‘The End of the Democratic Party as We’ve Known It’: Mike Johnson Rips Hakeem Jeffries for Endorsing Mamdani

Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) on Monday claimed that House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) endorsing New York Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani marked the “end of the Democratic Party as we’ve known it.”

Jeffries’s endorsement came last Friday following months of public pressure from Democratic activists. Mamdani, a democratic socialist, stunned the political world with his upset win over former Gov. Andrew Cuomo in the Democratic primary. Heading into Election Day, Mamdani has maintained a significant lead in the polls over Cuomo — who stayed in the race as an independent — and Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa.

After Mamdani’s primary win, there was a reluctance to among establishment Democrats to endorse him due to his socialist views. Jeffries and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) frequently took questions about their relative silence on the New York mayoral race, and they insisted they were engaged in discussions before finally weighing in.

That led to Friday, Oct. 24, when Jeffries released a statement formally endorsing the entire Democratic ticket in New York. At the time of writing, Schumer had still refrained from endorsing a candidate.

During a Monday press conference, Johnson called out Jeffries for giving in to public pressure and endorsing the socialist candidate.

From Johnson’s remarks:

On Friday, there was a little bit of a seismic shift in politics. All of you noticed it over the weekend. We saw our clearest sign yet that this radical insurgent movement in the Democratic Party is succeeding; and they are ending what has always been known as the Democratic Party in America.

After a months-long pressure campaign from the far left, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries finally relented. He gave in and he gave his endorsement to the socialist running to be mayor of New York City. The House Democrats have chosen a side. They were forced to by that far left that they’re so terrified of, and they’ve shown the world what they really believe. There is no longer a place for centrists and moderates in their party.

The candidate that they have endorsed, Mamdani, is somebody who we’ve talked about a lot from this podium. He’s sympathized with Hamas and openly embraced anti-Semitic language. He has called to “seize the means of production” because he is a Marxist. He’s called to abolish our borders, to abolish and end immigration enforcement, to defund the police, and to legalize prostitution, among a long list of hits that I could share with you. Zohran Mamdani is expected to take the helm of one of the most important cities in the world and the largest city in America, and he now has the full blessing of the Democrat leader in the House of Representatives. It is shocking, and that leader and all the other Democrats are going to co-own the consequences of what they do to America’s largest city.

Watch Johnson’s full remarks above via C-SPAN.