The severe winter weather sweeping across the Northeast pushed New York’s homeless death toll to nineteen on Thursday. New York City mayoral candidate and long time New Yorker, Curtis Sliwa, attributes the crisis to the city&#8217;s status as a &#8220;sanctuary&#8221; jurisdiction for illegal aliens — and says he’s “never seen it worse.” 
The massive influx of illegals during former President Joe Biden&#8217;s term — a fair number of whom were transported to sanctuary cities — put a strain on the already limited resources available to house the city&#8217;s homeless population, and Sliwa argued that has brought the crisis to a breaking point.
“I’m watching emotionally disturbed persons and homeless people exhibit Darwinian traits. Survival of the fittest,” Sliwa said. He described encountering a homeless man with no shoes who was missing half of his foot. The man told Sliwa that both his shoes, including the one specially made for his disability, had been stolen by the “stronger” homeless. Sliwa told the Daily Wire he and his nonprofit the Guardian Angels have encountered many grim scenarios while attempting to help the homeless through the winter spell.  
Sliwa said the crisis did not begin with the election of New York&#8217;s democratic socialist Mayor Zohran Mamdani, but with the previous administration under Democrat Eric Adams. “A lot of this is the result of Eric Adams&#8217; failures as mayor, in which he housed a lot of the migrants, at the expense of our own homeless,” he said. “They spent $7 billion housing migrants that we didn&#8217;t even know in hotels, motels, giving them lodging, food, clothing. Okay. But we weren&#8217;t doing likewise with our own homeless and more importantly, the emotionally disturbed who should have been brought to mental health care hospitals because they clearly are a danger to themselves and everyone else.” 
In fiscal years 2024 and 2025, New York city spent $6.77 billion on funding for people seeking asylum in the United States. Financial support ranged from housing in shelters and New York hotels, prepaid debit cards to families in hotel-based, non-congregate shelters for food, legal and medical services, and relocation assistance. 
Sliwa says it’s New York’s homeless who end up paying the price. “Now we’re beginning to pay the price that our own homeless, who are out on their own for many months, many years as a result of the priority being the migrants.”
However, Sliwa did not entirely excuse Mamdani.  “I don’t see any of the homeless outreach workers that the mayor keeps talking about,” he said. 
Mamdani’s critics however argue  the newly appointed mayor’s end to end encampment sweeps has contributed to the rising death toll. Brian Stettin, a senior adviser in the Adams’ administration, <a href="https://nypost.com/2026/02/10/us-news/mamdani-wont-budge-on-involuntary-removal-of-homeless-new-yorkers-from-streets-as-cold-deaths-reach-18/">told</a> the New York Post, “When a person is in imminent danger, there is no debate. Whatever ideological divides we should not have any impact on these policies during a ‘Code Blue.’” 
Sliwa added that his organization&#8217;s hands are tied. “We’re just citizens,” he said, noting the Guardian Angels cannot carry out involuntary removals to bring people indoors. “That has to be done by the city, the police department, and other agencies—but they’re just not doing that.”

Homelessness In New York City

Curtis Sliwa Has Thoughts On How Mamdani Is Handling His First Emergency

New York City

Sanctuary Cities

Zohran Mamdani

The following is an edited transcript excerpt from <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-1911-ilhan-omar-admits-she-wants-president-trump-dead?elementPosition=2&amp;row=0&amp;rowHeadline=Recent+Episodes&amp;rowType=Horizontal+Show+Episodes+Carousel">The Michael Knowles Show</a>.
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Zohran Mamdani is very, very upset because the federal government has reportedly removed the rainbow gay pride flag from the Stonewall National Monument.
Here’s what Mamdani had to say:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
I am outraged by the removal of the Rainbow Pride Flag from Stonewall National Monument. New York is the birthplace of the modern LGBTQ+ rights movement, and no act of erasure will ever change, or silence, that history.
Our city has a duty not just to honor this legacy, but to…
— Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani (@NYCMayor) <a href="https://twitter.com/NYCMayor/status/2021308844308045912?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 10, 2026</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Credit: NYCMayor/X.com
First of all, this is a bit of vindication for me because when everyone was saying that Mamdani was going to establish Sharia law in New York — saying he&#8217;s some kind of Islamist terrorist — I said, you know, would that it were so simple. In some ways it would be preferable if he were a serious Muslim; you can kind of talk to a Muslim.
I think it&#8217;s worse. I think he&#8217;s not just a far-leftist but a millennial leftist who plays up the Muslim thing because of identity politics. He knows it will help win over some immigrants. There’s also a radical Left and Muslim alliance because they have a common enemy, which is America and the Church and the white man or whatever — you know, the usual enemies of the Left.
And so, I said that&#8217;s true. But if push comes to shove, he&#8217;s going to side with leftism over Islam. Just like when push comes to shove, Joe Biden says he&#8217;s Catholic and he&#8217;s liberal. But when there&#8217;s a conflict between the two, he always picks liberalism. He never picks Catholicism. So his real faith is liberalism.
And that was my argument with Mamdani. And I think I&#8217;m totally vindicated in that. 
Now, Mamdani is very upset because Trump took the pride flags away from Stonewall.
What is Stonewall? The Stonewall Inn was a filthy, truly degenerate, disease-ridden, Mafia-run bar. It was a hive of crime, decadence, and debauchery in New York City. And then, when the cops raided the filthy, illegal Mafia-run bar — not illegal because it was hosting gay people  — when that happened, a bunch of sexual deviants, including famously a trans-identifying guy, started chucking bricks at the cops. As a result, we now side with the gay Mafia bar attacking cops. That is the thing that we&#8217;ve exalted as a national monument. But because it&#8217;s a national monument, the federal government has a say over it.
And Trump has come out and said, look, you can fly the US flag at federal properties, you can fly certain military flags like missing-in-action, prisoner-of-war flags, but that&#8217;s basically it. You know, the flag of the Army or the Navy or something where that&#8217;s appropriate, but that&#8217;s it. We&#8217;re not doing the BLM flag. We&#8217;re not doing the gay flag. We&#8217;re not doing the trans flag. We&#8217;re not doing the terrorist trans flag — I call that the terrorist gay flag. So the federal government said we&#8217;re not doing that.
But it begs the question: why do we have a national monument to Stonewall in the first place? What do we have a national monument to weird sex stuff? And why is a liberal New York politician, the most prominent left-wing New York politician, why is he all of a sudden so concerned about tearing down monuments? 
The left has spent ten years tearing down monuments to all of the men who built this country. Monuments to Christopher Columbus — there was a big push for that in New York — constantly defacing the Columbus monument in Columbus Circle. There were also attacks on even Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses Grant, Thomas Jefferson, and certainly on Robert E. Lee.
<h3><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-1911-ilhan-omar-admits-she-wants-president-trump-dead?elementPosition=2&amp;row=0&amp;rowHeadline=Recent+Episodes&amp;rowType=Horizontal+Show+Episodes+Carousel">WATCH: The Michael Knowles Show on DailyWire+.</a></h3>
So all these guys — we&#8217;ve got to tear down all these monuments — and the only monument we have to keep up, the only monument we can&#8217;t tear down, is the weird sex flag on the weird sex place, which was actually a bar run by the Mafia.  
Now, before Republicans get too high on our horse, I just want to point out what the libs are doing is destroying history and tearing down the traditions and fabric of our country, in some cases tangibly, which is bad.
But we want to tear some things down too — maybe not in as blunt a way as the libs do, maybe not in as blunt a way as the Taliban does. We&#8217;re not blowing up the Buddha statues, okay? But we do want to tear things down in the way that you prune a garden, not the way you blow up a Buddha in Afghanistan, but the way you prune a garden. I do want to get rid of the Stonewall National Memorial. It&#8217;s ridiculous. It&#8217;s ridiculous that we have a monument to a Mafia-run gay bar best known for assaulting police officers and for spreading diseases. We should not have a monument to that. That&#8217;s degrading to our country.
You can be nice to people who have some weird sexual behaviors. You can be nice to them. You can be somewhat tolerant of that without putting up a freaking monument to the Mafia gay bar. That&#8217;s insane. Not only should we be taking the pride flag away from that, we should be removing that as a national monument. 
I don&#8217;t want monuments up to people like Malcolm X or Angela Davis. Even if they&#8217;re figures from American history, they represent bad stuff. 
I don&#8217;t want monuments up to the Rosenbergs who were communist spies. 
I don&#8217;t want a monument to someone like Alger Hiss.
I don&#8217;t want them. I don&#8217;t want monuments to people who are bad for this country.
Once again, I made this point in my book Speechless: Controlling Words, Controlling Minds about speech. The false dichotomy when we&#8217;re talking about free speech is between free speech and censorship, when really the real battle is between competing sets of standards, because all societies have standards.
The same thing is true here. The real debate is not: Do we tear down the statues or do we leave them standing? The real question is: Who is worthy of a statue? Who&#8217;s worthy of a monument? Who&#8217;s worthy of veneration as a political matter?

