CNN's Fareed Zakaria blasts 'out of control' blue cities

CNN's Fareed Zakaria blasts 'out of control' blue cities

Zakaria blasted newly installed New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s proposed 9.5% property tax increase.

Greg Richter  For American Thinker

It’s not often that a CNN host delivers a critique that could have aired on conservative talk radio, but that’s exactly what happened when Fareed Zakaria took aim at America’s Democrat-run big cities, accusing them of fiscal irresponsibility and failed governance.

“New York is really a prime example of a problem Democrats seem unwilling to confront,” Zakaria said Sunday on his show Fareed Zakaria: GPS.

Blue cities are out of control, promising more, spending more, delivering less and pushing off fiscal problems to some future day.

Democrats in city halls should stop governing as if the goal is to announce new entitlements, and instead make government work.

My take: pic.twitter.com/kwYkA4XEjx

— Fareed Zakaria (@FareedZakaria) February 22, 2026

Zakaria blasted newly installed Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s proposed 9.5% property tax increase, calling it an unwise move in a city where residents already shoulder some of the heaviest tax burdens in the nation. New York has been losing residents for years, with many fleeing to lower-tax states such as Florida and Texas. Raising property taxes further risks accelerating that exodus.

Zakaria acknowledged that Mamdani’s “basic instinct” that housing is unaffordable for middle-class New Yorkers is correct. But he argued the prescription is wrong.

“Focus on affordability, especially housing, but not by providing government subsidies,” Zakaria said. “These only seem to have driven up the cost of rent, as subsidies naturally do.”

unaffordability because unaffordability is what happens when government becomes a machine that grows faster than the society it governs.”

When even a CNN host begins questioning whether one-party urban governance has become a self-perpetuating spending machine, Democrats might want to pay attention. Voters certainly are — and many are voting with their feet.