Fox News contributor Raymond Arroyo suggested that New York City mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani would soon start quoting the ringleader of the 9/11 terror attacks in his speeches, quipping that we just need to “give him time.”
Arroyo’s remarks come amid a torrent of Islamophobic smears of Mamdani, who will become the Big Apple’s first Muslim mayor after Tuesday’s decisive electoral victory.
Defeated mayoral candidate Andrew Cuomo referred to Mamdani as a “terrorist sympathizer” and agreed with a right-wing radio host that Mamdani would cheer another 9/11-like attack, for instance, while other conservative politicians and MAGA media figures have lobbed unsubtle insults at the 34-year-old democratic socialist.
“We have an actual communist jihadist” as mayor, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) told Fox News on Wednesday night, adding that “we are going to see New Yorkers die.” In an op-ed for The Federalist, Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) warned that Mamdani’s election signaled an “Islamic cultural revolution” in America, fuming that a “Marxist-Islamist” was the “likely choice in a city the nation rallied around in the wake of the attacks of 9/11.” Other GOP lawmakers shared footage of planes slamming into the World Trade Center while referring to Mamdani.
Appearing on Laura Ingraham’s Fox News show on Wednesday night, Arroyo led off his regular “Seen and Unseen” segment by discussing the reaction in Hollywood to Mamdani’s ascendence.
“We’ve seen several celebrities support Comrade Mamdani, but not everyone,” Ingraham snarked, invoking MAGA’s repeated and false accusations that Mamdani is a communist.
“Not everybody,” Arroyo replied. “Actress Debra Messing was very outspoken about her mayoral vote, Laura, but she didn’t vote for Mamdani.”
He noted that Messing, an ardent supporter of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, “went to the wall on this election,” including sharing dozens of social media posts from right-wing outlets and conservative influencers slamming Mamdani.
Many of Messing’s posts were blatantly Islamophobic while labeling Mamdani – who has been accused by conservative critics, centrist Democrats and some Jewish groups of antisemitism for his criticism of Israel and support for Palestinian independence – a “JEW HATER.” One meme shared by Messing, which Arroyo flagged, featured a New York City ballot describing Mamdani as “an actual communist jihadist, a literal Karl Marx quoting America-hating jihadist.”
“Though Messing's exaggerating a little bit, that speech he gave once he won did not exactly calm the waters,” Arroyo said, referencing Mamdani’s Tuesday night victory speech. “He mentioned Eugene Debs. That was the guy - the first Socialist Party nominee for president. Debs last ran for president from prison. He was found guilty of sedition.”
The Fox News pundit went on to claim that the “only thing missing from that speech” was quotes from “Aaron Burr and Mohamed Atta.” Burr, the third vice-president in U.S. history, is most known for killing fellow Founding Father Alexander Hamilton in a duel.
Atta, meanwhile, was a terrorist hijacker for Al Qaeda and is seen as the ringleader of the deadly terror attacks that left roughly 3,000 dead on September 11. Atta was the pilot of the jet that destroyed the North Tower of the World Trade Center.
“But give him time, he’s not sworn in yet,” Arroyo snarked.
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“That’s pretty rough. My goodness,” Ingraham reacted before jokingly adding as Arroyo guffawed: “A blast from the past! Literal!”
“I knew you’d like that one,” Arroyo responded.
This isn’t the first time that Arroyo has leaned hard on racial and ethnic stereotypes with his Fox News commentary. Last year, he disappeared from the right-wing network’s airwaves for several weeks after he drew backlash for claiming Black American voters would support Donald Trump for president because “they love sneakers.”
Arroyo, however, is hardly alone on the conservative cable giant when it comes to tossing out incendiary and alarmist rhetoric about the soon-to-be New York mayor.
Since winning the Democratic primary this summer, Fox News hosts have claimed that Mamdani wants to “eliminate” and “eradicate Jews,” all while warning that his election was a “threat to Western civilization.”
“I consider him an absolute joke, and I look forward to him totally failing,” Fox News host Emily Compagno raged on Wednesday. “But I am horrified by his policies and his communism and his anti-semitism spreading even further across this rot.”
