Bernie Sanders, a Vermont senator, has been conducting town hall tours throughout the country to engage progressive voters nationwide.
He and New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani shared the message at a joint town hall on Saturday evening with Brooklyn College, his alma mater.
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In a race that has garnered 1,700 signatures, Mamdani, a long-standing progressive politician, was sat next to him in front of the crowd, which is now gaining national attention as progressives see him and candidates like him as a way to energize their movement and contribute to the right’s ire and concerted attacks, including from President Donald Trump.
Mamdani told the crowded auditorium, “Politics can be powered by ordinary people.”
The Sanders’s tour, which has already reached 21 states and more than 300,000 people, highlighted the progressive assembly member’s increasingly hostile rhetoric and the rising national spotlight on New York’s mayoral race.
Trump incorrectly described Mamdani, a Democratic socialist, as “a communist,” on Friday.
More moderate Democrats and Republicans have long criticized Mamdani’s policies, calling them unrealistic and extreme, especially in contrast to Al Jazeera’s analysis, for their approach to economic issues.
However, the growing income gap and the consolidation of wealth in fewer hands were the main points of contention among supporters.
Sanders focused on pressing issues across the country, drawing sharp criticism from billionaire owners of major media companies, including David Ellison, the current CEO of CBS News, who Sanders alleges is not being sufficiently critical of the White House under their new ownership.
A lawsuit alleging that Kamala Harris’ interview with the network, which recently merged with Skydance Media, was revoked paid $ 16 million. In response to complaints from the Trump administration, CBS also announced earlier this week that it would no longer edit interviews for its Sunday political program Face the Nation.
Elon Musk, the billionaire CEO of Tesla, was also targeted by Sanders. The richest man in the world received a $1 trillion compensation package from Tesla’s shareholders on Friday.
Sanders claimed that “we are living in a crazy world.”
Millions of people are putting food on the table, and Tesla shareholders are making one man a trillionaire.
Mamdani focused his attention on major corporations, including DoorDash, which attempted to defeat him twice in town hall by calling out $ 1 million in efforts to win him.
According to Mamdani, “New York City is not for sale.”
Mamdani has been speaking out about those concerns despite the negative feedback from the larger business community. Mamdani met with business leaders from across New York in July to discuss his controversial policies, which Business Partnership for New York City described as “productive.”
Despite this, Mamdani and Sanders’ campaign’s main point was a sentiment outside the business community, issues that were of interest to working- and middle-class supporters.
Locals at the town hall brought up child care, which can cost up to 25% of household income, according to the New York City Council.
A working mother in the audience claimed to spend $36, 000 on child care annually.
In response to a teacher who inquired about his childcare plan, Mamdani said, “We have to feel the depth of the statistics we have become numb to.”
Mamdani has suggested providing free childcare for children between the ages of six weeks and five years.
Trump’s preferred weight on the scale
According to all major polls, with the exception of one from the left-leaning Manhattan Institute, his efforts come amid concerns that the Trump administration may be attempting to meddle in the election for mayor of New York after allegedly offering support to incumbent incumbent Eric Adams, who is currently in fourth place, in a race that he leads by double digits over Mamdani. Following Adams is republican Curtis Sliwa.
Adams is reportedly being considered for a position in the Trump administration. According to four people with knowledge of the situation, Trump may consider appointing him as Saudi Arabia’s ambassador, according to The New York Times. Trump refuted reports that he was considering hiring Adams for the role on Friday.
Adams has denied having discussions with the Trump administration in order to be considered for a position in the Department of Housing and Urban Development, which comes days after that statement.
In response to a separate report from the New York Times that suggested the controversy embroiling the mayor might have to be considered for suspending his re-election bid, Adams assured reporters on Friday that he would not withdraw from the race.
Adams’ campaign campaign representatives did not respond to Al Jazeera’s request for comment.
Cuomo also criticized the president’s alleged involvement in the election.
Cuomo told reporters on Friday, “I don’t want him to be involved in anything that has to do with my race.”
Cuomo, who is in second place, still thinks that voters would be drawn to his campaign if Adams or another Republican, Curtis Sliwa, who is also in the lead, dropped out.
Mamdani still leads the polls by a large margin, but he hasn’t managed to surpass 50 percent.
Al Jazeera’s request for comment was not received by Cuomo’s campaign.
Mamdani also criticized Trump’s participation in the election.
According to Mamdani, “we will elect our own mayor in this city.”
Mamdani also criticised Pershing Square’s CEO, Bill Ackman, for posting on X that Mayor Adams should step down from the race. Ackman also promised to support a more “centrist” candidate when Mamdani won the Democratic nomination.
a national push
As the nation’s largest city and a global hub for finance and media, New York’s mayoral race has attracted a lot of attention, but it is not the only place progressives are gaining ground. Left-leaning candidates are facing increasingly difficult problems in US cities, both large and small, frequently resulting from rising housing costs, income inequality, and worker protections.
Sanders argued that the progressive wave has momentum, which is why Mamdani’s surge and the White House’s backlash are.
Sanders told the supporters, “What they are afraid of is Mamdani becoming an example of what could happen anywhere in the US.”
Progressive Democrat Omar Fateh, a state senator from Minneapolis, is vying for mayor against Jacob Frey. His campaign emphasizes affordable housing and better worker protections, which is a theme that Mamdani in New York raised.
Alex Uballaz is running for president in Albuquerque, New Mexico, promising more transitional housing for those who struggle with addiction.
With a platform that emphasizes the rising costs of housing, homelessness, and support for small businesses, Seattle, Washington Mayor Bruce Harrell is running for mayor.
However, there are obstacles to the movement, including at the federal level. Mayor Brandon Johnson and Trump have clashed in Chicago, and both have demanded federal assistance to stop violent crime. Despite declining crime rates, Trump has described the city as a “killing field.” In comparison to the same time period in the year before, Chicago’s murder rate for the first half of 2025 was 33 percent lower.
Mamdani remarked that if Trump does the same thing in New York, the city must be prepared.
“We need to get ready for that deployment,” he said. We can’t persuade ourselves that Donald Trump won’t do something because it’s against the law,” Mamdani said.
He emphasized the need for coordination with state officials, citing California as an example: there, Governor Gavin Newsom, the state attorney general, and the mayor of Los Angeles successfully challenged a national guard deployment in court, which was declared unlawful.
However, he would not be the first one if Trump decided to institute a guard under the pretext of combating crime. Even though crime in New York’s subway system has already been steadily declining, Democratic Governor Kathy Hochul deployed the national guard to patrol the city’s system just last year.
