Mamdani's mentor Linda Sarsour said during an Instagram livestream she "will hold him accountable". (Reuters)
"I just want you all to know I'm not going to work for the Zohran administration," Sarsour said. "I'm not going to work in City Hall, because, guess what? There gotta be people like me willing to stay outside."
"Our friends on the inside need people on the outside to hold them accountable. To say, ‘We see you. We're paying attention.’"
Neither Sarsour nor MPower Action, the political nonprofit she co-founded, responded to a request for comment.
A member of the Democratic Socialists of America along with Mamdani, Sarsour has been like a political mentor to Mamdani. In 2017, they canvassed together for a city council candidate, Khader El-Yateem, endorsed by the Democratic Socialists of America, in a race he lost. Not long after, Mamdani joined the board of the Muslim Democratic Club of New York, which Sarsour co-founded. She endorsed Mamdani’s winning race for the New York General Assembly and was an early supporter when he announced his race for the mayor’s job.
MPower Action is one of 110 groups in a wide coalition of Democratic Party affiliates working with labor unions and Muslim and South Asian groups to elect New York City’s first Muslim mayor.
Activist Linda Sarsour addresses attendees at a vigil for Nabra Hassanen, a 17 year old teenage Muslim girl killed by a bat-wielding motorist near a Virginia mosque, Manhattan, New York, U.S., June 20, 2017. Picture taken June 20, 2017. REUTERS/Amr Alfiky - RTS188WI (REUTERS)
"I think everyone will follow my lead. I’ll be the mayor," Mamdani said in the podcast.
Established in 2015, the NYPD has deployed the Strategic Response Group to anti-Israel demonstrations since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas invasion of Israel, when protests erupted across New York City, many led by the same groups now backing Mamdani’s campaign. Sarsour and Mamdani have participated in those protests. In November 2024, New York Mayor Eric Adams appointed longtime police veteran Tisch to be the city’s police commissioner.
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Sarsour said, "I wasn't really happy about the news that he was going to keep Tisch on for the NYPD."
She struck the same chord as Mamdani, saying, "What's most important is that in New York City, the police commissioner works for the mayor. They are not a separate elected official. So that means if Zohran says to Tisch, ‘You gotta do A-B-C,’ Tisch gotta do what the mayor says."
"Now, if she doesn't do that and goes against the mayor, then that's when we're going to have to go to Zohran and be like, ‘You definitely made the wrong decision here," Sarsour continued. "What are you going to do to hold your police commissioner accountable to the plan?’"
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Sarsour tacitly acknowledged the messaging success of Mamdani’s seemingly contradictory alliance of the Democratic Socialists of America with controversial clerics, like Siraj Wahhaj, who served as a character witness for one of the architects of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing that killed six people.
"You can't be a Marxist and a jihadist and an Islamist and a fundamental Muslim, or whatever they call him, all at the same time," Sarsour said. "You gotta pick a side. Either we're theocrats or we're leftists. Like these things don't go together."
Sarsour told her followers Mamdani will owe her and his other supporters if he wins.
"When Zohran gets inaugurated in January, and as we move forward with this mayor, we have to be the people outside," she said. "Zohran is going to have to tell his own critics that are on the other side to basically say, ‘Look out that window, those people outside, these constituents, these activists, these organizers that are outside, I'm accountable to them, because they're the ones that helped me get there.’"
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Sarsour also expressed support for two other Muslim candidates: Minneapolis mayoral candidate Amar Fateh, and Jersey City mayor Mussa Ali, who is endorsed by Emgage Action and CAIR Action, two 501(c)(4) Muslim political nonprofits also endorsing Mamdani.
Invoking the Arabic phrase for "God willing," she added, "Inshallah, you know, we start a new type of politics, right?"
Asra Q. Nomani is the author of "Woke Army: The Left-Green Alliance That Is Undermining America’s Freedom," and the founder of the Pearl Project, a nonprofit journalism initiative. She is co-founder of the Clarity Coalition and Muslim Reform Movement, opposing Islamic extremism and advocating for Muslim reform. She can be reached at asra@asranomani.com and @AsraNomani on X.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/linda-sarsour-tells-followers-she-hold-zohran-accountable-mamdani-wins-nyc-mayoral-race