By Robert Hornak
Robert Hornak is a veteran political consultant who has previously served as the Deputy Director of the Republican Assembly Leader’s NYC office and as Executive Director of the Queens Republican Party. He can be reached at rahornak@gmail.com and @roberthornak on X.
In politics there are different kinds of lies, and there are different kinds of apologies. Like a craps player in Vegas, it looks like Zohran Mamdani is trying to bet he can cover all the options and still come out a winner.
Everyone knows the typical campaign promise lie. “If elected, I promise I will…” is a very common statement that every politician makes on the campaign trail. Sometimes they deliver, and sometimes they don’t. When they don’t, their opposition says they lied. But let’s be honest, nobody can pass a bill alone. You still need a legislative majority and the chief executive to sign the bill.
That’s really a promise to “try” to make something happen. Mamdani has made many of those, which many people are claiming he’s lying about. For most he will need to City Council to support him, and there’s little reason to think they won’t, but for some he needs Albany to approve his plans.
A perfect example is his promise to make buses free. The city doesn’t control the buses, the MTA does. It’s a state authority with a governing board appointed mostly by the governor. Control is in the hands of Albany.
Mamdani, currently a state legislator, could push a bill in support of this to show he’s serious. Of course, last time there was a bill to create free bus lines, Mamdani chose not to support it and voted against the budget deal in protest. He bailed on the previous attempt to make this happen, possibly burning his political capital on this, which may be why he doesn’t push for it now.
Mamdani has made many promises about his plans, and they almost all require new funding. Around $10 Billion in new funding. When called out for not having serious plans to pay for all this, he claims he will just tax the rich. Another proposal controlled by Albany, and once again a bill which he has not pushed in Albany to pave the way and show he’s serious.
Now, as the money to fund all his plans appears less sure, he now admits he might need a “plan B” to fund his agenda. When pushed on what he will do if he’s unable to secure the funds through new taxes he responded, “If this money is funded by the additional taxes or it’s funded by a better-than-expected (tax) assessment, or it’s funded by a pot of money that wasn’t previously spoken about, or savings that have come in, then the most important thing is that it’s funded.”
That’s a clever response, but it shows he really has no idea how he’s going to pay for all his promises, and he knows it. And many people are zeroing in on this to accuse him of more lying.
But the really damaging kind of lie is the one he told when questioned about tweeting, “We don’t need an investigation to know that the NYPD is racist, anti-queer & a major threat to public safety.” He said that he would apologize for saying that, but then no apology ever came. Saying you’re going to apologize is not an apology.
And there are the different kind of apologies. The one where you say I feel really bad for what I said, and there’s the one where you say I feel really bad that you were offended by what I said. The second kind is really a non-apology.
But Mamdani has done neither. He wants to create a new kind, the pretend apology. He claims to be apologizing to officers that he speaks to, one-on-one. There are around 33,000 uniformed officers in the NYPD, and every one of them deserves an apology from Mamdani if he wants to lead them next year.
But he won’t, because he was lying to get out of an uncomfortable situation, claiming he would do something he had no intention of doing. And we can assume that is because he truly believes what he said. Or worse, is afraid to anger his many followers who believe it.
The lies are starting to pile up for Mamdani, and he’s not even mayor yet. With less than four weeks until election day, will this catch up with him, or will he skate by to a win, only to be exposed for all this next year?
