A (0:00)

Foreigna I'm back with a new mini episode of Pod Force One. This feature is a little more topical and relevant to my day job as a columnist for the New York Post. Today's topic is the rancid disrespect New York's new lefty Mayor Zoran Mamdani shows to the NYPD who we need more than ever to protect us from danger as the spectre of terrorism looms large. He didn't quite order flags at one World Trade center to be flown at half staff to mourn Iran's Ayatollah, as the Babylon Bee predicted. But our Marxist Islamist mayor Zoran Mamdani did issue a statement taking Iran's side against the US Illegal war of aggression, as he called it. Americans do not want this, he posted on social media. He must be mad that President Trump didn't give him a heads up on the Iran attack during their bromantic visit in the Oval Office Friday. As if Iranians in New York celebrating the Ayatollah's demise were quick to flame the newbie poll on social media in response to his tone deaf tweet, I don't feel safe in New York listening to someone like you. Mamdani, who sympathises with the regime that killed more than 30,000 unarmed Iranians in less than 24 hours, responded Iranian American journalist Masih Alinad, who has been targeted for assassination by Iranian hitmen for her vocal criticism of the despotic regime. Quote, you stayed quiet when we have faced massacre when Islamic Republic assassins were sent here in New York to kill us, she posted on X. Stay quiet now. Mamdani also claimed to be taking extra steps to ensure the safety of New Yorkers in the wake of Operation Epic Fury. As concern grows over the potential for retaliatory terrorist attacks, former veteran FBI Deputy Director Chris Swecker has warned of the risk of Iranian terrorist sleeper cells who sneaked across Biden's border or lone wolf Muslim radicals sympathetic to the regime. Sure enough, early Sunday morning, a Senegalese immigrant reportedly wearing a Property of Allah hoodie and an Iranian flag undershirt opened fire at a bar in downtown Austin, Texas, murdering two people and wounding at least 14 others before he was shot dead. Now the FBI is investigating the former New York City resident for what they call a potential terrorism nexus. New York needs a mayor who has our backs, but Mamdani is no Rudy Giuliani. Instead, in the mere two months he has been in office, Mamdani has consistently sided with terrorist regimes against America and with criminals against law enforcement, whether ICE or the nypd. He expresses his disdain for the NYPD by starving it of funds and manpower. He just cut 22 million from the budget and cancelled the extra 5000 cops Eric Adams had budgeted to hire this year to offset high attrition due to a stampede of resignations and retirements. How can we have any faith that he even wants to keep us safe? His first instinct is to treat cops with contempt even while he and his wife are protected around the clock by a personal NYPD detail said to be 60 officers strong, costing taxpayers millions of dollars. A two incidents over the last two weeks illustrate his shameful attitude. First, distressed schizophrenic Jabez Chakraborty was shot and injured by an NYPD officer after he lunged at him with a 13 inch kitchen knife. Cops had been called to his Queen's home by his frightened family and probably saved lives that day by risking their own skin. But Mamdani made a big show of visiting Chakraborty in the hospital where he was being treated for non facial injuries, insisted his handcuffs be removed, objected to assault charges filed by the Queen's DA and repeatedly declared that he should not be prosecuted. But in a break from mayoral tradition, he did not visit the officers to offer them comfort and encouragement or to boost police morale by omission. He fed the anti cop narrative that they had been heavy handed and trigger happy. I'd like to see how he would deal with a paranoid schizophrenic trying to kill him without his NYPD detail. Then last week when a mob in Washington Square park pelted an NYPD patrol with snowballs reportedly laced with rocks and ice shards, sending two officers to hospital with facial lacerations and head injuries. Mamdani dismissed the attack as just kids having a snowball fight, implying that the cops were wimps. The one perpetrator arrested so far is no kid. Guzman Koulibali is a 27 year old repeat offender from the Bronx. He was initially charged with felony assault on a police officer. But Mamdani's soft on crime soul brother Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg downgraded the charge to a minor misdemeanor and let him go. Needless to say, NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch, her troops and their union are furious that the mayor is so feckless and disrespectful towards the men and women in blue who try to keep us safe under increasingly fraught conditions. The attitude of this man must change, a retired NYPD sergeant of 21 year service told me. If not I fear we may be grieving an outcome of an incident far more serious. End quote. By demoralizing, insulting, and effectively defunding the nypd, Mamdani has ensured that we are less safe than we should be. The exodus from the NYPD will only accelerate, and he refuses to even replace the missing cops on every issue. Issue. This mayor is out of touch, out of his depth, and out to lunch. Don't forget to come back Wednesday for the next episode of Pod Force One when we sit down with ace investigative reporter Peter Schweitzer to discuss his latest disturbing discoveries, including the foreign adversaries behind Biden's border invasion. I hope you can tune in and have a wonderful week.