NYC Mayor Mamdani Holds News Conference

Mamdani Cries Foul Over Removal Of Pride Flag

Michael Knowles

monuments

Pride Flag

Statues

Professor Gad Saad coined the term &#8220;suicidal empathy&#8221; to describe a kind of empathy so extreme it ends up harming you. 
A prime example would be the way the West has approached immigration from third-world countries. You feel bad for people. You open your borders. A plethora of people come in and harm your civilization.
But now, it seems like we are moving beyond suicidal empathy into what I would call “homicidal empathy.” That would be exemplified by your empathy for someone getting them killed.
There’s a good example in New York City with Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who promised, “We will replace the frigidity of rugged individualism with the warmth of collectivism.”
That collectivist warmth is manifesting in people freezing to death on the streets of New York City. Despite all of Mamdani’s photo ops showing him shoveling the snow (for a man who cannot bench press 135 pounds once), I don&#8217;t think the people of New York can count on his shoveling skills.
What he usually shovels is horse crap.
Mamdani has embraced a hands-off policy with regard to homelessness. This was the policy in California. It remains the policy in places like Los Angeles. This policy is empathetic toward the homeless to the point where you&#8217;re killing the homeless.
The policy argues that they should be able to live out on the streets, that it is a form of cruelty and intolerance to involuntarily commit people who are usually drug-addicted or schizophrenic, people who can&#8217;t take care of themselves. Somehow, it is more empathetic to leave them out on the streets to get scabies or to die in the cold.
This seems to be the way the left-wing brain is working in Mamdani-land, California, and other liberal areas of the country. 18 people have died in the cold snap that has hit New York City.
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-2367-mamdani-leaves-homeless-to-freeze-to-death?elementPosition=5&amp;row=6&amp;rowHeadline=Latest+Episodes&amp;rowType=Horizontal+Show+Episodes+Carousel"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-large wp-image-974957 aligncenter" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-1024x171.webp" alt="DailyWire+" width="1024" height="171" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-1024x171.webp 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-300x50.webp 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-768x128.webp 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-1536x256.webp 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-2048x341.webp 2048w" sizes=" (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a>
Brian Stettin, who served as a senior advisor to former Mayor Eric Adams in his administration, told the New York Post, “When a person is in imminent danger, there&#8217;s no debate. Whatever ideological divides we have should not have any impact on these policies during a Code Blue.”
A mumbling homeless woman who braved some Antarctic temperatures was featured on the front cover of the Post on Monday.
The Post <a href="https://nypost.com/2026/02/08/us-news/mumbling-homeless-woman-left-to-spend-night-on-nyc-sidewalk/">reported</a>:
<blockquote>The unidentified woman was wearing a hooded sweatshirt, slippers and two blankets as she clipped her nails, put lotion on her hands and talked to herself while hunkered down on East 34th Street across from NYU Langone Hospital as temperatures neared 0 degrees early Sunday. She refused repeated offers for help from EMS workers and cops — who explained to The Post they had to leave the shivering vagrant in the extremely dangerous bone-chilling weather because she could answer basic questions — a factor that helps meet the threshold of Dem Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s controversial homeless policies.</blockquote>
That’s Mamdani&#8217;s shtick: If you can answer basic questions such as “What day of the week is it?” “What is your name?”, then they will leave you out on the streets to freeze. 
Mamdani held a press conference over the weekend. “Stay warm. Stay inside if you can. And please, stay safe,” he said.
“You&#8217;ve implored the people on the streets who feel more comfortable on the streets to come inside. But what happens if they don&#8217;t at this point? &#8230;20 minutes out in the cold could lead to a fatality. So are you not using as a last resort at this point to bring them inside and volunteer, even if just a few hours doesn&#8217;t lead to a placement?” a reporter asked.
“Involuntary transport continues to be used in the same manner it was as the prior administration,” Mamdani replied. “And thus far, we have seen clinical determinations of a number of New Yorkers who have been deemed to be a danger to themselves or to others. And sometimes that designation comes from an assessment that a New Yorker is not adequately clothed, given the weather that they are living through in that moment. And that is going to continue to be part of the assessments that outreach workers are making over the course of tomorrow or the next day.”
Mamdani’s last resort policy says that you can only be forced indoors if you are deemed a danger to yourself or others. The problem, of course, is that if you are Zohran Mamdani and you have spent your entire career ripping down cops and treating people as though they&#8217;re committing a human rights violation by pushing people indoors, people might be a little hesitant to actually take responsibility for calling somebody a “danger to themselves or others.”
The New York Post <a href="https://nypost.com/2026/02/10/us-news/mamdani-wont-budge-on-involuntary-removal-of-homeless-new-yorkers-from-streets-as-cold-deaths-reach-18/">reported</a>:
<blockquote>Down in Baltimore, Mayor Brandon Scott — whom Mamdani once praised for his crime reduction efforts — late last month called the cold a life-or-death issue and ordered the police department to take people off the streets even if they were refusing services. “That direction order came from me because we cannot allow folks to be out in this kind of weather,” Scott said.</blockquote>
The fact that this has become a matter of public controversy is totally insane.
Zoran Mamdani apparently has so much sympathy for people. I&#8217;m going to put it out there: If you are out on the streets sleeping on the sidewalk, that is not a housing problem in the middle of a cold snap. That is a crazy problem if other options are given to you. No sane and rational person, by definition, who is not a danger to themselves, is sleeping out on the street in zero-degree weather. That is not a thing that sane and rational people do unless they are Arctic explorers of some type.
This comes down to Mamdani’s bizarro world empathy that legitimately gets people killed. This sort of policy, when you apply it to crime, leads to more criminals on the streets. When you apply it to homelessness, it leads to more homeless people on the streets.
The empathy that you have for the purported victim of America&#8217;s “evil, racist, abusive” system leads to the very people you are supposedly trying to help sometimes dying.
On February 6, the New York Post reported that Mamdani was still refusing to clear homeless camps and forcibly remove people from the streets, despite a rising death toll and a fresh snap of deadly deep freeze. Instead, he implored people to come inside.
If people refuse to come inside in the middle of zero-degree weather while living on the streets, it will not be solved by you imploring them.
City Journal <a href="https://www.city-journal.org/article/zohran-mamdani-homeless-deaths-cold-weather">reported</a>:
<blockquote>During last year’s campaign, Mamdani promised to end a program initiated by his predecessor, Eric Adams, that deploys clinicians, backed by police officers, to assess people’s ability to care for themselves and, if necessary, to transport them involuntarily to a hospital for psychiatric evaluation. He repeatedly said that involuntary commitment was a “last resort,” preferring instead an approach that would have civilian workers “help that person navigate their housing options.” He has also disavowed dismantling homeless encampments. </blockquote>
That was a proactive move by Adams to determine whether somebody ought to be on the streets or not. And Mamdani wanted to kill that. I guess the presumption was that unless they were in the throes of some sort of crime, they should never have an engagement with law enforcement.
The message being sent to the homeless is, basically, you have a right to live on the streets. And the message being sent to public service workers, cops, and mental health professionals is that you&#8217;re going to be called on the carpet if you make the mistake of bringing somebody in.
It&#8217;s nuts, it&#8217;s bad, and it&#8217;s stupid.
It&#8217;s indicative of a deeper brain rot that has set in large parts of the Left: That empathy amounts to humoring people in their delusions, even if it’s dangerous to them.

