White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller tore into the city of New York on Wednesday after Zohran Mamdani pulled off a major upset in its Democratic mayoral primary, emerging with a commanding lead over former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who conceded late Tuesday.
Mamdani, a 33-year-old member of the Democratic Socialists of America, was seen as the progressive outsider in the race. Cuomo was considered the establishment candidate and was the favorite since he announced his candidacy in March.
In a series of posts on X, Miller, a staunch immigration hawk, attributed the expected outcome of the primary to “unchecked migration.”
“The commentary about NYC Democrats nominating an anarchist-socialist for Mayor omits one point: how unchecked migration fundamentally remade the NYC electorate. Democrats change politics by changing voters. That’s how you turn a city that defined US dominance into what it is now,” Miller said in a post on the social platform X early Wednesday.
“To understand the pace and scope of migration to America in past years, one-third of NYC is foreign-born and almost two-thirds of NYC children live in a foreign-born household,” he added in another post.
Mamdani, a member of the state assembly since 2021, would be the city’s first Muslim and Indian American mayor if elected. He was born and raised in Kampala, Uganda, and moved to New York City with his family when he was 7 years old.
“NYC is the clearest warning yet of what happens to a society when it fails to control migration,” Miller said in another post, which generated some pushback among more liberal X users.
Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.), former co-chair of the Progressive Caucus, used an expletive in a post responding to Miller directly.
“Racist f—. Go back to 1930’s Germany,” Pocan wrote in his X post, responding to Miller.
Former Ohio State Sen. Nina Turner, who also served as national co-chair of Sen. Bernie Sanders’s 2020 campaign for president, also blasted Miller for his statement.
“Absolutely vile comment from someone who holds power in the Trump White House,” Turner wrote on X.
Miller, who doubles as President Trump’s homeland security adviser, has been a leading force in the president’s immigration crackdown and is often a public face of the administration’s most divisive deportation actions.
Some Republicans publicly backed Miller’s post.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) shared Miller’s post and responded, “Yup.”
Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) responded to the same Miller post, writing, “We’re praying for the City of New York. As we say in the Lowcountry, Bless your hearts.”
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