Former reality television personality and Los Angeles mayoral candidate Spencer Pratt launched a blistering attack on New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani this weekend, accusing the Democratic mayor of being a “vile, commie” in a social media video shot from the rubble of his Pacific Palisades home, which was destroyed in last year's Palisades fire.
Pratt, who registered as a Republican before entering the nonpartisan Los Angeles mayoral race earlier this year, posted the video on Saturday. In it, he sits behind a foldout table wearing a black T-shirt emblazoned with “the anti-socialists social club.” The former star of “The Hills” directed his ire at Mamdani's Friday address from George Washington's desk at New York City Hall, delivered on the eve of the 250th anniversary of the nation's founding.
“We all had to sit and watch that vile, commie mayor sit on the wrong side of our founding father's desk to try to lecture us about our own history,” Pratt said. “The communists must attack your history.”
Pratt described communism as an “evil, anti-human religion” that “destroys your history so he can take your home and rebuild it in his image.” He accused Mamdani—who identifies as a democratic socialist, not a communist—of attempting to rewrite history “and lecture us about what our country stands for.”
“Erasing history is how you demoralize people, how you unmoor them and detach them from their society so you can take it from them and rewrite it in your image,” Pratt continued. “Isn't it weird how even the bad memories make us cherish a place?”
Later in the video, Pratt questioned Mamdani's connection to the U.S., saying the mayor's “ancestors never bled for this country … so he has no attachment to our home. He has no place to rewrite our history and lecture us about what our country stands for.”
The video was edited with historical and pop-culture clips, including Hulk Hogan, Elvis Presley, the D-Day landings, Mr. T, Ronald Reagan, and Chinese dictator Mao Zedong, along with scenes from films such as “The Patriot,” “Top Gun,” and “Full Metal Jacket.”
Pratt, who previously sought to unseat Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, lost in the primary to democratic socialist City Council member Nithya Raman, who advanced to the general election in November.
In his Friday speech, Mamdani reflected on the resilience of American revolutionaries who sought to break free from British “yoke of oppression” in pursuit of a “grand experiment in self-governance.” He also took a swipe at President Trump, echoing the president's 2015 campaign launch rhetoric: “For generation after generation, we have been told that when the world has sent its people to our shores, it has not sent its best. We are told that America is exceptional because it is stronger, more powerful than everyone else. The truth, my friends, is that America is exceptional because, here, nothing is fixed into place.”
The mayor pushed back against the notion that immigrants and people of color should “love” America “or leave it,” arguing, “It is because we love this country that we will not leave it.”
Mamdani has been a rising force in New York politics, with his political machine routing the Democratic establishment in recent primary upsets. He has also redefined patriotism as dissent, not denial in his July 4 addresses. Meanwhile, speculation about a potential mayoral challenger continues, with Dave Portnoy flirting with a run against Mamdani.