New York Governor Hochul Holds Press Conference Highlighting Her Administration’s “Let Them Build” Agenda

Mamdani Leaves Homeless To Freeze To Death 

Death

Democratic Socialism

Homeless

Homelessness

New York

Opinion

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s electoral success last year is producing downstream effects on Democrats in the Empire State.
New York’s 17th District has a crowded field of Democrats vying to challenge GOP Rep. Mike Lawler, who is fighting for a third term in one of the most <a href="https://www.cookpolitical.com/house/race/483656">competitive</a> districts in the country. In order to survive a primary, Democratic candidates are struggling to balance between the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/the-tail-wagging-the-dog-progressives-dominate-democratic-politics-in-maine-and-beyond">influence</a> Mamdani and his socialist politics have had on the Democratic Party and the moderate appetites of general election voters.
Army combat veteran Cait Conley and Rockland County lawmaker Beth Davidson are <a href="https://www.politico.com/newsletters/new-york-playbook/2026/01/06/the-super-self-funder-in-ny-17-00712041">reputedly</a> the establishment picks of NY-17’s Democratic primary. Both were the only candidates invited from the district to attend a “candidate week” for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in November.
Conley and Davidson are facing a strong outside challenge from Briarcliff Manor Deputy Mayor Peter Chatzky, who made his fortune as founder and CEO of the small tech company Napa Group LLC. Chatzky is already one of the best-funded candidates in the country after <a href="https://www.lohud.com/story/news/politics/2026/01/07/ny-17-democrat-peter-chatzky-puts-up-own-money-in-crowded-primary-for-mike-lawler-seat/88050267007/">loaning</a> his campaign nearly $6 million.
Those three candidates and a handful of others are still collecting signatures to qualify for the Democratic primary scheduled for June 23. Ahead of the primary ballot being finalized, candidates have taken steps to avoid alienating the far-Left of the Democratic base on issues such as defunding Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), a broadly <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/polls-deliver-clear-verdict-americans-back-trumps-deportation-agenda-reject-anti-ice-politics?author=Tim+Pearce&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=2&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=Polls+Deliver+Clear+Verdict%3A+Americans+Back+Trump%E2%80%99s+Deportation+Agenda%2C+Reject+Anti-ICE+Politics">unpopular</a> stance.
The self-funded Chatzky, who claims to be a “pragmatic progressive,” <a href="https://x.com/peterchatzky/status/2015532998800613595">said</a> in a video last month that “it is time to abolish ICE.” His <a href="https://chatzkyforcongress.com/#priorities">website</a> also touts his support for “universal health insurance” and “universal pre-K.” His campaign site additionally contains a nod to the progressive values of “Diversity, Equity, Inclusivity.”
On all those issues and more, Chatzky’s platform overlaps with Mamdani. The New York City mayor’s endorsement has come up as somewhat of a litmus test for NY-17 Democrats, with none of them outright rejecting his potential support. In a sign of Mamdani’s direct influence on New York politics, Chatzky has also <a href="https://nypost.com/2026/01/26/us-news/ny-dem-hopefuls-who-dodged-publicly-aligning-with-mamdani-now-welcome-backing/">said</a> that he would “probably” accept an endorsement from Mamdani after previously dodging questions related to the self-described “Democratic socialist.”
“He’s energetic. He ran a very impressive campaign,” said Chatzky late last month. “He focused on affordability. It’s a problem in [Lawler’s] district as well.”
Davidson, in her position as a legislator, is attempting to make Rockland County a sanctuary region that would offer some amount of protection for illegal aliens. Davidson is pushing a piece of legislation that she calls the “Our Safety and Dignity for All Act,” which would restrict how local law enforcement and other government workers cooperate with federal immigration officers.
Davidson has become one of the leading faces of the push in Rockland County, which sits inside NY-17, to limit federal immigration enforcement. She has <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/newyork/news/rockland-county-ice-enforcement-safety-and-dignity-for-all-act/">pointed</a> to the recent clashes involving immigration officers in Minneapolis as the spark for the new law.
“The Safety and Dignity Act is intended to address those concerns while honoring state and federal and judicial warrants and following the law,” said Davidson this week.
She also gave a <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-safety-and-dignity-for-all-act-and-what-it/id1598985733?i=1000747782362">nod</a> to Mamdani in a recent podcast episode, highlighting the New York City mayor&#8217;s focus on “affordability” during his mayoral campaign as a central focus for her race as well.
But she has also kept her distance from Mamdani in what could be a tacit admission that Mamdani’s far-Left politics may not play well in the swing district of NY-17.
“I’m not seeking endorsements from elected officials from New York City,” said Davidson last month. She did not reject the possibility of an endorsement from the New York City mayor, however.
Conley has taken a similar line on a potential Mamdani endorsement: not seeking it, but not rejecting the democratic socialist, either. When asked last week whether she would welcome an endorsement from Mamdani, Conley said, &#8220;I think New York City is different than the Hudson Valley.”
She went on to state that she seeks to emulate parts of Mamdani’s campaign, however, such as his “young energy.”
“I respect what I believe Mamdani represents to so many people here in New York City, which is new leadership, which is young energy that isn’t afraid to tackle hard problems,” said Conley in an interview on <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnAJP6pWYHI&amp;t=433s">PIX11</a>.
In the same interview, she appeared to struggle to answer a question on whether ICE should be defunded. When pressed, Conley said “abuses should be abolished” and ICE leadership held accountable. The Democratic candidate insisted that the focus on ICE is misplaced and that the real issue is executive branch accountability. She did not condemn calls within her party to abolish the agency.

Mamdani’s Socialist Influence Weighs On Dems In One Of New York’s Most Competitive Districts

