The Media Research Center’s meltdowns over New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani continued in a gushing July 2 post by Curtis Houck:
Our friend Jerry Dunleavy published an outstanding piece Monday night for Just the News that NewsBusters readers will want to bookmark and save in perpetuity for its exhaustive compilation of links showcasing the seemingly endless list of disturbing views by communist and New York City Democrat mayoral candidate, Zohran Mamdani.
Houck didn’t disclose that Just The News is a right-wing outlet and Dunleavy is a right-wing reporter, so his reporting can be presumed to be filled with right-wing bias.
The same day, intern Lucas Escala groused:
On Tuesday night, Stephanie Ruhle hosted Matthew Dowd on her show, The 11th Hour. Dowd, a political counselor and analyst known for his inability to stick to one party, joined with Ruhle to criticize Republicans while praising the socialist ideas of Democratic New York mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani.
[…]Dowd claimed the Republican Party, by increasing government spending through Trump’s bill, was no longer as fiscally responsible as Democrats. Republicans who advocated for fiscal responsibility in the future should be openly mocked by the media, according to Dowd. If calling for the ridicule of a particular party by all media isn’t biased, then nothing is.
Comically enough, Dowd and Ruhle both cited as a shining example of Democrats’ fiscal responsibility and strong economic policy, none other than Mamdani, the man who wanted to centralize ownership of grocery stores and freeze rent in New York.
Dowd encouraged the Democratic Party to take up economic populism, the idea of distributing wealth evenly among all citizens. If you’re wondering how that’s different from socialism, it really wasn’t. Still, Dowd tried to separate the two.
[…]Dowd’s nonsensical definition of capitalism showed that he, for one, was most definitely not a capitalist. Capitalism can do all those things, but his version more accurately describes a welfare state than a free market. Capitalism was supposed to encourage competition, giving anyone the opportunity to rise up, but it was not expected to give handouts the way Dowd described.
So instead of laughing at Republicans for their economic policy, the liberal media should probably figure out exactly what they stand for first.
July 3 was another day filled with Mamdani meltdowns at the MRC. It kicked off with a post by intern Shannon Sauders cheering on the MRC’s favorite right-wing talking-points spouter on CNN: “MRC Bulldog Award winner Scott Jennings was there to inform former South Carolina State Rep. Bakari Sellers that Mamdani has endorsed Soviet-style economic policies.” That was followed by another so-called “study” by Bill D’Agostino:
On June 25, a 33-year-old Marxist Muslim named Zohran Mamdani won the Democratic mayoral primary in New York City. Over the following week, broadcast networks ABC, CBS, NBC, and PBS ran nearly an hour of coverage about the self-described democratic socialist, but spent less than two minutes on his numerous radical positions and scandals.
MRC analysts looked at all coverage of Zohran Mamdani on ABC, CBS, NBC’s flagship morning and evening news programs and Sunday morning political talk shows, as well as all of PBS’s regular news shows, from June 25 through July 2, 2025. During the seven-day period following Mamdani’s electoral victory, these networks spent a combined 56 minutes and 26 seconds discussing the young socialist candidate — but only 85 seconds on any of his wildest policy prescriptions.
[…]The media’s ongoing sanitization of Mamdani’s radicalism suggests not only that they support Mamdani, but also that they expect more prominent Demcorats to begin espousing similar views in the coming years. Should the Democratic Party lurch even further leftward to align with ideologues like Mamdani, expect plenty more media whitewashing to ensue.
D’Agostino was curiously silent about the treatment of Mamdani on Fox News and other right-wing outlets — or doesn’t he consider them part of “the media”?
Tim Graham contributed the day’s third anti-Mamdani rant, with added bashing of public broadcasting:
One of the least surprising things ever was National “Public” Radio rushing in to promote radical leftist New York City mayor candidate Zohran Mamdani. Inside their leftist bubble, critiques of Mamdani are “unsubstantiated.”
NPR co-host Leila Fadel (rhymes with coddle!) insisted “even though Mamdani tried hard to keep affordability at the center of his campaign, others tried to define his identity with unsubstantiated claims that he would promote Islamic law, that he supports terrorism and that he’s an antisemite.” Online, the headline was about Mamdani “tackling hate head-on.”
NPR gave Mamdani nine minutes to promote himself on the July 1 Morning Edition. The larger interview (36 minutes) is on YouTube.
The “tough part” of the nine minutes was Fadel suggesting “it sounds great to have free child care and free buses and groceries that you can afford. But a lot of what you’re promising is out of the mayor’s hand.” She asked several questions about how he could deliver, but not about whether it’s actually “free” or whether it would cause problems. She also helped him to explain his views on whether billionaires should be allowed to exist.
We don’t recall Graham ever calling out coddling softball interviews on Fox News or other right-wing outlets. Then again, he’ and his fellow MRCers benefit greatly from such one-sided media appearances.
When it was argued that Mamdani was unfairly targeted by guilt-by-association attacks, Graham huffed: “Guilt by association? Now consider that NPR’s Tom Dreisbach recently posted a story titled “Multiple Trump White House officials have ties to antisemitic extremists.” Weirdly, Graham failed to disprove anything in that NPR story.