A former top aide to far-left “Squad” member Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said socialist Big Apple mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani — who has already sent Democrats into “absolute panic” — should support primary challengers against lefty lawmakers who refuse to support his proposed $9 billion in tax hikes on millionaires and corporations.
“I think Mamdani has to support primary challengers. The big stick he has is the primary,” Corbin Trent told The Post.
“He’s already facing resistance. The resistance is out there.”
Trent said no one should be immune from challenges in next year’s state legislative and House races — including top House Dem Rep. Hakeem Jeffries and Bronx Congressman Ritchie Torres.
“Politics runs on fear. You don’t have to take out that many,” he said.
Trent was part of Ocasio-Cortez’s brain trust when the Democratic Socialist shocked the political world by ousting longtime lawmaker and then-head of the Queens Democratic machine, Joe Crowley, in the 2018 Democratic primary, becoming the youngest woman elected to Congress.
Trent is a co-founder of Justice Democrats, the progressive political action that backed Ocasio-Cortez’s successful insurgency and boosts other lefty primary challengers against incumbents deemed too tied to the status quo and monied interests.
He said Democratic incumbents beholden to the donor class and who cling to the status quo “are like sitting ducks.”
President Trump and his MAGA movement have backed primary challenges when fellow Republicans stand in the way of their agenda, he noted.
Tensions have erupted between Mamdani’s far-left network of supporters — including the Democratic Socialists of America and Working Families Party — because prominent Democratic Party leaders, such as Senate Democratic Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and Rep. Jeffries have shied away from endorsing the millennial in the mayoral race.
Reps with DSA and the WFP have also suggested that some establishment Democrats and longtime incumbents could be vulnerable to primary challengers.
A top aide to Jeffries, who is black, said the congressman’s campaign would be ready for what he mockingly dubbed “Team Gentrification.”
Jeffries, however, will personally meet with Mamdani later this week, a source said.
The House Minority Leader declined to comment on Trent’s call for the socialist upstart to get behind primary challengers.
Torres, meanwhile, said he was unfazed.
“House Democrats are strategizing about how to defeat Donald Trump and make Hakeem Jeffries the next Speaker. Donald Trump and DSA are strategizing about how to tear down Hakeem Jeffries. Strange bedfellows,” Torres told The Post.
Unlike other parts of the city, ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo carried Torres’ South Bronx congressional district over Mamdani in the primary by 20 percentage points.
In an exasperated column on Substack, Trent lambasted Dems for paving the way to another Trump administration.
“Democrats keep pretending Trump voters are moving right when the truth is much simpler: people are voting for whoever promises to blow up a rigged system. Same reason they voted Obama in ’08, Bernie in ’16, and Trump — twice now,” the political strategist wrote.
“It’s not about specific policies. It’s about wanting someone, anyone, to break through and deliver transformation,” he continued.
“Democrats either can’t see this or won’t admit it because their entire mission is maintaining the status quo for the donors and consultants who run the party. They’d rather manage decline than acknowledge that voters want revolutionary change — because admitting that would mean admitting they’re not the leaders for the job.”
Trent said Mamdani won the Democratic primary election for mayor because he offered sweeping change to help address the affordability crisis for many New Yorkers.
Critics, however, question whether the socialist’s lofty proposals — that he said he could pay for with sweeping tax hikes — are achievable. The proposals would require legislative approval.
