Republicans and even Democrats who oppose Mamdani’s socialist agenda.
“I think it is an attempt by the Republicans to obscure that if Democrats are talking about kitchen-table issues and it works, the Republicans have to try and throw a monkey wrench in,” he said.
Mamdani has also been endorsed by several other Democrats, including Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), Attorney General Letitia James (D-N.Y.), Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), and the now-Independent Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT.).
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