‘Is That a Distraction?’ Jon Stewart Asks Zohran Mamdani About His Threat to Arrest Netanyahu

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani (D) decided to share the Tuesday night video in which he repeated his belief that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is a war criminal because, “I think I have a responsibility to be honest with New Yorkers,” he told Jon Stewart in Wednesday’s episode of The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart.

Stewart asked if questions about Netanyahu are a “distraction from all of these other things that you want to do.”

“Is it taking up a little bit more of the media space than you realized?” Stewart asked.

Mamdani clarified that the question was posed to him, and continued, “I know for many New Yorkers when they see a clip, it doesn’t begin with the question; it begins with the answer. I think the focus always has to be on the work that you’re doing and how you find a balance between not giving your kind of a classic … a political deflection where you don’t want to answer any of those questions and focusing on the work and still finding that together.”

“And are there any other leaders that you would also like to arrest? Because I have a list,” Stewart joked.

“Anybody who the ICC has called for,” Mamdani said. “I think we should be honoring.”

Earlier this week Mamdani said he was in “active conversation” with law enforcement in New York City about whether he could legally arrest Netanyahu, per the ICC’s warrant. Mamdani told The New York Times’ Lulu Garcia-Navarro, “He’s a war criminal who has been charged by the International Criminal Court. And what you will find is that is an opinion that is held by many, purely because of what his actions have wrought over these last many years.”

Mamdani also spoke about potentially arresting Netanyahu during his mayoral campaign. “Whatever the law allows me to do in New York City, that’s what we will do, but we won’t be writing our own laws to that end,” Mamdani said in October 2025.

The ICC issued a warrant for Netanyahu’s arrest in 2024.

Watch the above via The Jon Stewart Show.

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