Top Democrats turning against Mamdani

Clinton and Obama veterans Kal Penn and Rahm Emanuel turn on NYC Mayor Mamdani over taxes and Israel

Two heavyweight Democratic strategists from the Clinton and Obama eras are publicly rebuking New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, one over a property-tax plan that could hit nearly a million homeowners, the other over the mayor's inflammatory rhetoric on Israel.

Mark Penn, the longtime pollster and adviser to President Bill Clinton, and Rahm Emanuel, Barack Obama's former White House chief of staff and a former mayor of Chicago, each went after Mamdani this week in pointed, separate broadsides that landed on social media and a podcast.

The criticisms cut across two of the self-described democratic socialist mayor's most controversial moves: a proposed pied-à-terre tax backed by a searchable public database of property owners, and Mamdani's past use of the phrase "from the river to the sea."

Fox News Digital reported that none of the three principals, Penn, Emanuel, or Mamdani's office, responded to requests for comment before publication.

The twin attacks matter because they come from inside the Democratic house. Penn and Emanuel are not Republican operatives. They are veteran party figures who helped elect two Democratic presidents.

When they publicly break with a sitting Democratic mayor, it signals that Mamdani's brand of progressive governance is alienating even the party's own establishment wing.

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