Trump, Mamdani and the need for moral clarity
Saying that the focus of their tête-à-tête was “affordability” is reminiscent of the myth about Italian dictator Benito Mussolini “making the trains run on time.”
Mamdani y Trump en el Salón Oval/ Jim Watson
The optics of U.S. President Donald Trump in the Oval Office next to Zohran Mamdani, the incoming mayor of New York City, challenged American sensibilities. Instead of a contentious dogfight—like the first meeting between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky—there was a chummy interplay with handshakes and playful arm pats.
While they ostensibly chatted about practical matters like “affordability,” we should hope that Trump considered the real goals of the 34-year-old Muslim.
Who was playing whom? Was Trump practicing his art of the deal, or did he lower his guard and allow himself to be charmed by Mamdani?
Trump has proven to be Israel’s most supportive president, one who has aggressively addressed the rise in normalized antisemitism. During his first term and so far in this second one, he has exhibited a steadfast commitment to the Jewish state. During the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, he joined the Jewish state in an attack on Iran’s nuclear factories, then crafted a peace agreement to end the fighting in Gaza and free the remaining hostages held by Hamas. Just a day before the Mamdani visit, he welcomed 15 of them at the White House.
Meanwhile, Mamdani arrived for his meeting with Trump fresh from his unlikely victory in a city famous for its Jewish citizenry. Yes, he was lucky to have faced weak competition in the race for mayor, but evidence of his bias against Jews became a matter of public record. For example:
- He started a chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine when he attended Bowdoin College in Maine. And he has stated, “We have to make clear that when the boot of the NYPD is on your neck, it’s been laced by the IDF.”
- His desire for Jewish genocide was made clear with his chants, “From the river to the sea.” His plan to terrorize all Jews, including those in Gotham, was implied in his proudly stating, “Globalize the intifada.”
- On Nov. 19, an event held by the aliyah organization Nefesh B’Nefesh at the Park East Synagogue on Manhattan’s Upper East Side was disrupted by an angry mob chanting, “From New York to Gaza, globalize the intifada,” and “Resistance, you make us proud, take another settler out.” Mamdani’s response was to state inaccurately that “these sacred spaces should not be used to promote activities in violation of international law.”
We can expect New York City residents to receive what journalist and scholar H.L. Mencken forecasted: “Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard.”
While we try to reconcile the president’s light-hearted courtesy and easy discourse with the privileged Democratic Socialist, the political and societal atmosphere leading to his election should be considered.
Mamdani’s ascent comes after two years of street riots and campus demonstrations sympathetic to the Oct. 7 Hamas massacre. The keffiyeh-wearing mobs impugning Israel with charges of genocide and apartheid—a perverse inversion of truth—began their campaign before Israel even managed to repel the thousands of terrorists who had infiltrated its border, let alone begin a ground operation in Gaza.
Subsequently, the same mobs spread blood libels about the treatment of Gazans at the hands of Israeli troops.
Mamdani’s rise reflects that sentiment. His election also magnifies the impact of the far-left “Squad” in the U.S. House of Representatives and the entrenchment of progressives in academia and the media. The decades-long influence of Qatari money, woke influencers and capitulating Democrats all contributed to the anti-Israel trends.
But such madness is now finding a foothold on the far-right, as well—validating the “horseshoe theory,” whereby ideological extremists relate better to one another than to the center.
The blowup at the Heritage Foundation is a case in point. The president of the conservative think tank, Kevin Roberts, caused a stir when he defended former Fox News host and current podcaster Tucker Carlson, who recently conducted a soft-ball interview with Holocaust-denier podcaster Nick Fuentes. Fuentes fumed about “Zionist Jews,” accusing them of ruining conservatism and declaring Israel a moral plague.
Roberts attempted to justify the poisonous remarks by claiming, “Christians can critique the State of Israel without being antisemitic and canceling men like Fuentes is not the answer.”
The growing divide in the Republican Party, with implications for leadership in the post-Trump era, is worrisome. Will Vice President JD Vance continue his friendship with Carlson?
Politics
Trump announces meeting with 'communist' Zohran Mamdani this Friday at the White House
Emmanuel Alejandro Rondón
The sight of Trump and Mamdani clasping hands like old friends is hard to swallow. Saying that the focus of their tête-à-tête was “affordability” is reminiscent of the myth about Italian dictator Benito Mussolini “making the trains run on time.”
Though we must respect the U.S. president’s long list of Nobel Prize-worthy diplomatic achievements and his pro-Israel and anti-antisemitic track record, we should always advocate for moral clarity and ask our leaders, including Trump, to call out evil when they see it.
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