Former Treasury Secretary Jack Lew, who served under President Barack Obama, has criticized New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani's policies.
A self-described democratic socialist, Mamdani became the Democrats' mayoral candidate Tuesday, when results of the city's ranked choice voting were released. The election is in November.
Appearing on "The Master Investor Podcast With Wilfred Frost," Lew blasted Mamdani for his socialist policy proposals such as free buses, free child care, and rent freezes if elected to office.
"The policies that he's outlined are not policies that are good for New York. He's running for mayor of New York, and I worry deeply, having spent most of my life in New York, about a city that I call home," Lew told Frost in the interview that also aired Wednesday on CNBC.
"You know, I see a similarity between the kind of policy solutions to the left and the right, and, you know, that satisfy populist sentiment [but] don't always go through the filter of do they work. I don't think they work, and I think that's a problem."
Lew added that even as mayor, Mamdani would face challenges in installing his policies.
"One thing I'll say about New York is that New York is not an entirely independent governing entity," Lew said. "Many of the policies have to be approved by the state, either legislature or governor.
"So, it's a process where you have more centrist political voices that will still be very much in a position to determine whether or not different tacts and spending policies can take effect."
Mamdani has become a target of Republicans and moderate Democrats, who point to the 33-year-old Uganda native as showing how far left the Democratic Party has drifted.
President Donald Trump on Tuesday said that "we'll have to arrest" Mamdani if he fights to keep Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents out of New York.
"We don't need a communist in this country, but if we have one, I'm going to be watching over him very carefully on behalf of the nation," Trump said while touring the new "Alligator Alcatraz" immigrant detention center in the Florida Everglades, Newsweek reported.
On Sunday, Mamdani defended his proposal to raise property taxes on "richer and whiter neighborhoods" as part of a broader effort to shore up the city's shrinking tax base — and insisted that billionaires should not exist.
Mamdani said his plan to increase property taxes on affluent, predominantly white areas is not about skin color.
"That is just a description of what we see right now. It's not driven by race. It's more of an assessment of what neighborhoods are being undertaxed versus overtaxed," Mamdani told NBC's' "Meet the Press."
Charlie McCarthy ✉
Charlie McCarthy, a writer/editor at Newsmax, has nearly 40 years of experience covering news, sports, and politics.
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