New York Democrats may have thought Zohran Mamdani was just a mayor with a movement. Jesse Watters sees something much bigger — and much more dangerous.
On Wednesday’s edition of The Five, the Fox News host reacted to a string of New York City Democratic primary wins by candidates backed by Mamdani, including Democratic Socialists of America member Darializa Avila Chevalier, who defeated five-term Rep. Adriano Espaillat.
🚨 SHOCKING: Is this a COMMUNIST TAKEOVER in America? 🚨
“They’re coming for our money, our people, our way of life.”
“Abolish ICE, empty prisons… sounds like a THREAT to me!”
We’re not going to let our greatest city be DESTROYED. It’s time to FIGHT BACK. 🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/kVgm8L9ifd
— Jesse Watters (@JesseBWatters) June 25, 2026
Watters didn’t treat the results as a quirky local political story. He treated them like a warning flare.
“This is dangerous,” Watters said.
His argument was simple, ignore local power at your own risk. City council members become congressional candidates. Congressional candidates become statewide figures. Statewide figures become the people writing the rules everyone else has to live under.
“You don’t think these people can springboard to become governor, senator, AG?” Watters asked. “This is how it happens.”
And he has a point. Political movements don’t usually arrive wearing a giant warning label. They start with low-turnout primaries, activist energy, slogans that sound compassionate, and candidates who know exactly how to turn a small but motivated base into real power.
Watters accused the left of using deep-blue power centers such as New York, Chicago and Los Angeles as launching pads for a broader ideological takeover.
“You guys run your power centers in Chicago, Los Angeles, New York,” he said. “All of a sudden, you guys just populated the higher offices in those states.”
“You’re coming for us. You’re coming for our money, you’re coming for our people. You’re coming for our way of life. It’s not socialism, guys. This is communism.”
His warning was aimed at conservatives who still think these candidates are campus activists who somehow wandered into elected office. Watters sees them as organized, disciplined and fully aware of what they are doing.
He also warned Republicans and moderates not to treat Mamdani like a harmless political celebrity riding a hot streak.
“This guy is trouble,” Watters said. “This guy is a Trojan horse.”
Even New York Attorney General Letitia James, hardly a conservative firebrand, criticized the primary results and said Democratic leaders were “disappointed” in Mamdani’s influence. When Letitia James starts warning Democrats not to blow up their own party, maybe it is time for someone in the room to check the fuse.
Watters’ larger point was not that every Democratic voter suddenly became a Marxist overnight. It was that a small, organized faction can move faster than a lazy establishment. That is how political takeovers happen: not with tanks in the streets, but with turnout operations, primary challenges and slogans polished just enough to fit on a campaign flyer.
Affordable housing. Abolish ICE. Empty prisons. Tax the rich. Defund this. Dismantle that.
It always starts as “justice.” Then the bill arrives. Watters closed by arguing that conservatives cannot simply mock the movement or assume it will collapse under its own contradictions.
“We’re not going to let our greatest city get destroyed,” he said. “We’re not going to let our civilization get destroyed.”
Stop treating the socialist wing as entertainment. Because in New York, they just won.
