Bethany Mandel Questions Zohran Mamdani’s Messaging Against Antisemitism: “One Has to Wonder How Much He Cares About Them”

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Rich Zeoli: Joining us now, Bethany Mandel, co-author of the best-selling book Stolen Youth. Bethany Mandel podcasts and writes at The Mom Wars. Check out that site and download her podcast today.

Bethany, great to talk to you again, my friend. How are things?

Bethany Mandel: Thank God, good. How are you?

Rich Zeoli: I’m doing very well. A lot to chat about. First of all, I don’t know if you heard the breaking news, but the judge has just refused to allow the acquittal of Lindsay Clancy to go forward. So the judge shot that down. I think that’s great news, personally.

Bethany Mandel: I mean, theoretically, she admitted to killing her children, but now, apparently, her lawyer is backtracking. I’m not sure how you can take back saying, “I murdered my three children,” but I guess we’re going to try.

Rich Zeoli: I guess so.

I wanted to play for you some audio of the mayor of New York City, Zohran Mamdani. I found this to be surprising last week–or earlier this week–when he came out and started talking about his ideas to combat antisemitism, because it seemed like, for a while, he was absolutely just letting this stew. And certainly, his comments about Netanyahu… I’ll let you expand on all that, Bethany, but here’s a little bit from the mayor.

Let’s start with Cut 41.

Mayor Mamdani: Over the last year, I’ve met with Jewish New Yorkers across the five boroughs. I’ve met with them in their dining rooms, sat with them on the subway, and spoken to them in their shuls. Time and again, I’ve heard the same thing: antisemitism is real, and it is growing.

Here in New York City, while our Jewish neighbors make up only 12% of the population, NYPD statistics show that antisemitic hate crimes account for more than half of all confirmed hate crimes.

This is not only unacceptable; it’s something we all have an obligation to change. And City Hall will lead the way.

That is why today I am proud to announce the nation’s first-ever municipal strategy to combat antisemitism–a roadmap for how our administration will confront the scourge of antisemitism now and in the future.

Rich Zeoli: I mean, wouldn’t a good start be to not say that you would arrest Benjamin Netanyahu and say that he’s committing genocide?

Bethany Mandel: You would think.

I mean, there’s a lot of things that he’s done that are a direct assault on Jewish New Yorkers that have nothing to do with Israel, although, notably, he basically copied what Eric Adams did on antisemitism, but withdrew every reference to Israel and Zionism and refused to even define antisemitism, which is an important distinction as well.

But there have been a lot of instances–for example, security grants around Jewish schools, because Jews are the primary target of hate crimes in New York City–and he will not expand protection to Jewish schools.

We saw–so it sounds a little tangential, but in Michigan, there was an attempted attack on a preschool by a terrorist who was affiliated with Hezbollah. The Democratic Socialist candidate in Michigan, Al-Sayed, has not really decried what happened. He hasn’t really given an adequate answer to, like, “Do you think this was bad?”

This is the same ideology that Mamdani is a fan of, that he adheres to as a democratic socialist. And so, when he refuses to protect Jewish students in New York City, one has to wonder how much he cares about them, especially in light of this attempted slaughter of dozens of very little preschoolers at a Jewish preschool in Michigan.

Rich Zeoli: You say that all these attacks are happening. Who’s committing them, Bethany?

Bethany Mandel: I don’t think that I’m allowed to say that.

Rich Zeoli: Well, can you name some suspects for us, perhaps?

Bethany Mandel: They sometimes always yell, “Allahu Akbar,” and you can deduce from that what you will, but we’re not allowed to call that.

I mean, especially in the world of Zohran Mamdani, you’re not allowed to assume that someone who yells “Allahu Akbar” or who tries–I mean, this is the New York Times as well–who tries to crash an Israeli plane full of Israelis flying from Dubai to Tel Aviv and nose-dive it into the ground in Saudi Arabia, you are not allowed to make any assumptions about what his motivations might be.

Let’s just let it all play out, and we’ll find out eventually why he tried to murder all those people.

Rich Zeoli: The New York Times, at first, they called it a “clash in the cockpit,” Bethany. That was my favorite. “A clash in a cockpit.”

