It would almost be a funny, hypocritical bit of parody — if it weren’t so darn serious.
Zohran Mamdani, the new mayor-elect of New York City, is taking an expected victory lap after his Tuesday night special election win.
(Mamdani beat out independent candidate Andrew Cuomo and distant-third-place Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa. Former Mayor Eric Adams was also on the ballot, though he had withdrawn from the race prior.)
Mamdani took to X to celebrate his win and announce his initial transition plans.
See if you can find the joke (and no, I’m not talking about his horrifically phony smile) in the clip below:
Thank you, New York City. Together we made history.
Now let’s get to work. https://t.co/G7F2sbda74 pic.twitter.com/GQABMqJHgn
— Zohran Kwame Mamdani (@ZohranKMamdani) November 5, 2025
“Good morning New York City,” Mamdani said, sporting his absolute best Cheshire smile. “Thank you. Last night we made history, and today we begin the work of making a new administration.
“Welcome to the transition.”
Will Mamdani be the worst mayor in New York City history?
Mamdani then rattled of a number of buzzy words, as he often does, such as “make New York City affordable,” “make government accountable,” “excellence, integrity, and a hunger,” and “transparency.”
“New Yorkers deserve a government they can trust,” Mamdani said, and no, that’s not the joke, either.
The joke came shortly thereafter.
“Oh, and uh, one more thing,” Mamdani said toward the end of his video post. “Remember how I told you a few months ago to stop sending us money?
“You can start again. This transition requires staff, research, and an infrastructure that can meet this moment, and it will be made possible by the people who built and believe in this movement.
“So I hope you will make a donation.”
Oh, boy.
Knock knock.
Who’s there?
Share.
Share who?
Share everything — it’s only fair, comrade. Now donate some money.
Again, this whole shtick would almost be funny if the future of the largest city in the United States wasn’t caught in the crosshairs.
Now, before excoriating Mamdani any further, it should be noted that asking for donations during a transition period may or may not be normal operating procedure. Eric Adams didn’t ask for any on his transition page in 2021, but I digress.
Even if this is standard practice, however, consider the optics of this insanity.
A socialist mayor-elect won his post by promising a bunch of free stuff, and it took less than 24 hours after winning his post for him to turn around and start asking for money.
That is even funnier than the knock-knock joke my brilliant brain came up with a few paragraphs ago.
Or, it would be, if Mamdani wasn’t about to lead New York City on Jan. 1.
We’ll see what’s in store for New York City, but at the very least, I implore Mamdani voters to take at least one lesson away from the first 24 hours of Mayor Zohran’s reign: Nothing is actually ever “free.”
Somebody always has to pay. And Mamdani’s asking for you to do it.
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