Politifact Rushes to Zohran Mamdani’s Rescue After Trump Calls Him a Communist
“I had the impression that Mamdani intended that phrase as lighthearted hyperbole. I see no reason to assume that the phrase conveys anything precise about what he thinks.”
The mainstream media has consistently shown over the last eight months that it learned nothing from the 2024 elections.
Unfortunately, the same holds true for their (discredited) partners in the fact-checking industry as well.
The latest example comes courtesy of the leftist partisans at Politifact, which has rushed to Zohran Mamdani’s rescue twice in the span of two weeks over the issue of President Donald Trump calling the Democrat NYC mayoral nominee a communist.
As Legal Insurrection previously reported, the POTUS has referred to Mamdani as a communist several times in recent weeks, with the first one being in a Truth Social post from June 25th, the day after the primary:
It’s finally happened, the Democrats have crossed the line. Zohran Mamdani, a 100% Communist Lunatic, has just won the Dem Primary, and is on his way to becoming Mayor. We’ve had Radical Lefties before, but this is getting a little ridiculous.
Another instance was at the White House on July 1st:
I think he’s terrible. He’s a communist. The last thing we need is a Communist. I said there will never be socialism in the United States, then we have a Communist. I think it’s bad news, and I think I’m going to have a lot of fun with him, watching him, because he has to come right through this building [points to the White House] to get his money.
To try and discredit Trump, Politifact consulted with purported “experts” in higher ed (because of course) who either downplayed policy positions from Mamdani that are indicative of communist sympathies or stated that they fell more in line with the socialism banner he flies:
“Mamdani is NOT a communist,” wrote Anna Grzymala-Busse, Stanford University professor of international studies, in an email to PolitiFact. “Communism involves a centrally planned economy, with no market forces. Prices and quantities are set by a central government authority. There is no democratic political competition, and instead a single party rules the country. He is not calling for any of this.”
[…]
Mamdani doesn’t seek to do away with private property or advocate a government takeover of any industry, said Ted Henken, a Baruch College professor. Instead, Mamdani proposes targeted interventions to tackle high living costs in New York City, Henken said.
“The New Yorkers who support him seem to do so not because of any communist ideology on his or their part, but because he proposes to address this crisis of affordability,” Henken said.
[…]
“Many western democracies — from France to Canada — have policies such as free or heavily subsidized child care and public transit,” said Oxana Shevel, a Tufts University associate professor of comparative politics.
Politifact ultimately gave Trump a “false” rating for his suggestion that Mamdani was a communist.
President Trump said on Fox News that NYC’s Zohran Mamdani “is a communist and he is a pure communist – I think he admits it.” That’s False. Mamdani’s mayoral platform — which includes rent control — does not align with communism.https://t.co/Rqjw1hHQtL
— PolitiFact (@PolitiFact) June 30, 2025
When the Trump White House sent Politifact more evidence of Mamdani’s communist leanings, they consulted more “experts,” including some they talked to the first time around, to again allege Trump was telling a falsehood:
The spokesperson sent us a June 30 New York Post article highlighting Mamdani’s 2021 remarks as a newly elected state assemblyman and a 2020 Mamdani tweet praising a young leader. (We won’t dwell on the latter post because Mamdani’s point isn’t clear.) Fox News, Mediate and CNN pundits flagged his resurfaced remarks.
After reviewing the tape and re-interviewing experts, we decided not to change our False rating. Mamdani’s views in the mayoral race do not reflect communism, and experts found his 2021 remark too brief to reach detailed conclusions.
Here are those 2021 remarks:
Hakeem Jeffries: “Zohran Mamdani has never said anything that resembles Communism.”
Zohran Mamdani: “The end goal is seizing the means of production.”
— Eyal Yakoby (@EYakoby) July 2, 2025
Here’s the tweet they refused to “dwell on” and which, in my opinion, proved the communist accusation perhaps even more than the video:
them: so what kind of mayor does nyc need right now?
— Zohran Kwame Mamdani (@ZohranKMamdani) December 27, 2020
Gee, it’s no wonder they didn’t want to “dwell” on that tweet and gaslighted about how Mamdani’s point isn’t clear, because he as much as admitted there that NYC needed a communist mayor.
