Batya: Mamdani not an ‘Islamist,’ just a trust fund nepobaby

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(NewsNation) — Critics of Zohran Mamdani, New York’s newly elected socialist Muslim mayor, have called him out for allegedly supporting Sharia law and refusing to condemn Hamas terrorists. But Bayta-Ungar Sargon says the 34-year-old is not an Islamist, but a “trust fund nepobaby.” 

“The right has cast Mamdani as an Islamist or jihadist who will cover New York City in a burqa. Now, it’s true that Mamdani defended calling for a global intifada, an Arabic term that means a mass Palestinian uprising that always includes the murder of Jewish children,” Ungar-Sargon said on “Batya!,” her new show on NewsNation. “But when he refuses to condemn Hamas, Mamdani just doesn’t sound like an Islamist. He sounds like every other college-educated simp whose moral compass has been broken by American higher education.”

Mamdani’s ideas ‘ridiculous’ and ‘dangerous’

Ungar-Sargon did not defend Mamdani, calling his policy ideas, such as government-run supermarkets, “ridiculous” and even “dangerous.” But she said he’s not a radical Muslim. 

“He’s no Islamist looking to implement Sharia law. He marched for trans rights. His mother is a Hindu. And his wife? Well, she doesn’t look like that Statue of Liberty meme,” she said.

Mamdani: ‘Nepobaby who’s never work a day in his life’

Instead, Ungar-Sargon said Mamdani is “a trust fund socialist, a nepobaby who’s never worked a day in his life, who’s lived off his parents’ success and fame and achieved rather little despite having an extremely expensive education under his belt.”

Zohran Mamdani delivers remarks at his election night watch party at the Brooklyn Paramount Theater on Nov. 4, 2025, in the Brooklyn borough in New York City. (Photo by Andrew Lichtenstein/Getty Images)

Mamdani just like Gen Z peers 

Ungar-Sargon says Mamdani is similar to the 20 and 30-year-olds who voted for him. 

“The overcredentialed and downwardly mobile Bushwick hipsters who think that they are the new proletariat because they aren’t rich and have student loans. Mamdani is their patron saint,” she said. “The Pied Piper of the trust fund socialists who wants the government to foot the bill of their failed dreams and aspirations.”

Working class New Yorkers voted for Andrew Cuomo 

According to exit polls, Mamdani voters were highly educated transplants. 

“Those born in New York and who don’t have a degree broke for Cuomo,” Ungar-Sargon said. 

“Mamdani is not an Islamist threat to the West. He’s the apotheosis of the Western elite, filled with the unique resentment of the highly educated but economically precarious,” she continued.

Mamdani is an immigrant “who’s been granted the greatest privilege on Earth, but seems to view it as a burden that he must heroically carry.”

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