Elections

Politics

NYC Mamdani Holds News Conference On Healthcare At New York City Health Clinic

It’s Only Been A Month And Zohran Mamdani Is Already A Disaster

It's Only Been A Month And Zohran Mamdani Is Already A Disaster

Democrats

Leftists

Matt Walsh

The following is an edited transcript excerpt from <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-1904-zohran-mamdani-freezes-16-new-yorkers-to-death?elementPosition=1&amp;row=0&amp;rowHeadline=Recent+Episodes&amp;rowType=Horizontal+Show+Episodes+Carousel">The Michael Knowles Show</a>.
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Zohran Mamdani just made a really sad and totally predictable announcement.
When the recent winter cold front made it to New York, it was not nearly as bad as the ice storm Nashville residents experienced. There was very little ice in New York, mostly just snow. Nevertheless, 16 homeless New Yorkers died during that brief little cold snap.
Here is the new mayor of New York:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Mayor Mamdani confirms sixteen deaths during dangerously cold weather in NYC <a href="https://t.co/pQ0L9i5Yzz">https://t.co/pQ0L9i5Yzz</a> <a href="https://t.co/zHAPfvu95u">pic.twitter.com/zHAPfvu95u</a>
— New York Post (@nypost) <a href="https://twitter.com/nypost/status/2018388455508656233?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 2, 2026</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Credit: @nypost/X.com
Mayor Mamdani says,
<blockquote>A severe cold front continues to bear down on our city. Today is our 11th consecutive day of below freezing weather, and we could very well be in the middle of the longest period of consecutive sub-32-degree weather in our city&#8217;s entire history. Without temperatures rising above freezing, snow has hardened into blocks of ice. But the greatest danger posed by the sustained cold is to vulnerable New Yorkers who remain exposed to the elements. As of this morning, 16 of our fellow New Yorkers have passed away outside during this brutal stretch of cold. In 13 of these cases, preliminary findings indicate that hypothermia played a role, and three of these deaths appear to be overdose deaths. We await final results from the medical examiner&#8217;s office and will inform New Yorkers as we learn more. Each of these lives lost is a tragedy. My heart was with the family of those mourning their loved ones.</blockquote>
Mamdani blames the deaths mostly on nature, though he admits a few of them were drug deaths. 
Unlike other areas of the country where recent ice storms knocked out power for weeks, New York City is built for cold weather. Cold weather hits New York every single year. New Yorkers knows how to deal with cold weather, especially when they have competent management and government.
The people who died in New York did not die because their power went out. New York didn&#8217;t lose power. They died because they were left to die on the streets. Why were they left to die on the streets? Is this just some immutable characteristic of New York? What can we do? Throw our arms up in the air? A long-standing problem?
No, it&#8217;s not.
They were left to die on the streets specifically because Zohran Mamdani, who has been in office for just one month now, left them to die on the streets. In fact campaigned to leave them to die on the streets.
Don&#8217;t take my word for it. Here is CBS News.
<iframe loading="lazy" title="Mamdani says he&#039;ll end homeless encampment sweeps in NYC" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/CWjUfoi6YCg?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Credit: @CBSNewYork/YouTube.com
The reporter states,
<blockquote>Local New York Mayor Alexander Mamdani says that he will end the Adams administration&#8217;s practice of removing homeless encampments from city sidewalks. But advocates argue it will be a step backwards for the city&#8217;s quality of life. Ali Bauman questioned the mayor-elect about this tonight. For the past three years, the NYPD has been systematically removing homeless encampments from New York City sidewalks, a practice mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani vows to end once he takes office — vows to end it.</blockquote>
This is Mamdani campaigning and saying we are intentionally going to leave the homeless — who are almost entirely drug addicts and mentally ill — on the streets. And this is supposedly going to be compassionate. That&#8217;s a change of policy from the previous administration, which just left office.
A little history of New York City during the 1970s and 80s may be helpful. Back then, there were a lot of bums, a lot of criminals, and a lot of homeless people on the streets. Then-mayor Rudy Giuliani came in in the 1990s and got rid of all that. He said, No, no, no — if you&#8217;re homeless, you need to go to shelters or we&#8217;re going to arrest you, but we&#8217;re not going to leave you on the streets.
After he was mayor of New York, Giuliani reiterated the same idea about the Occupy Wall Street protests. When people set up encampments all over the city, he said, No, no, no, you can&#8217;t do this. Sleeping on the street is a dysfunctional act which harms society and the individual.
In other words, letting the homeless stay on the street is contrary to the common good.
It&#8217;s not just that letting the homeless stay on the street is good for the homeless but bad for the rest of the New Yorkers who don&#8217;t want to see them — that&#8217;s how Mamdani is presenting it. The real argument, however, is no, it&#8217;s actually bad for everyone. Because it&#8217;s bad for the law-abiding New Yorkers who don&#8217;t want criminals and drug addicts and crazy people running around the streets all the time.
<h3><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-1904-zohran-mamdani-freezes-16-new-yorkers-to-death?elementPosition=1&amp;row=0&amp;rowHeadline=Recent+Episodes&amp;rowType=Horizontal+Show+Episodes+Carousel">WATCH: The Michael Knowles Show</a></h3>
It’s also bad for the homeless because they&#8217;re susceptible to crime — susceptible to being assaulted or raped or killed. And they&#8217;re also vulnerable to the elements. It&#8217;s very, very dangerous to leave them on the streets year round, especially in the winter. And now we see the results.  This is the “warmth of collectivism.”
This is the compassion that Mamdani has promised. Leaving 16 New Yorkers dead during a totally predictable, minor cold front. And he even gives away the game in his speech by trying to mitigate his culpability by saying, “In 13 of these cases, preliminary findings indicate that hypothermia played a role, and three of these deaths appear to be overdose deaths.”
They basically froze like Jack Nicholson at the end of “The Shining.”
He then seems to avoid taking responsibility by saying, “&#8230;and three of these deaths appear to be overdose deaths.”
Like that&#8217;s better. Like it’s good that they chose to die, as if they were consenting adults. First of all, you can&#8217;t consent when you&#8217;re crazy, or when you&#8217;re addicted to all kinds of vices, or when you&#8217;re underage, or when there are all sorts of things that compromise our consent.
So Mayor Mamdani&#8217;s whole policy is based on a misconception of freedom — what freedom really is. Like all liberals, he thinks freedom is just neutrality in choosing. Well, some people choose not to do heroin, but some people choose to do heroin, and who are we to say which is the better choice?
It&#8217;s a misconception of freedom. It&#8217;s a misconception of the common good. It&#8217;s a misconception of what&#8217;s good for everybody. The common good is not just the random collection of all the individual goods of people, some of which are contrary to each other. In this kind of utilitarian calculation that tries to lead to the greatest utility for the greatest number, the common good is what we all share — what is good for all of us, what is not diminished by any individual good.
It’s also a misunderstanding of compassion. It is not compassionate to just ignore people. It&#8217;s funny because the Left accuses the Right of this: you just ignore people. You retreat to your nice neighborhoods and your penthouses and your money, and you ignore your common man. You don&#8217;t think you&#8217;re your brother&#8217;s keeper.
Sometimes the Right is guilty of that, especially the more Libertarian Right. The Left is just as guilty of that. Oh, just leave people to their degradation. Leave people to their vices. Leave people to their destructive behaviors — be it sexual ideologies, be it just license more broadly, be it with regard to living on the street — just leave them there.
It&#8217;s fine. You know, who are you to intervene? Who am I?
Well, I&#8217;m a reasonable person, and I&#8217;m a member of society, and I&#8217;m a citizen. And the consequences of all three of those misconceptions from Zohran Mamdani are that 16 people die on the street, whether from drugs or from exposure. That&#8217;s the “warmth of collectivism.”
What would have been more compassionate for the homeless: Zohran Mamdani, who says all sorts of sweet things about the homeless and leaves them to die on the street, or Rudy Giuliani, who talks a little tougher, who seems a little bit meaner, but who protects those people?
Where&#8217;s the real compassion?
That&#8217;s it. We&#8217;re one month into Mamdani — one month in — and you&#8217;ve got homeless ice cubes lining the streets of New York, some of which also have heroin and fentanyl in their blood.
We&#8217;re in for a real treat with Mamdani.

The Deadly Consequences Of Zohran Mamdani’s Homelessness Policy

Liberals

Snow

Winter Storm Fern

As New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani continues to &#8220;crow&#8221; about imagining a better city, massive piles of garbage have  begun &#8220;choking&#8221; the streets near Gracie Mansion, the mayor’s residence, while the sidewalks outside Mamdani&#8217;s home &#8220;are squeaky clean.&#8221;
“Eight-foot piles of rat-infested trash are choking the streets around Gracie Mansion — which has gotten kid-glove shoveling treatment as Mayor Zohran Mamdani crows he can’t ‘imagine how it could get better’ in the city,” the New York Post <a href="https://nypost.com/2026/02/01/us-news/mayor-mamdanis-gracie-mansion-noticeably-trash-free-as-ues-neighbors-drown-in-8-foot-piles-of-garbage/">reported</a>.
In his January 1 inaugural address, Mamdani pledged to &#8220;replace the frigidity of rugged individualism with the warmth of collectivism.&#8221; He also urged New Yorkers to reject the &#8220;natural weather&#8221; of systemic failure.
“We are told to look at a subway that is delayed, a rent check that is impossible to pay, or a neighbor sleeping in the cold, and accept it as the natural weather of our city. I ask you today to reject that. I ask you to look at everything we are told is broken and simply imagine how it could get better—and then realize that we have the power to make it so.”
However, less than a month into his term, this aspirational rhetoric has collided with a brutal reality: a historic deep freeze that has claimed the lives of at least 16 people found outdoors.
Critics argue that Mamdani’s leftist ideals are failing the city’s most vulnerable.
While the mayor has publicized the deaths and deployed &#8220;warming buses,&#8221; the <a href="https://www.city-journal.org/article/zohran-mamdani-homeless-deaths-cold-weather">Manhattan Institute </a>and other observers contend his refusal to use involuntary removals is &#8220;unworkable&#8221; and &#8220;deadly.&#8221; By framing homelessness as a housing issue rather than one of untreated mental illness or addiction, Mamdani’s &#8220;voluntary-first&#8221; approach may inadvertently leave those unable to make rational decisions to perish in the cold. Advocates further note that &#8220;band-aid&#8221; solutions like warming centers do not address the pervasive violence within the shelter system that drives people to the streets in the first place.
The fiscal backdrop is equally contentious. Mamdani has blamed his predecessor, Eric Adams, for a $12.6 billion budget gap and &#8220;gross fiscal mismanagement.&#8221; Adams has fired back on social media, dismissing Mamdani’s campaign promises of free childcare and transit as &#8220;expensive boondoggles,&#8221; noting that &#8220;the fastest way to balance a budget is to admit that ‘free’ comes with a price tag.&#8221;
As Mamdani attempts to navigate a record-breaking winter and a looming deficit, his critics suggest that &#8220;imagining&#8221; a better New York is no substitute for the pragmatism required to keep the streets clean and the population alive.

