Mamdani blasted by GOP opponent for 'sanctimonious hypocrisy' on police stance: 'Absolute insanity'

"It is very interesting that as he returns from Uganda today he's being picked up by the NYPD armed police officers who provide him security 24 hours a day," Sliwa told Fox News Digital Wednesday. "So, in typical political fashion, that's why I don't trust any politicians. 'Do as I say, but not as I do.' He's protected by the armed NYPD, but he wants social workers for everyone else."

Mamdani has been heavily criticized for his previous calls to defund the police during the 2020 George Floyd riots, saying that "nature is healing" in response to a police officer crying in his car and labeling the NYPD as "racist."

"And isn't it ironic, while arriving from Uganda, while he was there, he was protected by armed commandos bearing AK-47-loaded weapons with masks on. So, again, the sanctimonious hypocrite, 'Do as I say, but not as I do.' If social workers would have responded to that madman entering the facilities of that Park Avenue building, they would have been cut down in a hail of bullets. And he probably would have said, 'Well, maybe we need a few alterations. We need to sort of reconvert.' This is absolute insanity."

"Zohran Mamdani will let them take over the city. Let's face it, they'll probably be part of his administration," Sliwa said. "Curtis Sliwa will stop them in their tracks. They can legally demonstrate, but they have to have a permit. They have to remain in a designated area, and they cannot violate the rights of other citizens who may disagree with them. We don't want them to be attacked, but we certainly don't want other people to be attacked either."

Fox News Digital reached out to the Mamdani campaign for comment.

Mamdani answered questions about his past comments in opposition to the police during a news conference Wednesday, where he attempted to distance himself from his calls to defund the police.

"Looking at the crisis of retention that we have in the city today, to try and pin it upon tweets from five years ago, as opposed to the conditions of this moment, is to ignore what officers themselves are saying," Mamdani said as he praised the NYPD officer who was killed in the recent midtown shooting. 

The 33-year-old socialist said multiple times that his past tweets were "clearly out of step" with the current landscape and claimed they were made out of "frustration" over the death of George Floyd.

Mamdani also defended his NYPD security detail, saying, "My life is sadly not the one that it was. There are far more threats, and with that comes precautions that I wish I didn't have to take. Though they are also precautions that I am immensely grateful for, especially in the example of the NYPD detail that I have here in New York City."

Fox News Digital's Peter Pinedo contributed to this report