Zohran Mamdani, mayor of New York: "We are spending tens of billions of dollars to kill people"

New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani has given an interview to Clash Report, where he harshly criticized the military spending of the United States. The politician denounces that the U.S. government prefers to allocate tens of billions of dollars to military interventions and weaponry rather than improving public services and social rights.

“I have made clear my very deep opposition to this war in Iran. It is an opposition not only of a procedural or political nature, but, frankly, of a moral nature. We are talking about a war that has killed thousands of civilians, a war that is deeply unpopular throughout the city and across the country because it uses hundreds of billions of dollars to kill people, money that cannot be spent to make life easier for people across the country,” he said.

Mamdani: “That is not what Americans want politics to be”

Mamdani argues that prioritizing the funding of external conflicts amounts to abandoning economic and moral duties toward the working class, especially in cities suffering from high inflation and housing problems. “The things I often talk about that are necessary for working-class New Yorkers would cost a fraction of the hundreds of billions we are seeing” , he noted.

“Does it frustrate you that you are seeing this money, 900 million dollars a day, being spent on the war, when you have projects that cost much less and can make a big difference? I think it should frustrate all of us. Tupac said it decades ago and it remains true that it always seems like we have money for war, but not to feed the poor” , the mayor of New York added.

Finally, the politician proposes that those funds be used within a domestic framework to make citizens' lives easier through healthcare, education, and poverty relief, also advocating for a greater tax burden on the highest incomes. “That is not the way politics should be. That is not what Americans want politics to be” , he concluded.