Thirty days into the government shutdown, Rep. Claudia Tenney (R-NY) accused Democratic Party chiefs Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries of surrendering to the Marxist wing led by New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani — a capitulation she said is now holding the government hostage.
Speaking alongside House leadership and fellow New York Republicans on Thursday, the New York congresswoman charged that the Democratic Party has been hijacked by “Marxist activists” who would “rather destroy the system than to lose power.” She argued Schumer and Jeffries lack the political courage to confront what she called a “Marxist, antisemitic, anti-law-enforcement base led by Mamdani,” joined by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders.
The Republican lawmaker lambasted Schumer and Jeffries as “weak leaders from New York … where they have never had to face serious political opposition and have enjoyed nothing but glowing praise from their friends in the media,” asserting their failure is “on dramatic display with each passing day of this tragic shutdown.”
The New York congresswoman said Democratic leadership has “traded true leadership for appeasement, responsibility for disorder, and principle for political survival,” declaring that “this shutdown is their choice.” Tenney said the two leaders have “surrendered to radicals funded by dark-money groups pushing anti-police, anti-Israel, anti-American garbage,” stating flatly, “and now the country is paying the price.”
Drawing on her years serving alongside Jeffries in the New York State Legislature, the upstate Republican recalled she has “seen this playbook before,” which she described as the same corrupt routine that has now been exported to Washington. She said it is one she knows well — “reward insiders, punish taxpayers, and blame everybody else.”
Tenney maintained that the situation today is “something far worse — a movement run by socialist, Marxist activists.” She insisted, “I don’t like to call them socialists — they’re really Marxists.” The New York congresswoman argued that “extremist networks have hijacked the Democratic Party.”
Turning to Zohran Mamdani, the Queens assemblyman and Democratic Socialist now running for New York City mayor, Tenney said he embodies the movement that has overtaken the Democratic Party’s leadership. “Make no mistake,” Tenney asserted, “he is the face of the far-left coalition and, make no mistake about it, the new leader of the New York Democratic Party.”
She described Mamdani’s political operation as anything but grassroots, portraying it as a Soros-funded network of radical clerics and communists pushing a Marxist agenda in America’s largest city.
According to the Republican lawmaker, Schumer and Jeffries “will not stand up to this movement because they’re terrified of it.” She contended that “they’ve built their political survival on appeasing the far left — and now our entire country is being held hostage by it.” “They cannot open the government without angering the radicals who radically run their party,” Tenney continued. “Anti-American ideology is dominating this — and they’d rather destroy the system than to lose power.”
The New York congresswoman said New Yorkers are “already paying the price,” citing Albany’s Medicaid-for-illegal aliens scheme and Mamdani’s socialist-city agenda, which she argued leave “working families crushed by taxes, mandates, and ideology.” If voters fail to push back, she cautioned, “the damage will not end at the Hudson — it will reach every corner of upstate New York and across this country.”
“We are here to fight for the men and women who build, farm, serve, and raise families across New York and our nation. They’re the backbone of this country,” Tenney said.
With early voting underway ahead of Tuesday’s mayoral election — and Mamdani elevated as the left’s standard-bearer — Tenney closed with a direct challenge to Democratic leaders and a message to voters. “Stop playing games,” she demanded of Schumer and Jeffries. “Reopen our government, pay our troops, fund essential services, and start putting American families — and especially … New York families — first.” “To New Yorkers,” she added, “stand up, speak out, reject this radicalism” before it takes over the state.
Joshua Klein is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jklein@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter @JoshuaKlein.
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