New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani says politicians should be allowed to change their beliefs, joining Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s effort to place the radical politics of 2020 into a historical quarantine labeled “Woke 1.”
Pressed Wednesday about AOC’s now-viral “Woke 1 was crazy” remark, Mamdani pointed to his own retreat from demands to defund and dismantle the New York Police Department.
“Look, I think that each person has a responsibility to tell New Yorkers, to tell Americans, when they’re running for office, what they believe,” Mamdani told reporters during a Bronx event marking construction of the long-delayed Tremont Avenue busway.
“And sometimes, what you believe can change and develop. It can grow,” he continued. “And I know that there are some for whom they still believe that.”
“I’ve made very clear that I do not believe in defunding the police, that I will not be defunding the police,” Mamdani added.
The mayor said delivering public safety requires working with the NYPD “alongside many other partners.”
That is considerably different from what he said in 2020.
During the George Floyd protests, Mamdani described the NYPD as inherently dangerous and beyond reform.
“We don’t need an investigation to know that the NYPD is racist, anti-queer and a major threat to public safety,” he wrote. “What we need is to #DefundTheNYPD.”
In another message, Mamdani declared there was “no negotiating with an institution this wicked and corrupt.”
“Defund it. Dismantle it. End the cycle of violence,” he wrote.
During his 2025 mayoral campaign, Mamdani explicitly abandoned that rhetoric and said police officers have an essential role in addressing violent crime.
“I will not defund the police,” he said during a Democratic debate. “I will work with the police because I believe the police have a critical role to play in creating public safety.”
Mamdani subsequently apologized to NYPD officers for his earlier language.
“Absolutely, I’ll apologize to police officers right here,” he told Fox News in October 2025. “These men and women who serve in the NYPD, they put their lives on the line every single day.”
He has maintained that his 2020 remarks reflected widespread “frustration” following Floyd’s death, not his current view of law enforcement.
The debate began Sunday when ABC’s Jonathan Karl asked Ocasio-Cortez about Wisconsin gubernatorial candidate Francesca Hong’s history of supporting police and prison abolition.
Hong had also called for canceling Thanksgiving, describing the holiday as “incredibly painful” for some communities.
AOC borrowed a phrase used by fellow democratic socialist and New York City Councilman Chi Ossé: “Woke 1 was crazy.”
“I think that during this time, and especially during COVID, there was a huge opening of the Overton window,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “We were shut down. There were some of the highest unemployment rates that we have seen because of those shutdowns.”
“The doors were really open in trying to entertain any and every policy that was going to get us to a better place,” she continued.
AOC characterized those discussions as “quite fruitful” but said “rhetoric in that time is not rhetoric that we would use today.”
She urged voters to judge Hong by her current campaign rather than statements she made during lockdowns.
That answer attempted to perform a delicate political maneuver: concede that the rhetoric became indefensible without admitting that critics who opposed it in 2020 were right.
The “Woke 1” defense did not save Hong.
Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley narrowly defeated her in Tuesday’s Democratic primary, 39.8% to 39.4%, overcoming an earlier polling deficit that had reached approximately 30 points.
The final margin was just over 3,000 votes.
Hong had the support of Rep. Ro Khanna and progressive activists, but neither AOC nor Sen. Bernie Sanders endorsed her. Outgoing Democratic Gov. Tony Evers backed Crowley, helping consolidate voters concerned about Hong’s ideological record and general-election prospects.
Crowley will face Trump-endorsed Republican Rep. Tom Tiffany in November.
Hong’s loss interrupted a string of socialist victories over establishment Democrats, including Abdul El-Sayed’s Michigan Senate primary win and Peggy Flanagan’s defeat of Rep. Angie Craig in Minnesota.
It also demonstrated that Democratic primary voters are not uniformly prepared to accept “that was 2020” as a complete explanation for positions once presented as moral necessities.
Mamdani defended his current approach by citing New York’s historic decline in shootings and murders.
According to the NYPD, New York recorded 381 shooting incidents, 462 shooting victims and 149 murders during the first seven months of 2026—the lowest totals ever recorded for that period.
Murders fell 22.8% compared with the same period in 2025, while shooting incidents declined 7.5%. Overall major crime fell 12.7% in July and 6.6% through the first seven months of the year.
Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch credited “data-driven precision policing” and the work of NYPD officers.
Mamdani said the figures show how his administration measures public safety.
Yet his relationship with police policy remains unsettled. Earlier this year, he proposed adding 580 NYPD officers to establish a Bronx borough command and expand training. After pressure from NYC’s Democratic Socialists of America and other progressive groups, the additional hiring disappeared from the final $125.8 billion city budget.
The authorized headcount remained at 35,000.
Mamdani can truthfully say he did not defund the NYPD. He also declined to strengthen its staffing after his socialist allies objected.
The largest problem with the “Woke 1” explanation is that the Democratic Socialists of America still officially endorses the policy Mamdani now rejects. The DSA’s national program calls for redirecting police funding “as steps towards fully abolishing the police and prison system.” Its Abolition Working Group instructs members to “defund the police” by opposing increases in police budgets while “cutting budgets annually towards zero.”
Mamdani, AOC, Ossé and Hong are all associated with the democratic-socialist movement. Its national platform has not announced that “Woke 1 was crazy.” It continues to promote the same destination with more careful language. Politicians are entitled to evolve. Voters are equally entitled to ask whether the underlying belief changed—or merely became electorally expensive.
WIRE SOURCES:
- The Hill: Mamdani weighs in on “Woke 1 was crazy”
- Washington Examiner: Mamdani backs AOC’s “Woke 1” explanation
- New York Post: AOC urges voters to overlook Francesca Hong’s past positions
- NYPD: New York records fewest shootings and murders through July
- Fox 5 New York: Mamdani walks back his earlier anti-police rhetoric
- NY1: Mamdani drops plan to add 580 NYPD officers
- Wall Street Journal: Francesca Hong narrowly loses Wisconsin Democratic primary
- Democratic Socialists of America: National political program
- Democratic Socialists of America: Abolition Working Group
