Mamdani says the left has ceded the narrative on fraud

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani told fellow mayors this week that the political left has allowed issues like quality of life, government efficiency, and fraud to become associated almost exclusively with the right, in remarks at the Urban 20 Mayors Summit that broke from his usual messaging.

“In New York City, there are certain words that have taken on ideological associations,” Mamdani said. “Quality of life has come to be seen as somehow a right-wing concern. Efficiency… has been taken on as a right-wing concern, rooting out fraud and waste, a right-wing concern.”

Mamdani argued that Democrats’ reluctance to engage with those issues cedes political ground to Republicans rather than protecting the left. 

“If you are staring at an example of social disorder or social inefficiency, and the left refuses to explain either why it has happened or how they will fix it, then the right gets to point at someone in the immediate area and say, ‘That’s who did it,’” he said.

Mamdani’s comments come as a string of fraud cases have been uncovered in recent months in Democratic-run programs, often by Republican officials. In Minnesota, Vice President JD Vance referred Democratic Gov. Tim Walz and Attorney General Keith Ellison to the Department of Justice (DOJ) in June, citing a Republican-led House Oversight Committee report that accused state officials of ignoring fraud warnings since 2019. The committee estimated that the scandal has put roughly $300 million in child nutrition funds and up to $9 billion in Medicaid funds at risk.

In a separate case in September, Hennepin County, Minnesota, shut down a $2 million small-business relief fund after reviewers flagged more than 200 of roughly 300 applications for suspected fraud, including some that applicants allegedly created using artificial intelligence and others tied to businesses that reviewers could not verify existed. 

The Trump administration has also publicized roughly $75 million in suspected homeless-services fraud, mostly in California, where officials say nonprofits invented homeless identities to collect federal funds. 

“No more abuse of the taxpayer by charging them for homeless ghosts who do not even exist or receive services,” Housing and Urban Development Secretary Scott Turner said in announcing his department’s findings Sept. 16.

Republican leaders have made highlighting fraud a key part of their messaging in recent weeks. The latest legislative action on fraud was the Sept. 16 passage of a bill that made the DOJ’s National Fraud Enforcement Division permanent. More than 140 Democrats joined 212 Republicans to pass the bill by a vote of 352-72. The bill would still require Senate approval and Trump’s signature to become law.