The Warmth Of Collectivism: A Month Into Mamdani, NYC Is Covered In Massive Piles Of Trash

Trash for Thee, Not for Me: Mamdani Enjoys Clean Sidewalks as Neighbors Choke on Rat-Infested Rot

trash

By now, Daily Wire readers are probably familiar with children&#8217;s entertainer Ms. Rachel&#8217;s history of anti-Israel activism. Things reached a fever pitch this week when Ms. Rachel &#8220;accidentally&#8221; liked an Instagram comment calling to &#8220;free America from the Jews.&#8221; She claims the like was accidental, and insists that she remains a neutral child advocate.
In this piece, Vanessa Santos — a mother of two and D.C. public relations guru — explains why she doesn&#8217;t let her kids watch Ms. Rachel. As Vanessa explains, it&#8217;s not about protesting someone with objectionable views, but taking care about who you let your children grow to trust. If you&#8217;re a parent, you&#8217;d do well to consider her compelling case. — Tim Rice
***
Like many parents of young children, I spend a lot of time thinking about what enters our home.
I’m careful about what my kids eat, who they learn from, and especially what they watch. Children absorb authority long before they understand ideas, which makes early media choices far more consequential than we like to admit.
That is why my kids don’t watch Ms. Rachel.
The popular children’s entertainer, whose real name is Rachel Griffin Accurso, burst on the scene with her “Songs For Littles” videos, which help children develop speech with songs and puppets. It’s like Sesame Street for the YouTube age, and it became a sensation during the coronavirus pandemic as parents scrambled to support isolated children falling behind.
But in recent years, Ms. Rachel has become known for something else entirely: her criticism of Israel and defense of Hamas in Gaza.
Accurso claims that she’s a neutral humanitarian who uses her platform to advocate for children everywhere. But her actions tell a different story.
This week, the “Free Palestine” activist came under fire for liking an Instagram comment that said “Free America from the Jews.”
Accurso said she liked the comment by <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/ms-rachel-says-she-liked-free-america-from-the-jews-comment-by-accident?author=Brecca+Stoll&amp;category=undefined&amp;elementPosition=0&amp;row=3&amp;rowHeadline=Latest+News&amp;rowType=Vertical+Carousel&amp;title=Ms.+Rachel+Says+She+Liked+%E2%80%98Free+America+From+The+Jews%E2%80%99+Comment+By+Accident" target="_blank" rel="noopener">accident</a>, mistakenly tapping the like button while trying to delete the comment. Her apology, which included a disavowal of antisemitism, satisfied some of her fans.
I’m not convinced. Whether or not she “accidentally” liked the comment, it’s hardly the first time that she’s cozied up to antisemitic interests.
In an August interview with Peter Beinart, she repeated disputed casualty claims and framed Israel as uniquely responsible for the suffering of children in Gaza, while omitting Hamas’s role in initiating and sustaining the war.
This was not an impulsive post. It was a deliberate media appearance in which a children’s entertainer used her credibility with parents to promote one-sided war messaging.
She campaigned for and has frequently appeared with Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who declined to renew New York City executive orders addressing antisemitism and boycotts of Israel, raising concerns among Jewish organizations.
These appearances do not exist in isolation. Ms. Rachel <a href="https://stopantisemitism.org/as-week/ms-rachel/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">frequently uses her platform</a> to criticize Israel and repeat false claims about the war in Gaza.
Antisemitism today rarely announces itself outright. It moves through selective outrage, euphemisms, and moral posturing that excuse violence against Jews. When a children’s entertainer begins to deal in this kind of rhetoric, it’s up to parents to take notice.
This is not about canceling a YouTuber. It is about boundaries. There are countless ways to teach language development without bringing activism into the playroom. Parents can choose content creators who are focused on children, not politically charged activism.
Children don’t need to understand antisemitism for it to harm them. They form trust in authority figures before they’re capable of evaluating what those figures stand for.
We’ve all seen how much children love Ms. Rachel. The 43-year-old isn’t going anywhere, and her brand is only growing. The children who love her videos now will grow with her and continue looking to her as a trusted source, much as previous generations looked to Mr. Rogers.
One day, these children will hear her talk about Israel. And that’s where the problem starts.
That’s why my children don’t watch Ms. Rachel. I don’t trust her to help shape their moral understanding. I won’t invite someone with these abhorrent views into my home.
Pressing play is not a neutral act. It is an invitation into our homes and into our children’s developing sense of authority, and that access carries responsibility.
Influencers are not entitled to parental trust. They earn or lose our trust by what they say and do.
Ms. Rachel has certainly lost mine.
***
Vanessa Santos is the founder and president of Renegade DC, a Washington, D.C.-based communications firm.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

TODAY – Season 73

Why I Don’t Let My Kids Watch Ms. Rachel

antisemitism

Children

Israel

Television

YouTube

My office decorations are mostly standard-issue: pictures of my family, a diploma, a couple of concert posters to trick people into thinking I’m fun. But no one notices them at first, as everyone’s eyes inevitably go to the portrait above my desk.
It’s impossible to miss: a big, professionally-framed picture of a Joey Chestnut, smiling triumphantly behind a pile of hot dogs after reclaiming the Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest championship from Takeru Kobayashi on July 4, 2007.
Joey came into my possession courtesy of my first boss in Washington, who in the midst of an office redecorating effort reluctantly decided to part with what he called a symbol of American triumph.
I think about that every time I glance up in the middle of the day and see the champ looking back at me, tongue sticking out and eyes wide with the thrill of victory. So you can imagine my disappointment when I learned China had bought Nathan’s.
On Thursday, Smithfield <a href="https://apnews.com/article/nathans-famous-hot-dogs-smithfield-merger-9927a1f0fde1ff32c2f95dc4949d3dfd" target="_blank" rel="noopener">announced</a> that it would purchase the iconic hot dog franchise for $450 million. Of course, “Smithfield” isn’t really Smithfield anymore. The Virginia-based meat producer was itself purchased in 2013 by the Shuanghui Group, which has since renamed itself the more innocuous sounding WH Group.
The WH Group is a Chinese company through and through, which means it is, for all intents and purposes, an arm of the Chinese Communist Party. Its leadership is full of <a href="https://dailycaller.com/2024/01/25/chinese-communist-party-landowner-pork/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">CCP bigwigs</a>, who have put the company at the forefront of China’s efforts to purchase American farmland — a major <a href="https://www.americafirstpolicy.com/issues/national-security-threat-of-china-dominated-u.s-agricultural-sectors" target="_blank" rel="noopener">national security threat</a>. At its peak, WH Group owned around 150,000 acres of American land across 29 states.
WH Group has <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2025/07/08/us-china-farmland-ban-national-security/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reduced</a> its American land holdings in response to the Trump administration’s push to ban Chinese companies from buying up American farms. But it still has around 85,000 acres of this country in its possession, a collection to which it can now add Nathan’s original Coney Island location, still standing where it was built in 1916.
It’s fitting that the first Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest of Zohran Mamdani’s mayoralty will be sponsored by the CCP. America’s biggest foe wrapping its tentacles around a symbol of American freedom founded by a Polish Jew. Ms. Rachel <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/ms-rachel-says-she-liked-free-america-from-the-jews-comment-by-accident?author=Brecca+Stoll&amp;category=undefined&amp;elementPosition=3&amp;row=3&amp;rowHeadline=Latest+News&amp;rowType=Vertical+Carousel&amp;title=Ms.+Rachel+Says+She+Liked+%E2%80%98Free+America+From+The+Jews%E2%80%99+Comment+By+Accident" target="_blank" rel="noopener">must be thrilled</a>.
It never ends well when foreigners take over American institutions — just look what happened when the Belgians <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/bud-light-tries-to-woo-back-customers-with-new-commercial-starring-shane-gillis?author=Amanda+Harding&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=undefined&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=Bud+Light+Tries+To+Woo+Back+Customers+With+New+Commercial+Starring+Shane+Gillis" target="_blank" rel="noopener">bought</a> Anheuser-Busch.
When my old boss called the Joey Chestnut picture a portrait of American triumph, he wasn’t just talking about an American reclaiming the title from a Japanese competitor. He was talking about an American dominating in an extremely American pastime, at a quintessentially American location, on the day we celebrate American independence.
Nathan’s is about as American as it gets. Nathan Handwerker opened his Brooklyn stand in 1916, four years after coming to America. He gained a foothold by selling cheaper products than his competitor and grew his little stand into a global empire. By the time Major League Baseball named Nathan’s its <a href="https://www.mlb.com/news/nathan-s-famous-is-official-hot-dog-of-mlb-c221240194" target="_blank" rel="noopener">official hot dog</a> in 2017, they had already become synonymous with ball games, barbecues, and the American dream.
When at the height of the Second World War E.B. White <a href="https://www.npr.org/2012/11/07/164631081/author-e-b-white-on-the-meaning-of-democracy" target="_blank" rel="noopener">wrote</a> that democracy was “the mustard on the hot dog,” he was almost certainly envisioning one of Nathan&#8217;s Famous kosher-style franks.
Even liberalism’s court stenographer, Aaron Sorkin, understands the centrality of Nathan’s to the American image. In a 2002 episode of “The West Wing,” the White House Chief of Staff defends the president’s decision to assassinate a terrorist leader by <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOSxwFtBNww" target="_blank" rel="noopener">telling his emissary</a>: “To sweep all fifty states, the President would only need to do two things: blow the sultan&#8217;s brains out in Times Square, then walk across the street to Nathan&#8217;s and buy a hot dog.”
It’s impossible to watch that scene now and not think of President Donald Trump’s now famous declaration that he could shoot someone in the middle of Fifth Avenue and not lose voters. It’s also hard to think that our first outer borough president relishes the sight of China taking over a beloved American institution.
The overarching goal of Trump’s political career has been to reverse American decline by any means necessary. He’s touched on this aim in merely every speech he’s ever given, including his <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/remarks/2025/01/the-inaugural-address/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Second Inaugural Address</a>:
<blockquote>From this day forward, our country will flourish and be respected again all over the world. We will be the envy of every nation, and we will not allow ourselves to be taken advantage of any longer. During every single day of the Trump administration, I will, very simply, put America first.</blockquote>
Whether striking narcoterrorists or purchasing Greenland, Trump has shown he’ll stop at nothing to revive American greatness. Keeping Nathan’s in American hands seems like an easy way to advance his America First agenda and put the Red Dragon at bay. Surely it doesn’t hurt that Trump once called <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nathans-hot-dogs-faces-backlash-over-trump-fundraiser-report-2018-8" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Nathan’s chairman</a> Howard Lorber one of his two best friends.
So come on, Mr. President. What’s one more volley in the trade wars if it means saving an American institution? Imagine that swooping green logo towering over the first American hot dog stand in Nuuk. This is our time for choosing.

