Mamdani squares off with ‘The View’
News
Last week, Semaphore reported that some of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s allies were ‘disappointed with her recent political coverage, particularly after comments from right-leaning host Sara Haines about New York Democratic congressional candidate and fellow democratic socialist Darializa Avila Chevalier.
“I would literally call him an anti-Semite. Trust me, that’s what he calls himself with pride,” Haines said of Avila Chevalier in a recent episode.
A representative for Mamdani said he would not participate in the conversations unless Haines apologized on air for comments he made about Chevalier, according to two people familiar with the conversations. Team appeals for Whoopi Goldberg’s 2022 suspension over comments related to the holocaustand met directly with ABC News President Almin Karamehmedovic to make the request, although it has so far been ignored.
A spokesperson for ABC News did not return multiple requests for comment.
Max’s opinion
The recent wave of progressive and socialist victories in New York and across the country has increasingly emboldened the left to expand its political power, including demanding more from mainstream media outlets.
The left has long been skeptical of traditional media outlets. During his two presidential campaigns, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., frequently criticized the “corporate media” even though he ran his campaign largely through traditional media such as broadcast and cable news broadcasts.
Now a new crop of proudly leftist digital news sites has allowed many leftist and progressive candidates to speak directly to angry Democratic primary voters who increasingly share Sanders’ skepticism of the mainstream media, especially media they suspect of dealing with President Donald Trump.
“Breaking Points, Zeteo and others brought visibility to our campaign early, which was incredibly important,” Mamdani consultant Andrew Epstein told Semafor last year. “But more meaningful was the opportunity to have conversations that didn’t rely on the idea that Zohran had a hard ceiling in this race, something journalists and editors from more established outlets repeated ad nauseam until the final days of the primary. Being independent and having a methodical critique of corporate media and politics frees you from the conventional wisdom that fails to understand our success.”
“There’s a kind of parallel: As they rise, we rise, too, and it’s all about the election,” Zeteo founder Mehdi Hasan told Semafor. he said. “America, the capitalist country, the country of choice; there were never many options for leftists.”
