It’s a steel.
Progressive Sen. Elizabeth Warren heaped praise Monday on socialist mayoral contender Zohran Mamdani’s “steely” focus on affordability — casting it as a winning path out of the political wilderness for Democrats.
Warren, who appeared alongside Mamdani at the DC37 union building to support his universal childcare proposal, said he kick-started that conversation in the right place – and has Wall Street fat cats and billionaires running scared.
“For me, New York City is the place to start the conversation for Democrats on how affordability is the central issue, the central reason to be a Democrat, and that delivering on it in meaningful, tangible ways that will touch working families is why we’re here,” Warren said.
“When someone stands up and says, ‘I will lead this city by making it more affordable — and here are my plans, real plans, plans to deliver on childcare, plans to deliver on housing, plans to deliver. We’re going to experiment. We’re going to try things on groceries.’ That is the Democratic message.”
The Massachusetts senator’s blessing came as Mamdani continues to struggle to gain actual endorsements from other high-profile Dems, notably his fellow New Yorkers Chuck Schumer, the Senate’s minority leader, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Gov. Kathy Hochul.
All three avoided outright endorsing Mamdani after the Queens state Assemblyman trounced former Gov. Andrew Cuomo in June’s Democratic mayoral primary — an upset that prompted a wave of soul-searching among more moderate Dems wary of a socialist being the party’s standard-bearer.
Mamdani has gobbled up endorsements from local Democratic leaders, including in conservative Staten Island, as well as a raft of labor unions and outspoken lefty standard bearers Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Bernie Sanders.
Mamdani, given a spotlight with a prominent Democrat, lauded Warren as a “national champion” in the fight for affordable child care.
His plan calls to provide universal child care for New York City children from six week olds to 5 year olds.
“After housing, childcare is the cost that is pushing New Yorkers out of these five boroughs,” he said. There are estimates of childcare costing a single child $25,000 a year in New York City. That is more money than it would cost to send that same child to CUNY 18 years later. What does that say about our city?
“It’s a crisis, not just for families and their children, but also for the workers who take care of those children.”
Warren, who unsuccessfully ran for president in 2020, also recently attacked Cuomo and incumbent Mayor Eric Adams, who are both running as independents in November, for allegedly cozying up to billionaires.
She wrote in Rolling Stone that some billionaires and Wall Street CEOs “can’t stand the idea of a mayor who wants them to pay their fair share to create a city that everyone can afford.”
“Cuomo and Adams are tripping over themselves to haul in millions of campaign dollars from billionaire donors,” she wrote.
Beyond their liberal politics, Mamdani and Warren also share arguably embarrassing college-related kerfuffles over their backgrounds.
Warren long faced criticism – and a derogatory nickname, “Pocahontas,” from Donald Trump – for allegedly advancing her career as a professor at the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard by claiming Cherokee heritage.
She even took a DNA test, with experts determining Warren had an ancestor who was at least partially Native American “in the range of six to 10 generations ago.”
And Mamdani recently came under fire when it was revealed he checked both “Asian” and “Black or African American” on his unsuccessful college application to Columbia University.
He was born in Uganda.
“Most college applications don’t have a box for Indian-Ugandans, so I checked multiple boxes trying to capture the fullness of my background,” the Queens lawmaker said at the time.
Republicans in New York and across the US, for their part, gleefully view the socialist as a way to hammer their opponents as radical, out-of-town “Mamdani Democrats.”
Ohio GOP gubernatorial contender Vivek Ramaswamy on Monday warned a Mamdani win would be a “wake-up” call for the dangers of socialism.