Joey Chestnut (L) of San Jose, Californi

American Travesty: A Chinese Company Just Bought Nathan’s Famous Hot Dogs.

China

Donald Trump

Greenland

If you need a preview of what the country will look like if Democrats ever take back control of the federal government, let&#8217;s review the events that have taken place in Virginia over the past few days — a state now led by a CIA officer and sociopath named Abigail Spanberger.
Since taking complete control of the state, Democrats have raced to eliminate penalties for a series of crimes, from illegal migration to robbery to DUI, for the benefit of the non-white population that commits most of them. In fact, DUIs will no longer carry mandatory prison time in the state, and Spanberger has issued an executive order ending police cooperation with ICE. So that&#8217;s a real win-win for Virginia&#8217;s illegal alien community. 
Democrats have also moved to formalize anti-white discrimination in government contracting. They&#8217;re planning to raise taxes on basically everything — including sports facilities, dry cleaning, landscaping, home repairs, and digital services. They&#8217;re adding a new 20-cent tax to every single Amazon delivery and installing surveillance cameras across the state to generate more revenue by fining motorists. They&#8217;re also dramatically raising income taxes on wealthy individuals, who are mostly white, in order to fund free education for illegal aliens. They&#8217;ve commenced a new &#8220;Home-based Child Care Provider Start-Up Grants&#8221; program, so that more taxpayer money can be funneled to their own Somali &#8220;lear-ing centers.&#8221; They took one look at Minneapolis and decided, &#8220;We want that in our state.&#8221; 
Here&#8217;s a quote from just <a href="https://lis.blob.core.windows.net/files/1082201.PDF">one of the bills</a> that Virginia Democrats have just introduced, to give you an idea.
<blockquote>The Small SWaM Business Procurement Enhancement Program (the Program) is hereby established to facilitate the participation of small SWaM businesses in state procurement. The goal of the Program shall be the achievement of a 42 percent small SWaM business utilization rate.</blockquote>
The bill continues:
<blockquote>The Program shall include a small SWaM business set-aside for the purchase of goods, services, and construction by executive branch agencies and covered institutions. Purchases up to $100,000 shall be set aside for award to small SWaM businesses.</blockquote>
You might be wondering, what&#8217;s a &#8220;SWaM?&#8221; And what&#8217;s a &#8220;Small SWaM?&#8221; Well, if you go back and look at the definitions, here&#8217;s what the bill tells you.
&#8216;Small SWaM business&#8217; means a small business &#8220;certified by the Department as being small, any subcategory of small, small women-owned, small minority-owned, or small service disabled veteran-owned.&#8221; 
Meanwhile, &#8220;SWaM means small, women-owned, or minority-owned or related to a small, women-owned, or minority-owned business.&#8221;
So this is one of those cases where they&#8217;ve clearly messed up the acronym. They&#8217;re talking about &#8220;Small Small minority owned businesses.&#8221; That&#8217;s what a &#8220;Small SWAM&#8221; is, if you spell it out. It&#8217;s not merely a &#8220;small minority-owned business.&#8221; It&#8217;s a &#8220;small small business,&#8221; whatever that means. No one ever accused Marxists of being intelligent.
But the intent of the bill is clear: The state of Virginia wants more taxpayer money to flow to minorities — not because those minorities are the best candidates, but because they&#8217;re not white. If you&#8217;re a white guy who runs a large business, then you&#8217;re going to be shut out of contracts under $100,000. A &#8220;minority owned&#8221; business will take that contract from you — unless, of course, you want to hire them as a &#8220;subcontractor.&#8221; If you pay the racial equity fee, you can get the job.
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-1721-democrats-are-doubling-down-on-their-anti-white-agenda-here-s-the-proof?elementPosition=0&amp;row=0&amp;rowHeadline=Recent+Episodes&amp;rowType=Horizontal+Show+Episodes+Carousel"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-large wp-image-976065" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/Matt-watch-now-1-1024x171.jpg" alt="DailyWire+" width="1024" height="171" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/Matt-watch-now-1-1024x171.jpg 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/Matt-watch-now-1-300x50.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/Matt-watch-now-1-768x128.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/Matt-watch-now-1-1536x256.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/Matt-watch-now-1.jpg 1800w" sizes=" (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a>
These are policies that, as contractors already know, are the norm in many cases. It&#8217;s already standard in federal contracting, thanks to the Civil Rights era. And now Virginia wants to drastically expand this kind of discrimination.
It&#8217;s obviously bad policy that&#8217;s eventually going to lead to some very obvious, potentially catastrophic outcomes. And therefore, just to make sure they never lose power again, Virginia Democrats have also introduced legislation that would make it illegal to count machine-readable ballots by hand, as well as legislation that makes it much easier to obtain and submit absentee ballots without identifying yourself, along with legislation that allows people who are &#8220;incapacitated&#8221; — to the point that they need a conservatorship — to cast ballots. In other words, they&#8217;re enabling voter fraud on a massive scale. There are dozens more bills like this. The account &#8220;NOVA Campaigns&#8221; has cataloged many of them.
If you lived in Virginia as recently as 2018 or so, all of this would&#8217;ve seemed hard to imagine. Democrats in the state were considered to be relatively moderate, all things considered. They certainly weren&#8217;t anywhere near as far-Left as, say, California. But that changed when every moderate in the Virginia state house was primaried in 2019, and in the state senate a few years later. The party is now under the complete control of California Marxists. And now that they&#8217;ve assumed power, they aren&#8217;t wasting any time transforming the entire state.
Leftists continue to destroy the American entertainment industry with terrible writing and communist messaging, as we recently covered, pushing DEI and so on. But at the same time, no one takes these shows seriously anymore. They&#8217;ve become parodies of themselves. Look all over the internet, and you won&#8217;t find a single serious video praising the new &#8220;Star Trek&#8221; show, for example. All of the comments on the show&#8217;s YouTube premiere are negative, and very few people watched it. And that&#8217;s one of many, many indicators that wokeness, to a large degree, has peaked. Axios just asked two dozen prominent Democrats whether men can become women, and virtually all of them ducked the question. The party is moving away from the fringe, deranged messaging that cost them the last election.
But in turn, they&#8217;re replacing wokeness with something much more deeply rooted, more insidious, and potentially much more harmful. And the state of Virginia is Exhibit A for what they&#8217;re planning. Democrats have decided to go all-in on anti-white hatred, which every institution in this country has deliberately fostered for at least 60 years. It&#8217;s not going away any time soon. As the Left moves away from transgenderism and some of the other excesses of the LGBT movement, they will double and triple down on the racial narrative. That narrative has proven far more enduring and far more effective.
And we know this is a much broader, party-wide strategy based on how top Democrats are talking now. Michelle Obama, for instance, just stated that buying clothes from white designers and white-owned companies is wrong.
You need to start practicing wardrobe equity, apparently.
Watch:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Michelle Obama says she is mindful to try to avoid white-owned brands and others also should be <a href="https://t.co/5MqY5gaxUv">pic.twitter.com/5MqY5gaxUv</a>
— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) <a href="https://twitter.com/EndWokeness/status/2013356579802767412?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 19, 2026</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Credit: @EndWokeness/X.com
The women all nod, as if it&#8217;s a completely normal thing to say. You&#8217;re not allowed to avoid &#8220;black-owned&#8221; businesses. If you&#8217;re an Uber driver and you try to avoid high-crime areas because you don&#8217;t want to get carjacked and shot, your account will be suspended for racism. But if any other race wants to openly discriminate against whites, the Democrat Party will support them, wholeheartedly.
Yes, Democrats have been talking like this for a very long time. But unlike traditional wokeness, they&#8217;re doubling down on the rhetoric. Everywhere they seize power, they&#8217;re implementing an anti-white platform.
That&#8217;s why Zohran Mamdani just appointed Afua Atta-Mensah to be the chief equity officer of New York City. The New York Young Republicans&#8217; club has found several posts in which this woman openly attacks white people, which of course, is the entire reason Mamdani hired her.
<div class="image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-full wp-image-1031487 aligncenter" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/01/G_Czx5MWQAAapRi.jpeg" alt="" width="680" height="272" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/01/G_Czx5MWQAAapRi.jpeg 680w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/01/G_Czx5MWQAAapRi-300x120.jpeg 300w" sizes=" (max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /></div>
Credit: @AfuaAttaMensah/X.com
In this post, for example, someone posted his thoughts on the television show &#8220;Succession.&#8221; And Mamdani&#8217;s new equity director responds by saying, &#8220;Tax them to the white meat.&#8221; Yes, &#8220;tax them to the white meat.&#8221;
This woman also frequently talks about her &#8220;comrades,&#8221; and how they&#8217;re going to dismantle white supremacy and so on.
<div class="image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-full wp-image-1031485 aligncenter" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/01/now-deleted-tweets-mayor-zohran-119176979.webp" alt="" width="1024" height="368" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/01/now-deleted-tweets-mayor-zohran-119176979.webp 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/01/now-deleted-tweets-mayor-zohran-119176979-300x108.webp 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/01/now-deleted-tweets-mayor-zohran-119176979-768x276.webp 768w" sizes=" (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></div>
Credit: @AfuaAttaMensah/X.com
She also reposted and endorsed a message stating, “There’s NO moderate way to black liberation.”
And guess what? None of this is scandalous in the Mamdani administration, because they all think this way. That&#8217;s why his platform called for raising taxes on &#8220;richer and whiter neighborhoods.” And as Cea Weaver, Mamdani&#8217;s Director of Tenants, put it, they&#8217;re going to &#8220;impoverish the white middle class.&#8221; They&#8217;re going to declare that homeownership is a &#8220;weapon of white supremacy.&#8221; Mamdani himself has confirmed all of this. 
Watch: 
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Zohran Mamdani was given multiple chances to walk back his language that he wanted to tax Whiter neighborhoods at a higher rate but he refused to walk it back. He wants higher taxes for affluent Whites. As I’ve said, he’s a communist.<a href="https://t.co/yvsnHavzaS">pic.twitter.com/yvsnHavzaS</a>
— Robby Starbuck (@robbystarbuck) <a href="https://twitter.com/robbystarbuck/status/1978463560729612600?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 15, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Credit: @robbystarbuck/X.com
It&#8217;s reminiscent of the defenses we saw concerning those South African &#8220;kill the Boer&#8221; chants. Remember how the New York Times ran cover for that?
&#8220;What exactly did you mean when you said, &#8220;Kill the White Farmer?”
“Oh, that&#8217;s just a common expression. It doesn&#8217;t mean anything.&#8221;
Actually, when you come out and say that you&#8217;re going to raise taxes on whites, to their &#8220;white meat,&#8221; everyone understands exactly what you&#8217;re doing. The Left has committed to full-on racial warfare.
And they&#8217;re going to win, using this strategy, unless the Republican Party stops playing the same game in reverse. A big part of the reason why Republicans lost the governor&#8217;s race in Virginia is that they selected an anti-Trump candidate from Jamaica, and patted themselves on the back for their commitment to &#8220;diversity.&#8221; She spent most of the campaign talking about being an immigrant who won in a black district, and about how she can win more of the black vote.
Watch:
<iframe loading="lazy" title="Winsome Sears For Lieutenant Governor" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/DKSP5u3pRbc?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Credit: Winsome Sears/YouTube.com
If Republicans insist on running political campaigns on the Left&#8217;s terms, they will lose every time. And the reason this is a losing strategy is that the Left doesn&#8217;t actually care about the demographics of their candidate. Or at least, that&#8217;s not their primary concern, or even close to it. Instead, the Left is principally concerned with selecting candidates who will ruthlessly and efficiently disenfranchise, bankrupt, incarcerate, and ultimately destroy white conservative men. 
That&#8217;s why they elected Joe Biden, who allowed FBI SWAT teams to arrest (and in some cases, kill) conservatives who offended the Left on the internet. It&#8217;s why they rallied around Abigail Spanberger, an extraordinarily dull and uncharismatic white woman. She promised to rig all of the government contracts against white men, to let the illegal aliens out of prison to take jobs from white men, to make it easier to rob white men, and so on. And now she&#8217;s delivering on those promises, along with every Democrat in Virginia.
Left unchecked, this anti-white fervor will lead to cases like this one, out of Ontario, Canada. A 19-year-old woman who left her 14-month-old toddler unattended in a full bathtub, resulting in the child&#8217;s death, just received a mere 3-year prison sentence.
That&#8217;s because, according to the judge, there was &#8220;systemic racism identified in the community&#8221; that &#8220;explain the woman&#8217;s conduct in this case.&#8221; Yes, &#8220;systemic racism&#8221; explains why the woman left her toddler alone in a full bathtub for 5 to 10 minutes, without any kind of bathing chair or support whatsoever, even though he couldn&#8217;t walk — and even though she had been warned by the government, on two occasions, to never leave her child unattended. Race, in effect, now excuses murder in Canada.
The logic used in this case, of course, justifies reduced sentences for any homicide — including acts of violence committed by black criminals against whites, which are extremely common. In fact, 84% of interracial crimes involving black and white people are black-on-white crimes. In places like Canada — and Virginia, and New York, and Minneapolis, and every other jurisdiction controlled by Leftists — those anti-white crimes will soon be excused, if they aren&#8217;t being excused already.
We cannot allow this to continue. But Democrats will continue racking up wins like this unless we start fielding candidates who will recognize what the Left is doing, call it out openly, and pledge to defend white men from the onslaught of racial discrimination that they will face if and when Democrats regain power. We have mostly defeated the trans agenda, which would have had civilization-ending consequences if we had failed. Now we have to confront the Left&#8217;s anti-white agenda — which, as the rise of Democrats across the country demonstrates, will be a much harder campaign to vanquish.

Abigail Spanberger Is Sworn In As First Female Virginia Governor

Democrats Are Doubling Down On Their Anti-White Agenda. Here’s The Proof.

Democrats Are Doubling Down On Their Anti-White Agenda. Here's The Proof.

