Elizabeth Warren Slugs It Out With CNBC Host in Fiery Debate Over Mamdani: ‘You Worried Billionaires Are Gonna Go Hungry?!’

Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) got into a fiery battle with a CNBC host on Monday about various economic proposals from New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani — a self-identified democratic socialist.

Appearing live from the floor of the New York Stock Exchange during the second hour of CNBC’s Squawk on the Street — terrain which could hardly be considered friendly for the Massachusetts senator, who is a notorious Wall Street critic — Warren mixed it up with CNBC’s David Faber about Mamdani’s economic agenda.

“What Zohran is saying is, I want people to be able to afford to live in New York city,” Warren said. “That’s what keeps it a vibrant city.”

“Nobody disagrees with that, Senator,” Faber replied. “But raising taxes in order to do it?! Why is that the answer?”

“Oh dear, are you worried that billionaires are going to go hungry?!” Warren said.

“No, I’m worried that they’re going to leave and spend their money elsewhere!” Faber shot back.

Warren was skeptical.

“They’ve threatened to do that over and over—” Warren said, before Faber interjected.

“And they have!” Faber said. “And Goldman Sachs when they create new jobs, they do it in Dallas. And Blackstone won’t build a new headquarters. I could go on and on.”

“You wanna have a workable city?” Warren replied. “You want to have a city that’s vibrant, you wanna have a city where the streets are full, where there are things for sale 24 hours a day? Then you need people who can live here and work here.”

In a comment that surely was music to the ears of incumbent Mayor Eric Adams, Faber defended the current New York City economy.

“We’ve got that right now,” Faber said. “By the way, I would point out New York is thriving right now. It’s doing pretty well, actually.”

“I get that the Republican point of view is: make this country, and make every city in this country work better and better for a handful of billionaires and let everybody else eat dirt,” Warren said. “But what Mamdami won on in a Democratic primary is he said, ‘I’m going to address affordability.’ And he didn’t win by one [point]. He won by a lot.”

Faber wrapped up the exchange by asking the senator bluntly: “You think somebody who has absolutely no experience, 33-year-old socialist, is going to succeed as the mayor of New York?”

“Yes, I do,” Warren said.

Several other topics were touched on during the interview — which caught the attention of President Donald Trump, who was watching live. We’ll have more on that shortly.

Watch above, via CNBC.