It is of course wild how PolitiFact is running cover for Mamdani declaring the need to “seize the means of production”, but don’t sleep on PolitiFact running cover for Mamdani saying a Communist Marxist is the kind of mayor NYC needs (PolitiFact says “we won’t dwell on” that). https://t.co/2mdL0resJQ pic.twitter.com/PTL83VcjRa
— Jerry Dunleavy IV 🇺🇸 (@JerryDunleavy) July 4, 2025
Incredibly, the last prof they cited in their follow-up piece went so far as to say that Mamdani had merely been engaging in “lighthearted hyperbole” with his statement about seizing the means of production:
Geoffrey Kurtz, an associate political science professor at Borough of Manhattan Community College, said listening to the video clip and watching Mamdani, “I had the impression that Mamdani intended that phrase as lighthearted hyperbole. I see no reason to assume that the phrase conveys anything precise about what he thinks.”
In reality, here’s the actual communist scorecard for Mamdani:
An investigation by Just the News shows that in tweets, speeches, and affiliations, Mamdani, at his core, holds a strong affinity for straight-up Communism: praising and campaigning with a Marxist state senator in New York; declaring that NYC needed a mayor just like a famously young Indian mayor who was a member of an explicitly Marxist and Communist Party; praising the 1917 Russian Revolution which led to the overthrow of the Czar and, soon, the establishment of the Soviet Union at the cost of millions of lives; arguing about the need to “seize the means of production” in a reference to a core Marxist principle; praising famous radical Communist figures; and much more.
If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck…
-Stacey Matthews has also written under the pseudonym “Sister Toldjah” and can be reached via Twitter/X.-
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Comments
Seizing the means of production?
Communal rather than private housing?
Sounds like a commie to me.
Br’er Trump to the Media: “Please don’t throw me in that briar patch”
I’ll just leave this here:
“The goal of socialism is communism.” -Vladimir Lenin.
He ought to know!
For Trump, anyone who doesn’t support him is automatically a communist.
Come on. Communism requires socialism across all nations. He’s just a democratic socialist and wants socialism in ONE country. He want to be called a “national” socialis…. wait a minute.
With Communism’s death toll of over 100 million in the past century, of course these frauds will deny this subversive’s true identity.
Come on ny, you can elect him. Put those white people in jail, take their wealth. The should have given it all up long ago to you commies.
Who needs grocery stores or appliance shops or doctors? Not you folks, you can have a whole boatload of communism and enjoy the chains that will weigh heavily upon your shoulders.
Show Real America what a joy communism can be for you little pimples on the azz of progress.
Deport Zohran Mamdani to North Korea, or maybe to China for organ harvesting.
Politifact-less
And there’s another problem exposing this communist hack. I asked an AI search tool to provide all x content from Mamdani indicating support for communism. At first it responded there was no direct evidence. I then asked for all direct and indirect evidence and with excessive qualifications, it refers to “seize the means of production” content, but omits the 12/26/20 messages that nyc needs a communist mayor. It later acknowledges the error when I pointed it out, claiming the omission was unintentional and it would update its content. But it made the same omission when I later asked the same question.
In a nutshell, it’s going to be hard to get out the facts to a younger generation relying on these intentionally deceptive AI tools.
Anything that Bill Gates wants more of is bad. AI is just a way to discourage people from thinking at all. I have already cloned my win10 boot ssd because I am certain that “they” will unleash a massive virus attack to kill off remaining win10 machines right after there are no more security updates. Think of it as the WuFlu deception extending to silicon based life forms.
Gates has always been a POS.
As a long time Apple evangelist, I cannot upvote this hard enough.
The ancient Roman poet, Juvenal coined the rhetorical question: “Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?” Roughly translated as “Who will watch the watchmen?” Originally the “watchmen” were supposed to monitor Caesar’s wife so as to insure marital fidelity. A kind of forerunner of today’s FAFO. When I first heard about “fact checkers,” I immediately thought: “who fact checks the fact checkers?” The whole concept of fact checkers comes across as absurd. Snopes, used as a fact checker by Facebook, evidently has a checkered history. The husband-wife founders divorced with mutual accusations. Husband then married an alleged former (?) porn actress and prostitute. All this from a 2016 article in the New American. Should we take anything seriously from Snopes, Polifact or any other so-called “fact checker?” As for the academic “experts,” I go with Richard Feynman, “Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts.”
Just today, I was researching the movement known as “Affirmative Action Bake Sales,” and came across this bizarre piece of character assassination on Snopes:
Group That Held ‘Affirmative Action Bake Sale’ Has History of Hosting Violent Events at Seattle’s UW Campus
God’s bones, Snopes — who the HELL asked you?
