Zohran Mamdani is the Democratic nominee for mayor of New York whose position John Kiriakou assessed in September 2025, while a plan was circulating to clear the field against him by sending Eric Adams to Riyadh.[1]
Why he thought the effort would fail
Mamdani was polling at 38.2%, well clear of Andrew Cuomo and Curtis Sliwa, and rising. He had already reached the maximum campaign contributions permitted, “people are throwing so much money at him”, and “it’s hard to see how he loses at this stage.”[2][3]
The attacks, in Kiriakou’s reading, were feeding him: “the more that they pay attention to him, the more that people like him in New York.” He called the establishment manoeuvring “counterproductive” and “just blowback.”[3][4]
He also noted that the confident predictions after the primary had not held. Voices in the centre and on the right had said the result was “a fluke. It’s temporary… everybody’s going to coalesce around Cuomo and the DNC is going to live happily ever after.” It was not happening.[5]
How he expected him to govern
Put to him that the Republican Party intended to make Mamdani its foil for the next four years, Kiriakou was doubtful, “I wouldn’t be so sure it’s going to work.”[6]
His reason was the character of the operation rather than the politics. “He seems like a really smart young man” who is “surrounding himself with some older seasoned New Yorkers who are going to hold his hand over at Gracie Mansion and at city hall, and they’re going to tell him how things work. And I don’t think he’s just going to go in there like a bull in a china shop.” His verdict on the campaign itself: “he’s been running a great campaign.”[6]
On the antisemitism charge
Kiriakou dismissed the claim that Mamdani posed a danger to Jewish New Yorkers, and rested the dismissal on the voters rather than on the candidate’s assurances: “New York voters, many of whom are Jewish, are voting for him, and they know, they know what he’s about.”[7]
The Netanyahu-arrest question
In September 2026 Zohran Mamdani reiterated the campaign pledge to arrest Benjamin Netanyahu on the International Criminal Court warrant if the Israeli prime minister arrived in New York for the UN General Assembly, saying he would use “whatever the law allows me to do in New York City”. Kiriakou’s own reading was that Mamdani would not, in fact, order the arrest, the U.S. does not recognise the ICC, the UN Headquarters Agreement grants visiting heads of government protection, and head-of-state immunity applies, but that the point of the exercise was public discourse: “Americans should be talking about whether or not Benjamin Netanyahu is a war criminal.”[8][9][10]
He noted the irony he did not press: the Trump administration’s UN ambassador Mike Waltz invoked “head of state immunity” on Netanyahu’s behalf after the same administration “broke into Nicolás Maduro’s home and kidnapped the Venezuelan president in the middle of the night and arrested him on drug charges.”[11][12]