A newly resurfaced 2023 video shows New York mayoral frontrunner Zohran Mamdani telling a crowd that “when the boot of the NYPD is on your neck, it’s been laced by the IDF,” a conspiratorial line that has exploded across social media and dragged the city’s debate over public safety into chaos. What was once obscure DSA rhetoric is now front-page news as voters evaluate whether someone who traffics in such dangerous analogies should be entrusted with running America’s largest city.
Even Democrats are uncomfortable. Rep. Josh Gottheimer, among other Jewish Democrats in Congress, publicly blasted Mamdani’s rhetoric as hateful and demanded an apology, signaling that this is not just right-wing spin but a real fracture inside the party over tolerance for extremism. Gottheimer’s rebuke is part of a broader, bipartisan alarm that Mamdani’s refusal to clearly repudiate violent or antisemitic language disqualifies him from serious public leadership.
Jewish community leaders, former law enforcement chiefs, and national organizations have condemned the clip as feeding into dangerous “deadly exchange” tropes that blame Jewish people and Israel for domestic problems. Rabbis, civil-rights groups, and police veterans warn that casting American officers as extensions of a foreign military is conspiratorial, reckless, and inflames real-world hatred at a moment when antisemitism and threats to officers are on the rise.
Mamdani’s campaign has tried to tamp down the fallout, saying his positions have evolved and pointing to recent apologies toward the NYPD and olive-branch appearances on national media. Those efforts feel like damage control rather than genuine contrition, however, because the candidate has a long record of embracing hard-left positions on Israel and policing that contradict the claims of sudden moderation. Voters deserve more than late-stage corrections; they deserve clarity and accountability.
The timing could not be worse for the city’s sanity: the clip surfaced just days before the November 4 election and amid early voting, giving New Yorkers a blunt reminder of what’s at stake when ideology outruns judgment. Polling shows the race tightening as opponents seize on Mamdani’s history of inflammatory remarks, and campaigns smelling weakness are already circling to exploit it. If Democrats want to win back skeptical voters, they should start by rejecting the kind of rhetoric that alienates both law-abiding citizens and minority communities.
Let’s be blunt: equating the men and women who keep our streets safe with a foreign army plays into the very polarizing, antisemitic narratives that hurt American Jews and defames American law enforcement. Conservatives and everyone who believes in public safety should call this out not as partisan score-keeping but as a defense of civic decency and the rule of law. The city cannot afford a mayor who traffics in conspiracies and refuses to put the safety of New Yorkers ahead of ideological theater.
New Yorkers deserve leaders who will stand with the families of fallen officers, protect Jewish neighborhoods from rising hate, and prioritize common-sense public safety over radical slogans. If Democrats want to survive the next cycle, their leaders must draw a line — loudly and now — between legitimate policy debate and the kind of incendiary rhetoric that endangers communities and divides the city. Voters should remember this resurfaced clip when they decide whether Mamdani’s reflexive solidarity with overseas causes makes him fit to run our city.
