Jesse Watters Dragged After Trying To Give Mamdani A Scary Nickname That's Actually Kind Of Epic

Fox News personality Jesse Watters was widely mocked after he tried to give New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani a scary nickname in the vein of Conan the Destroyer—only for it to backfire considerably.

Watters is the latest member of the GOP to lash out at Mamdani, a democratic socialist who handily defeated former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo in New York City's Democratic mayoral primary last week.

If elected in November, Mamdani would become New York City’s first Muslim mayor, a milestone that has energized the city’s approximately one million Muslim residents. His campaign prominently embraced his faith, with regular mosque visits and messaging that connected his background to the city’s broader diversity.

Many prominent Republicans—including conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer and President Donald Trump's policy adviser Stephen Miller—have shared racist and Islamophobic rhetoric in response to Mamdani's win and have claimed his policies would "destroy" the city.

And Watters leaned into the socialist fearmongering when he said:

“Zohran the Destroyer is about to give Karl Marx a woke makeover if Democrats can’t stop him from becoming the next mayor of New York City.”

You can hear what he said in the video below.

You can see the chyron below that declares "Zohran the Destroyer Wrecks Dem Party."

Fox News

It sure sounded cool, actually—which wasn't at all what Watters was going for, but too bad.

Mamdani has faced relentless attacks from Republicans in recent days, notably from Tennessee Representative Andy Ogles, who urged Attorney General Pam Bondi to denaturalize and deport Mamdani over a lyric in a rap song Mamdani released in 2017 that emphasizes his pro-Palestine stance.

Meanwhile, Trump derided Mamdani as a "communist" and said Mamdani must "do the right thing" should he win the mayoralty, or risk losing federal funding. Trump said "whoever's mayor of New York is going to have to behave themselves or the federal government is coming down very tough on them financially."

Mamdani dismissed these attacks, saying he's "had to start to get used to the fact that the president will talk about how I look, how I sound, where I'm from, who I am, ultimately, because he wants to distract from what I'm fighting for."