Van Jones: The Mamdani We Saw On The Campaign Trail Was Not Present In Victory Speech, “Missed An Opportunity”
CNN commentator Van Jones criticized New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani’s victory speech, saying he “missed an opportunity” by not adopting a “more calm” tone.
VAN JONES: I think he missed an opportunity. I think the Mamdani that we saw on the campaign trail who was a lot more calm, who was a lot warmer, who was a lot more embracing was not present in that speech. And I think that Mamdani is the one you need to hear from tonight. There are a lot of people trying to figure out, can I get on this train with him or not? Is he going to include me? Is he going to be more of a class warrior even in office? I think he missed a chance tonight to open up and bring more people into the tent. I think his tone was sharp. I think he was using the microphone in a way that he was almost yelling. And that’s not the Mamdani that we’ve seen on TikTok and the great interviews and stuff like that. So I felt like there’s a little bit of a character switch here where the warm, open, embracing guy that’s close to working people was not on stage tonight and there was some other voice on stage. That said, he’s very young, and he just pulled off something that’s very, very difficult. And I wouldn’t write him off, but I think he missed an opportunity to open himself up tonight, and I think that that will probably cost him going forward.
