Trump’s former White House strategist has a warning for Republicans gloating about Zohran Mamdani’s election.
By Megan Messerly
More than a few Republicans are celebrating Zohran Mamdani’s victory, seeing the 34-year-old democratic socialist as a political gift and an albatross for the Democratic Party. Steve Bannon is not among them.
The former White House chief strategist has long preached the idea that populism is the engine of modern politics. And he sees Mamdani’s election as mayor of New York City as proof of its staying power — and a sign of the growing anti-establishment force on the left that Republicans would be foolish to ignore.
“Tonight should be a wake up call to the populist nationalist movement under President Trump,” he said in an interview with POLITICO Magazine just after midnight on Wednesday. “These are very serious people, and they need to be addressed seriously.”
Bannon seemed impressed by the Mamdani campaign’s ability to turn out low-propensity voters — “this is kind of the Trump model” — though he branded Mamdani a “neo-Marxist,” rather than a populist. And he is eager to have Trump and his administration battle Mamdani in the days ahead.
In a wide-ranging conversation following Democrats’ big wins in New Jersey and Virginia, Bannon also ripped Republicans for their failures, discussed how the GOP can avoid a 2026 midterm rout and laid out what Trump’s immediate next moves should be.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
A lot of Republicans, including the NRCC, are cheering Mamdani’s win tonight, already trying to make him the latest Democratic boogeyman. But you’ve also warned Republicans to be careful what they wish for with Mamdani — that he’s a “skilled politician” who connects with voters on affordability in ways the GOP hasn’t. Where’s the flashing red light for Republicans in his victory?
First off, all those people that said he wasn’t going to win the primary and he was great to run against, I think, have been proven wrong. This is not a debating society.
Tonight, what you saw out of Mamdani is something you’ve never seen this entire race. I mean, that’s an angry guy. That was in your face, and particularly the president’s face, up in his grill, and the president responded: “And so it begins.”
People better understand they have a fight on their hands. This guy is a serious guy. I’ve said this from the beginning — I said early in the primary.
Forget the Republican Party in New York — that’s a joke — but the national Republican Party and some of the smartest strategists do not realize the power of the Working Families Party and the [Democratic Socialists of America] for ground game. Modern politics now is about engaging low-propensity voters, and they clearly turned them out tonight, and this is kind of the Trump model. This is very serious.
You call Mamdani a Marxist, but a lot of other folks would call him a populist —
He’s a Marxist, a neo-Marxist.
Are there alarm bells for Republicans in this victory? I mean, he clearly is trying to make this populist appeal.
There should be even more than alarm bells. There should be flashing red lights all over.
This is not Karen Bass. This is not the guy in Chicago. You’re going to see a whole new group of Mamdanis in these major urban cities because they’re just flooded with immigrants, right? That’s where his vote came from, principally, and the progressive left, these kids have come up through the public school system. This is the flower of what the progressive left has delivered over the last 40 or 50 years. You saw it tonight and people, we’re going to have a fight on our hands.
All the Republicans sit there and tell me, “Oh, Steve, this is what we’ve always wanted, a socialist.” I said, “This guy is a Bolshevik, he’s a Marxist.” These guys are going to hunker down for a while, and they’re going to take over every apparatus of New York City government, and they’re going to start putting the squeeze on business. And you’re going to see, they’re going to roll, they’re going to roll hard.
His speech tonight could not have been nastier or more aggressive. He mocked Cuomo. That is one of the first families of the Democratic Party, particularly in the state of New York.
And then with Trump, it was a direct throwdown to Trump, unlike any politician’s ever done. He tried to call President Trump out, and President Trump responded.
I think tomorrow — and I’ve argued from the beginning — this guy’s citizenship should be checked immediately.
To me, it ought to be addressed. It ought to be addressed by the State Department, DHS and the Justice Department, to go through all this. If the guy lied on his naturalization papers, he ought to be deported out of the country immediately and put on a plane to Uganda.
Mamdani was born in Uganda and moved here when he was 7 years old and is an American citizen. Have you spoken to President Trump about trying to denaturalize him?
I don’t want to say who I’ve talked to, but on the [War Room] show, I have been very pointed about that. I’ve been very upfront about my beliefs on this.
I told people this back in July. A bunch of donors asked me to come up after he won [the primary], because I kept saying, “This guy’s going to win.” What Cuomo ran here is like “The Last Hurrah,” the novel. In the movie by John Ford, after World War II, a politician named Frank Skeffington — which was really [Boston Mayor] James Michael Curley — ran the same kind of race he’d been running for years and got smoked by a young upstart.
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