Victor Davis Hanson: Mamdani Is a ‘Communist Full of Himself’

Editor’s note: This is a lightly edited transcript of today’s edition of “Victor Davis Hanson: In His Own Words” from Daily Signal Senior Contributor Victor Davis Hanson. Subscribe to Victor Davis Hanson’s own YouTube channel to watch past episodes.

Sami Winc: [New York City Mayor Zohran] Mamdani was at a rally, and he came out and said that AIPAC—again, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee—was a monster. And then he was asked about that, and he said, well, I was talking about all super PACs when I said that.

Victor Davis Hanson: He is such a liar. He’s such a liar. He’s such a liar. I hate to use that word, but every time he’s called on something, he does two things. He does not back down, and then he lies about what he said. He did not talk about all PACs, and he talked specifically about AIPAC.

AIPAC is not a fringe organization. Mr. Mamdani, this is not Antifa, which you don’t seem to criticize. This is not Black Lives Matter, a crooked organization that caused havoc, and then the architects stole all the money, and then they did lasting damage to the United States by taking over intersections or demanding the abolishment of the—you don’t ever criticize them.

You criticize no other PACs. There’s a lot of PACs. How about the CARE PAC, the Committee of Arab American Relations. Huh? You don’t ever mention that.

So, he’s talking about Jews, and he’s basically saying that Jewish people who stick up for Israel are monsters. And he says they have too much influence, except—and what he’s doing right now, he’s a man, he’s a communist, and full of himself. To quote a novel by Tom Wolfe, “A Man in Full.” He thinks he’s at the pinnacle of his power.

Now he’s getting all of his staffers in this huge city with all this money, multibillion, and he’s staffing it with communists and socialists, and he thinks it’s a movement he’s building. And now he’s getting both brazen and he’s being implicit about what he feels.

I hate to say this, but all people who are Jewish American in New York City, if you’re on the left, he hates you because he is an antisemitic racist. And he hates you if you’re not Jewish and you’re in favor of Israel as a, you know, a home, a traditional home for the Jewish people. And he doesn’t care anymore.

He thinks—he looks at all, he looks at the architecture, he says, well, [Texas state Rep. James] Talarico, he’s doing what I did. He’s smiling, he’s faking it out, and he’s doing what our Virginia governor did.

Sellenberger. Was that her name?

Winc: [Abigail] Spanberger, I think.

Hanson: Spanberger. … Yes, I remember. So, he’s doing what she did. It’s go act like you’re a moderate, and then once you’re in office, go full commie.

[Graham] Platner, he’s kind of befuddled, but he’s got a very mean streak on him. Every time anybody asks him a question, he starts grimacing and gets angry, like he’d like to strangle the person.

But Mamdani looks at “the squad” and [Rep. Ilhan] Omar and [Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez], and he thinks it’s his moment that we’re gonna go communist.

Mamdani, in a much more volatile period of immigration even than now, in the 1900s to 1920s, Eugene Debs was a socialist, perhaps a communist. He ran for president five times. He was in jail in his last bid in 1920. He only won 1 million votes out of about 130 million or 140 million Americans at the time.

We have never had a grassroots socialist-commie movement. Socialism and communism are a boutique creed of the elite wealthy—people who are wealthy.

If you don’t believe me, Mr. Mamdani, look in the mirror. You are a settler colonialist.

You came from Uganda, where the Indian population was 1% and controlled 65% of the economic activity of their colony, Uganda.

Then you came over here with your parents, and your dad is an endowed professor. Endowed professors at Columbia, I would imagine, make about $400,000. Your mother is a subsidized filmmaker.

And look around you—Ms. Ilhan Omar, another communist socialist, says she was worth $30 million until people said that’s impossible. So, now she’s worth zero. But you figure it out.

And then you turn over to [Sen.] Bernie Sanders, the archetypical socialist. He’s got three homes. Three homes. One on a lake, one in Washington, and one in Burlington. Three homes for a childless, 80-something couple. He’s got a lot of money.

And if you look at all of these socialists—maybe not Mr. Talarico; he’s on his mom’s checking account. But Graham Platner, his dad is a very well-known, wealthy lawyer. His mother is an elite restaurant owner and operator, and she’s your only client. She is his only client.

I could go on and on.

Bill Ayers—he was, Bill Ayers, the socialist communist bomber who disappeared when [Barack] Obama was elected because it had been said that Obama admitted that he had written his memoirs in the Ayers home.

But, you know, a lot of people looked at passages in Bill Ayers’ memoir, and then they looked in Obama’s, and there were metaphors and similes, some quite long, that were identical, meaning there was this accusation that Bill Ayers ghostwrote much of it.

Who knows whether it’s true or not, but my point is, he was in the third row with Bernardine Dohrn, the terrorist. I saw a clip—Megyn Kelly brought it to my attention. She interviewed Bill Ayers in 2014 on Fox, and I remember that interview, but I didn’t remember how bad it was.

The questions were just:

“You killed people?”

“Yes.”

“But that was a—can you guarantee you wouldn’t do it again?”

“No.”

“Did you steal money?”

“Yes, I stole money.”

“And you lied to people and got fake IDs?”

“Yes.”

“And the people that your wife was responsible for killing orphaned nine children?”

He didn’t apologize. That was another thing Obama did. He’s doing just like Spanberger, all these other people, like Talarico.

They act like they’re moderate because nobody wants to—nobody in their right mind would elect a socialist or communist. But Obama got elected because “there is no red state, there is no blue state, there’s just American state.”

Remember that 2004 convention address? That was such a lie. And now he’s back to his old—he was like, oh, I’m Barack Obama. I’m a socialist community organizer again because I got my eight years and I’m a multimillionaire out of it.

It’s just, why can’t a commie just say, “I am a socialist communist”? I don’t know any socialist that’s really not a communist. “I’m a socialist communist. I’m proud of it, and I want to convince you to be a socialist communist, and all my friends are socialist communists.”

But they never do that.

Winc: Can I ask you something? Because you’re right on—there was a story, it’s not really significant, but in the Daily Mail today of this billionaire and his wife who were out saying that they wanted communism for landlords and the global welfare state. And they were very young.

And I was looking at it, going—

Hanson: And they had a big home. Wasn’t he, I think, was he from India or something? Yes, I remember reading about them.

Why doesn’t he open his mansion up?

Remember that scene in “Doctor Zhivago” when he comes back, and the aristocratic house has about 10 people in it? Why don’t they do that? I had a good friend—no, wait a second. The aristocratic house had about 20 people in it, and they were bossing around his father—or father-in-law—and his wife and stuff.

You know, one of my—she was a very misunderstood person in this area, Carol Harris of Harris Farms. She was a wonderful person. I really liked her, and she was a staunch conservative and donated heavily, as did her husband, John, to conservative causes. But she had a good sense of humor.

So, I was over there once at a reception, and she came up to me and said, “Victor, I’m just worried about this Obama character. He’s a socialist.”

I shouldn’t have done it, but I said, “Carol, now, you look here. This beautiful palazzo you have on the Kings River—it must be, I don’t know, 15,000 square feet.”

She looked kind of like a deer in the headlights, and she goes, “Why? What?”

And I said, “Well, I’m from Selma. We got a lot of poor people. Now, if you’ll let me intervene, that bedroom—we can put the Smiths and the Jones and everybody, like ‘Doctor Zhivago.’”

And she said, “Oh my gosh, I remember ‘Doctor Zhivago.’” And then she started laughing because I was trying to be real serious.

I really miss her. She was a wonderful person. Very eccentric, but in a good way.

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