Karoline Levitt Accuses Zohran Mamdani of ‘Peddling Anti-Semitism’ While Pitching Trump Spending Bill

In what looked to be a straightforward Monday press briefing to promote President Donald Trump’s so-called “One Big Beautiful Bill,” Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt detoured into familiar MAGA territory: a full-throated attack on a young progressive Democrat who isn’t even in Congress yet.

Leavitt, eyes locked on the prompter and smile tight as a drum, veered from policy bullet points into a screed aimed squarely at New York State Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani, calling him “a Democrat Socialist—really a communist—who proudly calls to defund the police … peddles anti-semitism, praises pro-Hamas groups, wants Israel abolished, [and] believes white Americans should not exist.”

If that sounds like a Fox News chyron cooked up by AI with a grudge, that’s because it practically is.

To be clear, Mamdani is the Democratic Socialist of America–backed nominee for NY-7, who recently won the New York City Democratic primary for Mayor. Since then he’s become the political “IT” boy, for both populist Bernie Bros looking for a new leader, and a no-good progressive and millennial know-it-all for conservatives in need of a new villain.

Mamdani has been a vocal critic of Israeli policy in Gaza and an advocate for defunding the NYPD. But Leavitt’s comment is more political spin than accepted factual narrative. Critics take issue with Mamdani ostensibly minimizing the attacks on Israeli civilians on October 7th, and his liberal use of the terms “genocide” and “apartheid” to describe Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s treatment of Palestinians.

The real question is: Why is Leavitt using this platform to attack a 33-year-old political newbie? Trump’s legislative rollout was supposed to project strength and unity. But Leavitt’s swing at Mamdani felt less like a calculated political move and more like an opportunistic jab at the kind of leftist that gives the GOP night terrors.

In weaponizing Mamdani’s name, Leavitt is arguably handing him a bigger national platform than he’s ever had. It also telegraphed that the Trump campaign may still prefer punching shadows of AOC over selling actual policy.

Watch above via Fox News.