US President Donald Trump’s Republicans have gone after Indian-origin Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic Party nominee for New York City mayor, with some even calling for him to be deported. The 33-year-old, a three-term New York State assemblyman, was born in Uganda and has lived in New York City since 1998, when he was only 7. He was naturalized as an American citizen only in 2018 and, if elected, would become the first Muslim mayor of the “Big Apple.“Reacting to the racist and Islamophobic comments against Mamdani, Democratic Party’s California representative Rohit “Ro” Khanna urged his party and the “decent” Republicans to “call this garbage out.”“We saw this kind of shameful, offensive fear-mongering in 2008. I remember when (ex-Barack Obama aide Peter) Orszag was calling it out. I hope Dems and decent Rs will call this garbage out,” Khanna wrote on X, referring to Trump’s strategy of questioning where the former president was born.What Republicans said about Zohran MamdaniLeading the charge was Trump himself, who called Mamdani a “100% Communist Lunatic.”“It’s finally happened, the Democrats have crossed the line. Zohran Mamdani, a 100% Communist Lunatic, has just won the Dem Primary, and is on his way to becoming Mayor,” the commander-in-chief wrote on his Truth Social website.“We’ve had Radical Lefties before, but this is getting a little ridiculous,” Trump wrote. “He looks TERRIBLE, his voice is grating, he’s not very smart, he’s got AOC (Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez)+3, Dummies ALL, backing him, and even our Great Palestinian Senator, Cryin’ Chuck Schumer, is groveling over him. Yes, this is a big moment in the History of our Country!” the MAGA leader added.Going several steps ahead, Representative Andy Ogles, a hard-right Tennessee Republican, demanded that Democratic nominee for New York City mayor should be deported. In his letter to attorney general Pam Bondi, Ogles alleged that Mamdani would “destroy the great city of New York.”Representative Nancy Mace, a South Carolina Republican, implied that Mamdani was somehow tied to the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the metropolis, which occurred when he was 9. That came after Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, Republican of Georgia, posted an edited image of the Statue of Liberty clothed in a burqa.Mace uploaded a picture of Mamdani in traditional South Asian attire greeting fellow Muslims and wrote: “After 9/11 we said ‘Never Forget.’ I think we sadly have forgotten.”Senator Tommy Tuberville, Republican of Alabama, appeared on a right-wing podcast where he was pressed on how Trump could respond to the fact that a Democratic Socialist had prevailed in the New York City race.Tuberville too, made racist comments in response, lamenting New York City’s high concentration of undocumented immigrants and referring to them as “vermin who live off the federal government.”
