Dave Rubin recently posted a direct-message clip that highlights a now-familiar pattern from Zohran Mamdani: getting flustered when pressed on the practical consequences of radical ideas. In the DM Rubin shared, a segment from a Good Day New York exchange makes Mamdani look evasive when asked to square his past support for decriminalizing prostitution with everyday concerns about public safety and neighborhood quality of life. Conservatives should be grateful someone is forcing these candidates off their talking points and into answering real questions.
This isn’t a one-off gaffe — Mamdani has a legislative record backing decriminalization and has publicly described sex work in sympathetic terms in past years, which explains why voters are uneasy. He’s listed as a co-sponsor on state-level decriminalization measures and has repeatedly echoed the “sex work is work” framing that radical activists embrace. That record matters because policy isn’t just a slogan; it produces consequences on our streets and in our communities.
It’s no surprise that even Democrats like Andrew Cuomo and Mayor Eric Adams have pounced, warning that decriminalizing prostitution could fuel trafficking, crime, and the collapse of public order. Those warnings aren’t partisan arm-waving — they’re a sober reminder that loosening laws around vice without robust enforcement leads to exploitation, not liberation. Voters who care about safety and decency should view Mamdani’s evasions as an admission that he hasn’t thought through the downstream effects of his radical proposals.
When asked directly on local TV about whether he would emulate Bill de Blasio’s approach, Mamdani offered a mealy-mouthed answer about “public safety” without the clarity New Yorkers deserve. That kind of fuzzy language is the hallmark of campaign hypocrisy: grand promises to “help” vulnerable people, paired with silence on how to protect neighborhoods and stop criminal networks that prey on the vulnerable. New Yorkers aren’t fools; they want clear plans that don’t hand street-level turf to pimps and traffickers.
Conservatives should make no apology for calling this what it is: bad policy dressed up as compassion. The left’s soft-on-crime, soft-on-vice experiments have already cost cities jobs, safety, and the rule of law. If elected, a mayor who quietly supports decriminalization while refusing to defend the city from the predictable fallout will preside over more boarded storefronts, more broken neighborhoods, and more victims — not fewer.
Journalists and voters alike must keep pushing until Mamdani gives a straight answer: will he protect neighborhoods and prosecute traffickers, or will he roll out permissive policies and expect citizens to absorb the damage? The old media reflex of letting politicians hide behind euphemisms must end; hardworking Americans deserve plain talk about what these radical proposals will mean for their kids, their commutes, and their safety. If Mamdani can’t answer plainly, he shouldn’t be trusted to run the greatest city in the world.