Virginia

Two years ago, The Daily Wire launched a kids&#8217; programming platform called Bentkey exactly because of people like Ms. Rachel, who has turned her hypnotic videos for preschoolers into a vehicle for leftist propaganda. 
Bentkey has a different idea: entertainment that is actually for kids and doesn&#8217;t feature any soft-peddling of adult themes. You know, cute characters, fun adventures, and stories you don&#8217;t need to worry will have your kids asking you what a &#8220;transgender&#8221; is. It&#8217;s what my kids watch, and you can <a href="https://get.bentkey.com/">check it out here</a>. 
I haven&#8217;t seen anyone lay out the need for alternatives like Bentkey better than the Daily Wire&#8217;s own Matt Walsh, who laid into Ms. Rachel on his show this week. Here&#8217;s what he had to say. —Brent Scher 
***
Ms. Rachel is a YouTuber who makes videos for preschoolers. We’ve covered her before on my podcast. She’s known for teaching children about gay pride, LGBT issues, and pronouns. That alone is reason enough not to put her content on for your kids. You should not allow your children to watch her show for those reasons.
Now she’s out on a propaganda tour with New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani. Here they are visiting a preschool:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
This morning, Ms. Rachel and I visited District 2 Pre-K Center, where we sang and read with the wonderful students and educators. We also discussed universal childcare &#8211; and how we&#8217;re making it happen for NYC! <a href="https://t.co/974M24kt64">pic.twitter.com/974M24kt64</a>
— Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani (@NYCMayor) <a href="https://twitter.com/NYCMayor/status/2009726131386146938?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 9, 2026</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Credit: @NYCMayor/X.com
“This morning, Ms. Rachel and I visited District 2 Pre-K Center, where we sang and read with the wonderful students and educators. We also discussed universal childcare—and how we’re making it happen for NYC!”
Yes, I’m sure the four-year-olds were riveted by that conversation.
You sat down with four-year-olds to talk about universal child care — which, by the way, is terrible for four-year-olds. It’s the city’s way of getting more kids into government-run child care and away from their parents.
That’s really the message here: “Good news, kids. You’re going to spend even less time with your parents and even more time with government workers. And government workers are the best.”
So here’s the debate over Ms. Rachel: Is she a political propagandist? She’s enormously popular with kids and racks up billions of views. Should you be exposing your children to someone like that, given her political messaging?
The answer is clearly no. You should not expose your kids to a political propagandist.
But set the politics aside for a moment. I want to make a more basic point about Ms. Rachel and people like her. I find most children’s YouTube creators to be creepy. As a parent, you need a radar for that. If your instinct isn’t asking, “Who is this person?” then you’re not paying attention.
Even before you evaluate the content or any political messaging, the vibe matters. And while vibe-based arguments don’t work in politics, they absolutely do in parenting. If something feels weird — if you don’t like the vibe—then that person doesn’t belong around your kids. That alone is reason enough to turn it off.
These adults making content for three- and four-year-olds have figured out that it’s an extremely profitable business. So they just keep churning it out.
They’re slop merchants for toddlers. And they churn out slop for every age bracket. It boggles my mind that there are parents who say, “Yep, here’s what my four-year-old needs—some slop. Bring on the slop. Sit down, Junior. It’s slop time. Go ahead and spend three hours watching this mind-numbing, weird show.”
I don’t get it.
The other thing I can’t stand is when children’s content creators act and dress like children themselves. That’s where the weirdness really kicks in. You have adults in their 40s and 50s speaking and acting like kids. Ms. Rachel appears in overalls, sneakers, and a headband — she’s in her 40s. Why is she dressed like that? She speaks and acts like a kindergartener. And that’s what almost all of these children’s YouTuber types do.
Compare that to Mr. Rogers. He made content for children, but he didn’t present himself as a child. He was a grandfatherly figure. That vibe passes the parent check. It’s wholesome, constructive, and edifying. Children can learn from that.
But when you put on overalls and start speaking in an absurdly over-the-top, childish, patronizing way, kids aren’t learning anything.
I went to Ms. Rachel’s page and pulled up one random video at the top. Nothing political. Nothing overtly objectionable. All I can say is that I would rather be stabbed to death than watch five minutes of her show. I would rather jump out of a hundred-story window than sit through it.
If the next regime comes in and they start arresting people like me, and they give me a choice between solitary confinement with Ms. Rachel playing on a loop or being thrown off a building, I’d say, “Please, the building.”
Don’t sit your kids in front of this slop. If your child is watching content that you can’t tolerate being in the same room with, that’s a good indication they shouldn’t be watching it — not because it’s political, but because it’s vapid, irritating, stupid, and bad for their minds and souls.
There are better alternatives than Ms. Rachel — like reading a book to your child.

Ms. Rachel Isn’t The Innocent YouTuber You Think She Is

Bentkey

kids

Far-Left New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Queens Rep. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez (D) are finally calling out blatant antisemitism in the city, after much political pressure.
On Thursday night, protesters gathered outside a Queens synagogue and shouted their support for the terrorist group Hamas, chanting, “Say it loud, say it clear, we support Hamas here.”
The protests sparked the early closure of several Jewish institutions &#8212; including schools, daycares, and synagogues &#8212; due to safety concerns.
As video of the demonstration racked up millions of views online, there was swift political condemnation in New York City, which put a spotlight on the new mayor&#8217;s silence. According to Politico, Mamdani didn&#8217;t address the chants until he was pressed about it publicly by a reporter a day later.
“That language is wrong,” Mamdani <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2026/01/09/we-support-hamas-chants-put-mamdanis-israel-stance-at-center-stage-00720393">said</a> while walking to his vehicle on Friday. “I think that language has no place in New York City.”
Then on X, Mamdani posted: &#8220;As I said earlier today, chants in support of a terrorist organization have no place in our city. We will continue to ensure New Yorkers’ safety entering and exiting houses of worship as well as the constitutional right to protest.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
As I said earlier today, chants in support of a terrorist organization have no place in our city. We will continue to ensure New Yorkers’ safety entering and exiting houses of worship as well as the constitutional right to protest. <a href="https://t.co/0J4GXWigiv">pic.twitter.com/0J4GXWigiv</a>
— Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani (@NYCMayor) <a href="https://twitter.com/NYCMayor/status/2009768025260437806?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 9, 2026</a></blockquote>
AOC, who has repeatedly <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/3/22/aoc-decries-unfolding-genocide-in-gaza-urges-halting-weapons-to-israel#:~:text=“This%20is%20a%20mass%20starvation,accusing%20Israel%20of%20genocide%20unfounded.">accused</a> Israel of &#8220;genocide,&#8221; said on X that the demonstrators were engaging in antisemitism. Her response came on Friday night.
&#8220;Hey so marching into a predominantly Jewish neighborhood and leading with a chant saying &#8216;we support Hamas&#8217; is a disgusting and antisemitic thing to do,&#8221; she posted. &#8220;Pretty basic!&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Hey so marching into a predominantly Jewish neighborhood and leading with a chant saying “we support Hamas” is a disgusting and antisemitic thing to do.
Pretty basic! <a href="https://t.co/Zx4wJPCPfP">https://t.co/Zx4wJPCPfP</a>
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) <a href="https://twitter.com/AOC/status/2009792314634580390?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 10, 2026</a></blockquote>
Mamdani has been accused of promulgating <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/more-of-mamdanis-anti-nypd-anti-israel-rhetoric-resurfaces-as-critics-warn-of-dangerous-extremism">antisemitism</a>, both based on his past statements and his recent moves as mayor.
Back in 2023, for example, Mamdani tied his anti-police stance to Israel and the IDF. &#8220;We have to make clear that when the boot of the NYPD is on your neck, it’s been laced by the IDF,&#8221; he <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/more-of-mamdanis-anti-nypd-anti-israel-rhetoric-resurfaces-as-critics-warn-of-dangerous-extremism">said</a>. &#8220;We’re in a country where those connections abound. Especially in New York City, you have so many opportunities to make clear the ways in which that struggle over there is tied to capitalist interests over here.”
Additionally, within hours of taking office, Mamdani signed an <a href="https://www.nyc.gov/content/dam/nycgov/mayors-office/downloads/pdf/executive-orders/2026/eo1-prior-executive-orders.pdf?utm_medium=email&amp;utm_name=&amp;utm_source=govdelivery" target="_blank" rel="noopener">executive order</a> revoking all mayoral directives issued after September 26, 2024, which, as highlighted by <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/mamdanis-first-act-as-nyc-mayor-dismantle-pro-israel-policies">The Daily Wire</a>, effectively axed several key protections for the Jewish community and measures aimed at strengthening ties with Israel.
Democrat Senator John Fetterman, who has consistently called out antisemitism, blasted the demonstrators on X.
&#8220;These a**holes in NYC proudly chant for Hamas in close proximity to a Jewish school and place of worship,&#8221; he said. &#8220;This is menacing and intimidation. The Jewish community deserves relief and protection from these raging antisemites.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
These assholes in NYC proudly chant for Hamas in close proximity to a Jewish school and place of worship.
This is menacing and intimidation.
The Jewish community deserves relief and protection from these raging antisemites. <a href="https://t.co/yJdVT5Qnx8">https://t.co/yJdVT5Qnx8</a>
— U.S. Senator John Fetterman (@SenFettermanPA) <a href="https://twitter.com/SenFettermanPA/status/2009635598672552052?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 9, 2026</a></blockquote>
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/mamdanis-first-act-as-nyc-mayor-dismantle-pro-israel-policies">Mamdani’s First Act As NYC Mayor: Dismantle Pro-Israel Policies</a>

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