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Progressive Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., is comparing New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani to one of the most significant American presidents of the 20th century.
Raskin posted a video paid for by his congressional campaign that compared Mamdani to Franklin Delano Roosevelt late on Tuesday afternoon, as voting is well underway for the Big Apple’s next mayor.
“They’ve been able to scare a lot of people with, ‘Oh, he’s a socialist.’ He’s a Democratic socialist. He’s an FDR Democrat,” Raskin said in the video, which shows him standing alongside Mamdani.
“Some reporters give me a hard time, like, ‘You said he’s accomplished what FDR has.’ I said, ‘No, he’s at the beginning of his career. He’s got Rooseveltian ambition.'”
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Mamdani responded, “That’s the highest compliment you can receive.”
Raskin invoked Roosevelt’s 1936 speech at Madison Square Garden where he railed against what Raskin called “the lords of capitalism” before the video cut to the former Democrat president stating, “I welcome their hatred.”
“We had to struggle with the old enemies of peace — business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering,” Roosevelt had said in his speech. “Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me — and I welcome their hatred.”
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The video ended with Raskin declaring, “This is Zohran. He is Roosevelt in ambition.”
Mamdani himself is ineligible to ever run for president, having been born in Uganda.
But Raskin’s praise is a testament to the stardom Mamdani has achieved among the progressive left, even as his open embrace of socialist ideals garners critics from Republicans and even more moderate Democrats.
Democrats in Washington have been split on the New York State assemblyman’s candidacy.
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House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., endorsed Mamdani for mayor shortly before early voting began in New York City after significant pressure from his left flank.
In contrast, the other top Democrat on the hill, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., would not say even on Tuesday who he cast his ballot for.
Rep. Tom Suozzi, D-N.Y., meanwhile, has vehemently criticized Mamdani’s positions and went so far as to endorse his opponent, former Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who is running as an independent.
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