Not many politicians call for defunding the police anymore, and it’s easy to see why: although all of the left’s public policy positions are ultimately harmful for individuals and society as a whole, leftists have mastered the art of propaganda, and can portray many of them, such as government control of massive segments of the industrial and business sector, not as crushing and burdensome statism, but as an exercise in protecting the rights of the little guy. But no amount of demonizing of police forces can convince most people that society will be just fine without any police at all. And now his earlier espousal of this ridiculous and dangerous stance is coming back to bite the man who is most likely to be the next mayor of New York, Zohran Mamdani.
After a gunman carrying a large rifle murdered four people in midtown Manhattan on Monday, mayoral hopeful Andrew Cuomo said, “This is a reality check: public safety is literally a matter of life and death.” Referring to the frontrunner in the mayoral race, Zohran Mamdani, Cuomo added, “His positions when it comes to public safety are abhorrent and wholly disconnected from any responsible government approach.” Whether or not Cuomo’s blows will land and chip away at Mamdani’s lead, there is no doubt that the frontrunning darling of the left is vulnerable on this point.
On June 5, 2020, Mamdani posted on what was then known as Twitter what appeared to be an excerpt from an interview: “Defunding the police is ultimately about creating balance. As Mamdani puts it, it isn’t about eliminating ‘everything that creates harm in our society,’ or an invitation for chaos. Rather, it’s a chance to respond to problems differently than we have.” Oddly, the link he supplied didn’t go to an interview in which he said this, but to an article about women’s swimsuits. Whether he had been distracted or was engaging in some kind of elaborate joke is unclear; in any case, there was nothing unclear about his desire to defund the police.
Three days after that, a Twitter user noted that Cuomo, who was then governor of New York, asserted that “when people are saying ‘defund the police’ they are saying they want to see real, fundamental change.” To that, Mamdani replied with brutal directness: “No, we want to defund the police.”
Not long after that, Mamdani doubled down, replying to a now-deleted tweet from someone whom Mamdani was charging with making a deal with New York City Mayor Eric Adams that kept police officers at work instead of firing them: “We don’t need an investigation to know that the NYPD is racist, anti-queer & a major threat to public safety. What we need is to #DefundTheNYPD. But your deal with @NYCMayor uses budget tricks to keep as many cops as possible on the beat. NO to fake cuts - defund the police.”
In December 2020, Mamdani posted an excerpt from a piece of agitprop from the far-left ProPublica that bore a title that deftly wove together police corruption, racism, and lurid sex stories: “NYPD Cops Cash In on Sex Trade Arrests With Little Evidence, While Black and Brown New Yorkers Pay the Price.” This article seems to have infuriated Mamdani, who posted ten excerpts from it on Twitter, accompanied by angry commentary. Introducing the article, Mamdani wrote: “The abuses described here, perpetrated by the NYPD vice squad at taxpayer expense, are acts of evil. Vice’s funding must be zeroed out & the squad abolished in the next budget. The City Council will resist. When they do, don’t let them look away.”
The assemblyman did not, however, want to end funding for the vice squad alone. In his concluding tweet, Mamdani highlighted this section of the ProPublica article:
Eighteen current and former officers who policed the sale of sex in New York City said overtime has motivated them for years. The hours add up over the drive to the precinct, the questioning, the paperwork. “You arrest 10 girls, now the whole team’s making eight hours of overtime,” retired Sgt. Stephen Antiuk said.
“That’s what it was all about, making money, from the lieutenant to the sergeant on down,” retired Detective John Kopack said. “You want to eat? You guys want to make some money tonight? Make some arrests, do what you got to do.”
In response to this, Mamdani called for the NYPD to be defunded, and not content with that, to be “dismantled” as well: “All this misery. All for money. In the last budget, the City Council tried to make the NYPD reduce its overtime budget by half. They simply refused. There is no negotiating with an institution this wicked & corrupt. Defund it. Dismantle it. End the cycle of violence.”
During a mayoral debate on June 13, 2025, Mamdani abandoned his previous stance, stating, “I will not defund the police. I will work with the police because I believe the police have a critical role to play in creating public safety. Sixty-five percent of crimes from the first quarter of this year are still not solved. We need to ensure that police can focus on those crimes, and [that] we have mental health professionals and social workers to address and tackle and resolve the mental health crisis and homelessness.” What they would do in the face of an angry man with a gun, he did not explain.
Mamdani’s campaign website grants that “police have a critical role to play,” but then recommends reducing that role: “But right now, we’re relying on them to deal with the failures of our social safety net—which prevents them from doing their actual jobs. Through this new city agency and whole-of-government approach, community safety will be prioritized like never before in NYC.”
Yet despite Mamdani’s attempts to walk back his previous stance, he had so frequently and unequivocally stated that he wanted to defund the police that his campaign was considerably embarrassed on July 28, 2025, when a gunman who had a “documented mental health history,” murdered four people in midtown Manhattan, including an NYPD officer named Didarul Islam. Mamdani responded to this vivid reminder of the need for the police by writing: “I’m heartbroken to learn of the horrific shooting in midtown and I am holding the victims, their families, and the NYPD officer in critical condition in my thoughts. Grateful for all of our first responders on the ground.”
Related: Former NY Governor Criticized Comrade Mamdani, and Then This Happened
Mamdani followed that up with a tribute to the slain police officer: “Officer Didarul Islam was one of four people killed in yesterday’s horrific shooting. A Bangladeshi immigrant who joined the NYPD four years ago, he lived in Parkchester with his pregnant wife, their two young children, and his elderly parents. When he joined the police department, his mother asked him why he would pursue such a dangerous job. He told her it was to leave behind a legacy that his family could be proud of. He has done that, and more. I pray for him, his family, and honor the legacy of service and sacrifice he leaves behind.” He offered no similar tributes to the other three victims or even mentioned them at all.
Many were skeptical of Mamdani’s newfound respect for the police, and justifiably so. He has not only called for defunding the police but also for the disbanding of the Strategic Response Group that went after the shooter on Monday.
Will any of this matter to New York City’s far-left voter base? If New York voters have any sense of self-preservation, it will.