Who cares what they call him. Look at the USSR, Venezuela, Cuba, etc. Socialism does not work, except for the overlords, even if people can’t escape. When people with money can leave, as in US cities, the result has to be even worse. Mamdani is also reported to like Jamaal Bowman, of fire alarm fame, for NY City schools chancellor. This was an interesting article – https://nypost.com/2025/07/05/us-news/former-aoc-backer-has-stark-warning-for-young-mamdani-fans/.
All of the countries you named were very successful. All it takes is a disarmed populace totally under the thumb of a totalitarian state. In the end Winston Smith loved Big Brother.
In a contest for veracity, politifact cares about a few trees while Trump speaks of the forest. It’s the same about the audience. Politfact speaks to few while Trump speaks to the rest. Who will have more influence on reality?
Douglas Murray throws some grist into the conversation:
“Will NYC fall for the selfie-entitled Zohran Mamdani?”
https://nypost.com/2025/07/03/opinion/douglas-murray-will-nyc-fall-for-the-selfie-entitled-zohran-mamdani/
The despicable leftist/Dhimmi-crat media performs its propaganda function on behalf of the Dhimmi-crat/Islamofascist Party, dutifully.
This POS, Islamofascist/Muslim supremacist and neo-communist thinks that billionaires “shouldn’t exist” and wants the city government to own grocery stores,but, hey — the propaganda/trained seal/lapdog/stenpgrapher shills at Rolling Stone and Politifact toil overtime to assure us that he’s not a communist.
Lenin started out with only “Bread, land, and peace.”
Stalin studied for the priesthood.
Commies lie.
When he clearly and unambiguously stated that the end goal was ‘seizing the means of production’ he identified himself as a commie. Anyone trying to soften that message to something more politically palatable is either a commie stooge themselves, woefully uninformed or an ideologically motivated apologist. This dude is a hard core lefty totalitarian; a commie. The d/prog leaders who long since sold out to the hard left are only worried b/c they ain’t certain they can win power with this nut as an example of d/prog ideological excess. IOW he said the quiet part out loud and it threatens d/prog political prospects.
Hard to believe that NYC will survive as, arguably, the most important city in the world. Looks like their time is done.
I include the insane lawfare against Trump in this assessment, since I believe it would act as a damper to businesses moving in. Especially given the high cost of doing business there. Like LA, they are obsessed with self-inflicted wounds.
Politifact seems to defining a “communist” as someone who has accomplished the goals of communism, rather than merely someone who aspires to reaching those goals. Mamdani can’t realize many of communism’s goals while mayor of any city, but that doesn’t mean that he doesn’t have those objectives in mind, whether it’s he who carries out the mission or someone else. By Politifact’s lights, a person who creates a communist government is a communist, but the people who support him aren’t.
Not even such a person, because no one in history has ever succeeded in creating a communist society. A communist society is the goal of communism, which communist governments hope one day to achieve, but their own dogma says it’s a multi-generational project, and those who start it can’t possibly hope to see it achieved in their lifetimes.
So if that’s the standard then there is no such thing as a communist, and can’t be until a successful communist government has been running for several generations at a minimum.
The terms communism, socialism, fascism get bandied about rather loosely. I don’t know if he is a communist. He is definitely a die in the wool socialist and that is bad enough. He is also ignorant, inexperienced, hypocritical, elitist, and likely stupid.
The differences between socialism and communism are of interest only to socialists and communists themselves. From the outside they appear to be identical.
Socialism leads to communism, every single time.
“The goal of socialism is communism”
—Vladimir Lenin
Also…. “Communism is socialism in a hurry. ” The end point is the same… just the speed and number of bodies are the only differences.
When Dems encounter resistance, they double down. They still don’t see Harris (or the entire platform) as a bad candidate. They think that they just need more of it. Oberlin – Gibsons was the Democrat’s game plan for everything in a nutshell.
Portland is buying distressed properties right and left and making them into public housing. Their entire system depends on the homeless stuff getting worse, so they do everything possible to spend money with the goal of expanding the problem. Dr Drew called it Toxic Empathy.
The thought of anyobe using the Oberlin-Gibson fiasco as a blueprint for future actiobs had me laughing out loud!
“Toxic Empathy” sounds a lot to me like “Compassionate Conservatism.”
I’d like to point out that whether you use the nomenclature of Communist, Socialist, Fascist or Feudalist is really immaterial.
Whether the State owns the means of production, or individuals within the State’s control own them, is immaterial
The endpoint of all these systems is totalitarianism. THAT is the goal.
The true dichotomy is liberty and individual responsibility on one side and totalitarianism on the other, the whole right/left circular spectrum idea is a delusion, and useful only to those who desire to flush the sheep away from the scary “right extreme” back to the middle and closer to their control.
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