Mayor Zohran Mamdani\u2019s Italian Heritage Month tribute to a left-wing congressman with ties to the Communist Party drew sharp criticism on social media, including a blistering rebuke from Queens Councilwoman Vickie Paladino.<\/p>\n
“Happy Italian Heritage Month, New York<\/a>. Here\u2019s continuing to fight for Vito Marcantonio\u2019s vision of a government that works for all working people,” Mamdani wrote on X.<\/p>\n Marcantonio represented East Harlem in Congress for seven terms, first as a Republican and later as a member of the left-wing American Labor Party. His opposition to U.S. involvement in the Korean War and his legal work for the Communist Party drew FBI attention<\/a>, the bureau kept files on him during the Cold War.<\/p>\n I ESCAPED COMMUNISM. AMERICA MUST NOT IGNORE THE URGENT WARNING SIGNS<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n Paladino called Marcantonio an “obscure Italian-American communist” and accused Mamdani of promoting communist propaganda<\/a>.<\/p>\n “Of all the great men and women of Italian descent who’ve contributed to New York City and the United States, this is the idiot he picks,” Paladino wrote on X.<\/p>\n MAMDANI DEFENDS CONTROVERSIAL NYC MAP AFTER OMITTING ICONIC LITTLE ITALY, JEWISH AND IRISH NEIGHBORHOODS<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n She urged Mamdani to stop invoking his Italian heritage, saying he was “physically incapable of being anything other than a loathsome propagandist for communism.”<\/p>\n Paladino contrasted the mayor\u2019s message with her family\u2019s history. She said her father fought in World War II against Italian forces under Benito Mussolini, while her mother raised five children on her own and worked in a button factory.<\/p>\n “We wanted to become Americans, and our people were proud to learn the language and wave the American flag,” she wrote. “That\u2019s what being an Italian-American in New York means,” Paladino added. “Not the communist propaganda Zohran is pushing here.”<\/p>\n Mamdani\u2019s office did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital\u2019s request for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Mayor Zohran Mamdani\u2019s Italian Heritage Month tribute to a left-wing congressman with ties to the Communist Party drew sharp criticism on social media, including a blistering rebuke from Queens Councilwoman Vickie Paladino. “Happy Italian Heritage Month, New York. Here\u2019s continuing to fight for Vito Marcantonio\u2019s vision of a government that works for all working people,” … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-79831","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79831","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=79831"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79831\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=79831"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=79831"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=79831"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}