Bethany Mandel: An altercation. An altercation. Just a little scuffle, you know? What’s that? What’s the stabbing between friends?

Rich Zeoli: I mean, come on. You know, the one pilot wanted the fish. You never order fish on an airplane. Everybody knows that. Come on.

Bethany Mandel: It’s really inconsiderate.

No, it’s wild because we just, less than a month ago, witnessed the 25th anniversary of 9/11, and I spent so much time in the last month talking about the heroes of Flight 93 with my family, with my children.

And then we woke up yesterday morning and it was 2.0. It was Flight 97, 93, 2.0. Only this time, thank God, the passenger was able to recall a television show that he had watched previously that gave him ideas about how you could land the plane in a pinch–or not land, but level the plane in a pinch.

And it was by the grace of God that they didn’t meet the same fate as the passengers of Flight 93 did in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

And this was sort of a blip for liberals. This is an inconvenient story for them because it sort of highlights the threat of Islamic terror that we’re all facing.

Rich Zeoli: Yeah, because Netanyahu said the guy was a wannabe jihadi, and the Brits are the ones coming out and saying that this is most likely linked to Iran.

So the president today said the same thing when he said, “Yeah, he’s hearing that as well.” And the fact that the UK and their woke prime minister said that, he would not just be coming out saying that unless they had some serious evidence to prove that.

Bethany Mandel: Yeah, I mean, it’s really throwing down the gloves, and it’s a very serious charge that could reignite the conflict between Israel and Iran.

Because I don’t know how Israel could know for a fact that this country tried to kill 174 of its citizens–perhaps not 174, but the vast majority were Israeli–and not counter and not act.

So, I mean, it feels like it was a sliding-doors moment in world history where, if this plane had gone down, the implications of it would have been so catastrophic we could have spiraled into World War III.

That said, the implications might not be over yet. There might still be a counter from the Israelis against the Iranian regime.

Rich Zeoli: And today, the president expelled the Iranian delegation from the White House after they were unable to reach new terms of the ceasefire.

So that happened. Let me play a clip for you, Bethany. This is Netanyahu on Hannity last night. This is Cut Number 3. He talks about the anti-Israel propaganda.

Netanyahu: He obviously hated his rallies because he was going to kill about 170 of them on this plane, killing himself, too. So that’s fanaticism and hatred of an incalculable level.

But that’s what we’re facing. And that’s why the entire Western world and America are facing it. And I think President Trump understands it. Many of the American people understand it.

But there are some who’ve fallen prey to this propaganda, primarily carried out on social media, that vilifies Israel.

Israel is the David here, fighting this Goliath of global Islamist fundamentalism that seeks death to Israel, death to America. That’s what they chant–death to everything in between.

And this is something we recognize, and I think we recognize it with incredible heroism.

Rich Zeoli: Bethany, what do you make of the various people that are out there screaming about Israel committing genocide? Macklemore, for example, right? Macklemore is a great example of that.

I mean, how much of that rhetoric–because I just think it’s so irresponsible and nauseating to hear them routinely accuse Israel of committing genocide–but obviously, I mean, it plays into this stuff, right?

Bethany Mandel: Yeah. I mean, I actually am not thrilled with Netanyahu’s framing of this David and Goliath, where Israel is David. Israel has proven itself to be quite the Goliath in the last three years. It has taken down so much of the Iranian regime, the pager attack that we saw with Hezbollah.

The wins in Israel’s column–successfully averting this terror attack–is why he was on the show, presumably.

This is a moment, I think, that Israel needs to sort of be comfortable with being the Goliath. And that framing is what I think a lot of the opponents of the Israeli state have taken–that, like, you know, oppressor and oppressed and all of that sort of ideology.

And Israel has to just be like, “Yeah, we’re strong, and you’re not going to push us around anymore. And we’re not sorry for it.”

I think that turning that narrative on its head will do Israel some good here because no one believes that they’re the David here. The IDF can do anything.

Rich Zeoli: Bethany Mandel is with us, co-author of the bestselling book Stolen Youth.

Let’s switch to mom talk for a second, if we could. You’re a mom, I’m a dad. I have three kids, and you do your Mom Wars podcast and you write there, and great stuff over there.

