Republican Congressmen Go Mask-Off as New Yorkers Vote for Mamdani

As New Yorkers go to the polls on Tuesday, Republicans in Congress pulled out every bigoted message they could think of to insult the city’s Democratic nominee and mayoral front-runner, Zohran Mamdani. 

Representative Andy Ogles posted a video on X of the 9/11 attacks in New York, calling on the city to “WAKE UP,” in a blatant attack on Mamdani’s Muslim faith.  

Representative Randy Fine, who already has a history of Islamophobia in his short congressional career, called for Mamdani’s deportation, in a speech to the Republican Jewish Committee’s Las Vegas summit over the weekend.

“The only thing I want to see him running for is his gate at JFK on the deportation flight back to Uganda,” Fine said, in a video posted on Monday. Both Fine and Ogles have called for the Department of Justice to investigate Mamdani’s citizenship. 

Also at the RJC summit, Senator Dave McCormick claimed antisemitism is “running wild on the progressive left” and that “the leaders of the Democratic Party are not confronting it, with their new star, Mamdani.”

Senator Ted Cruz called Mamdani a communist and a “Karl Marx-quoting, America-hating jihadist.”

The fact that a democratic socialist Muslim who campaigned on making New York City affordable is on the verge of being elected the city’s next mayor is too much for many on the right. Maybe these Republicans ought to worry about the government shutdown instead of the choices of voters in a city they normally denigrate.

The trial of Sean Dunn, the D.C. man charged with throwing a Subway sandwich at a federal agent this summer, is officially underway—and off to a hilarious start.

After federal prosecutors failed to charge Dunn with a felony, they’re now attempting to get him on misdemeanor assault. And the testimony the “assaulted” officer is sharing of his traumatic sandwich encounter is harrowing indeed.

According to court records and video footage of the foot-long fight, Dunn yelled at Border Patrol agent Gregory Lairmore and other federal agents, calling them “fucking fascists” and saying, “I don’t want you in my city!” before hurling the hoagie at Lairmore, who was wearing a bulletproof vest.

Lairmore testified in court Monday that he was not injured by the sandwich, according to HuffPost reporter Dave Jamieson. However, he said it “kind of exploded” on his chest.

“I could smell the onions and mustard,” Lairmore said.

However, the defense pressed Lairmore on whether the sandwich really exploded by referring to a photo of the sandwich, still wrapped, on the ground.

“The sandwich hasn’t exploded at all, has it?” the defense asked.

“It looks like a little bit is coming out towards the bottom,” Lairmore replied.

Lairmore also testified that he received gag gifts from fellow officers after the ordeal: a sandwich plushie toy and a patch that said “Felony Footlong.”

It’s a dark day in America when a man tasked with disappearing people without due process is forced to endure the horror of condiments.

Donald Trump took to Truth Social Tuesday morning to post about New York City’s mayoral election with his characteristic nuance and eloquence.

“Any Jewish person that votes for Zohran Mamdani, a proven and self professed JEW HATER, is a stupid person!!!” the president of the United States wrote about a historically oppressed minority group.

It goes without saying that Mamdani is not, in fact, a “Jew hater,” but a Muslim candidate who supports the equal application of human rights law across the globe. He has pledged to increase funding to prevent hate crimes by 800 percent. He was the preferred candidate of many Jewish New Yorkers in the primary, and was recently endorsed by one of the city’s Orthodox communities, the Satmar in Brooklyn.

One could argue that it’s more antisemitic to assume that there is no difference of opinion among Jewish voters, or that every Jewish New Yorker has a deeper allegiance to Israel than to their own city—an accusation of “dual loyalty” that is leveraged against Jews (and other religious minorities) to otherize and scapegoat them.

Mamdani’s opponents have helped fuel a surge in Islamophobia, pretending their racism is an acceptable strategy or a mere policy critique. From the fixation on the way the Democratic nominee eats to the disrespectful invocation of the September 11 tragedy as a “gotcha,” the relentless questions about Israel in a race that should be about rent prices in New York City, and even to credible threats on Mamdani’s life, attacks on the candidate simply due to his religion and his skin color have become shockingly normalized.

Voters in New Jersey awoke to worrying developments Tuesday: bomb threats at polling places across the state.

New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin issued a statement warning of emailed threats at polls in Bergen, Essex, Mercer, Middlesex, Monmouth, Ocean, and Passaic counties, and said law enforcement had worked to “secure these polling locations and ensure the safety of each voter.”

NJ.com reports that some polling locations have been closed while police investigate, with voters sent to alternative locations. In Newark, multiple phishing emails were sent with fake claims of bomb threats. And in Passaic County, there is a heavy police presence outside a Paterson voting location.

State officials are trying to reassure the public that everything is safe for voters Tuesday.

“Law enforcement has determined that there are no credible threats at this time. We are doing everything in our power to protect voters and poll workers and coordinate closely with state, local, and federal partners to ensure a smooth and safe election,” said Lieutenant Governor Tahesha Way, who also serves as New Jersey secretary of state.

Don’t expect any kind of help from the White House, though. Trump’s Department of Justice said it would “monitor” polls in New Jersey and California weeks ago, but has yet to say anything about Tuesday’s threats. That’s perhaps because Trump thinks fear will boost his party’s chances at the polls, and the GOP has gutted federal programs to safeguard elections. New Jersey’s elections were already predicted to be close, and there’s no telling how voters will respond to these threats as the voting day continues.

Non–New Yorker Elon Musk peddled the stupidest conspiracy about the New York City mayoral election Tuesday morning.

“The New York City ballot form is a scam!” Musk posted on X. “No ID is required. Other mayoral candidates appear twice. Cuomo’s name is last in bottom right.”

Musk’s tweet seemingly implies the ballot is somehow rigged against Andrew Cuomo, who lost the Democratic nomination to Zohran Mamdani in June.

All of Musk’s ramblings have easy explanations, which, if he or his rabid retweeters lived in New York City, they’d probably already know.

First, city election law doesn’t require voters to bring an ID to the polls—instead, you have to include a driver’s license or Social Security number when you register, so when you show up to actually vote, all you need is your name and address.

Second, you can run with multiple parties in NYC. Mamdani, and other progressive candidates, are running on the Working Families Party line in addition to the Democratic line. Candidates can also run on a ballot line detached from an organized party: Curtis Sliwa, the Republican candidate, is listed a second time as well on the “Protect Animals” line.

Cuomo, an independent, chose to run on the “Fight and Deliver” line. If he wanted to be listed more than once, perhaps he should’ve considered winning a major party nomination.

And lastly, the ballot order is determined by how many votes a party received in the last gubernatorial election, with unaffiliated candidates (like Cuomo) appearing after the partisan ones.* Elon, you’re reaching.

This explanation is simple and clear—but that doesn’t matter, because Musk, like Donald Trump, couldn’t care less about whether his fearmongering is based in fact. As one X user in response put it, “When you’re a moron everything looks like a conspiracy.”

* This story has been updated to clarify the order in which New York candidates appear on the general ballot.