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The same use of slick online videos that helped Mayor Zohran Mamdani get elected is undermining his governing agenda in the first 100 days of his administration, political experts told The Post.
Mamdani’s longshot New York City mayoral campaign was buoyed by online footage featuring his direct-to-voter messaging style, which sometimes involved trying to tie election foe Andrew Cuomo to notorious pedophile Jeffrey Epstein without evidence.
But Hizzoner’s recent smug videos have included him publicly targeting fellow Dem and City Council Speaker Julie Menin during their budget fight — and the tactic could badly back-fire on him, experts said.
“That’s the person you have to negotiate with!” said an incredulous Bill Cunningham, a longtime Democratic operative and former communications chief for ex-Mayor Michael Bloomberg, to The Post, referring to Mamdani’s need to deal with Menin.
“And there might be a price to pay,” he warned of Mamdani’s video attacks on the council speaker. “You didn’t have to pay in the campaign. Everybody expects that in a campaign, you’re going to bash your opponents.”
Earlier this month, the City Council led by Menin said it could fill the city’s $5.4 billion budget gap without having to raise property taxes or dipping into the city’s reserves, as Mamdani has suggested.
The mayor fired back in video, “Her plan claims to close the city’s $5.4 billion fiscal gap without taxing the rich or cutting services.
“The problem is that’s not what it would do. If her proposal was adopted, it would result in slashing billions of dollars from agency budgets, and working New Yorkers would pay the price,” he said — making claims that even fellow Dems insisted were not true.
Bronx City Councilman Kevin Riley, who endorsed Mamdani, slammed the mayor’s response
“This is deeply misleading and potentially harmful! I thought these four years were going to be different,” he wrote on X, responding directly to the mayor’s video.
Cunningham emphasized how unusual it was for a mayor to directly attack the City Council speaker and noted it could create unnecessary enemies early in his tenure.
“You live by the sword, you die by the sword. In this case, he got a little cut from the sword,” he said of the fallout.
Only 48% of New Yorkers meanwhile approve of Hizzoner’s work so far, a lower percentage than his predecessor Eric Adams had at this point in his tenure, according to the latest Marist College poll.
Evan Roth Smith, a founder partner of polling firm Slingshot Strategies, said the mayor has been causing self-inflicted issues with the council over his smug public responses.
“He definitely thought he would have an easier time with the council,” Smith said.
“They are increasingly at risk of losing the council,” he said of administration officials.
“It’s surprising how the mayor losing the council is self-inflicted, for someone who is such a good communicator.”
The mayor’s primary-race campaign relied on snappy videos to break through to voters, given he was a backbench state assemblyman. Footage included stunts such as him plunging into the frigid waves of Coney Island to promote a rent freeze.
The video practice has followed the mayor into City Hall, where he recently ate a Crunchwrap Supreme as part of a livestreamed “mukbang” – a popular YouTube format where hosts discuss topics while eating large amounts of food – to explain a settlement involving Taco Bell.
Beyond Mamdani’s videos, Hizzoner has also employed other unorthodox communications strategies, such as the mayor inviting social–media influencers for his first “press conference, with them gushing to him, “I’ve had so much fun making content for you.”
Despite Mamdani promising to usher in a “new era”, the influencer conferences were reminiscent of former mayor Eric Adam’s self-congratulatory prologues preceding his own press conferences.
Smith emphasized that Mamdani’s overall policy communications have been muddled, pointing to the mayor’s messaging over getting higher taxes from Albany and his threat to raise property taxes by nearly 10%.
“Are they trying to prove a point with the wealth tax, or is he trying to get it? And that’s been the story over the first 100 days: Is he trying to pass policy, or is he signaling for ideological and political reasons?” Smith said.
A rep for the mayor’s office did not respond to a Post request for comment.
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