You and I have talked over the years. We’ve talked about everything from Costco eggs to the indoctrination of children.

So I’ll ask you about Miss Rachel, who, I confess, I’d never even heard of until her name made the news. But I’ve now checked to make sure that my kids are not watching Miss Rachel.

So who is Miss Rachel, and what should parents know about her?

Bethany Mandel: Oh boy. So she–I mean, if we’re just being honest–actually creates great toddler content. If you need 15 minutes to go to the bathroom, Miss Rachel is your girl. And she has amassed billions of views on YouTube, where parents are using it as a babysitter.

And I don’t say that in a derogatory way. I, too, need a babysitter. We all do.

But I don’t use Miss Rachel because, in the very early years of Miss Rachel, I noticed that she had androgynous sort of co-conspirators with her playing guitar and singing “Wheels on the Bus.” And this individual went by they/them pronouns and was a woman but clearly was trying to pass as they/them.

And so I said to myself, “This is not someone I want my kids exposed to,” and we never watched Miss Rachel.

But the vast majority of parents of my generation didn’t do that because they didn’t realize just the extent of her ideological capture and her willingness to pawn that off on kids.

And so, over the course of the last couple of years, she has come out as a real supporter of Islamic terrorism. She has appeared in videos with Hamas journalists. She regurgitates Hamas talking points about the numbers of deaths in Gaza, all of those things.

And I did an interview with Fox Digital yesterday–it came out yesterday–where I said, like, even if you don’t care about Israel and Gaza and all of those things, if you do not want your children exposed to political content that veers far, far left, Miss Rachel is someone that you need to turn off before your kids grow attached to her.

And you need to turn her off if your kids are already attached to her because they’ll just be more so.

But this is the Mr. Rogers of our kids’ generation, but she is so entrenched ideologically. She sees it as her mission to educate children in so many areas, and one of them is her value system, and it is not one that we share.

Rich Zeoli: Yeah, and you point out in your piece that parents–there’s pushback here–and parents should be aware of this because she wants to be a political activist.

And at one point she brought up–or maybe she did, or somebody did–well, Mr. Rogers was political.

I never thought of Mr. Rogers as political. I mean, I think you’re taking one clip that has since resurfaced of him saying boys are boys and girls are girls. You know what I mean? Like, to act like he was some sort of conservative guy, you know, trying to brainwash kids or something like that.

I’ve never thought that about Mr. Rogers. I don’t think anybody ever thought that about Mr. Rogers.

Tom Hanks played him in a movie. There’s no way he would have played him in a movie if Mr. Rogers was like that.

Bethany Mandel: Yeah, I mean, the only political clip I have ever seen of Mr. Rogers–and I don’t see this as political, and I want to make that clear–was sort of like a clip about racial reconciliation, about being racially conciliatory toward people who don’t look like you.

I’m fine with that. Ninety-five, 97 percent of parents are fine with that.

But that is very different from teaching children–and this is a point that I always try to accentuate, especially when it comes to Ms. Rachel.

In the very, very early years, how children learn to understand the world around them is to categorize everything around them.

And the easiest way to do that is to say, “Mommy is a girl. Daddy is a boy. Uncle Joe is a boy, and Aunt Sally is a girl.”

And they learn to categorize in that way, and it helps them form neural pathways that are critically important.

And what gender ideologues like Ms. Rachel are doing is trying to strip that and saying, like, “Boys and girls–there’s no such thing. There’s no difference between all of us. We’re all just–we’re all here, and we can all love each other, and it’s just–this is a parent and this is the grandparent, and no one has a defined role as male and female.”

But when you take that ability to categorize away from young children, that is catastrophic for their brain development.

And we would never allow this as a scientific experiment. Let’s experiment on young children and take away the fundamental way that they understand the world around them and just let’s see what happens.

We would never let that happen as a science experiment, but that’s basically what the left is conducting right now with not just their own children, but also ours when they do stuff like this.

Rich Zeoli: Yeah, well said, my friend.

Follow Bethany at Bethany Mandel, and check out the Mom Wars podcast. It’s on Apple and everywhere you get your podcasts.

Bethany, thanks so much for coming on the show. Appreciate it.

Bethany Mandel: Thank you so much.