Remember, Republicans: It’s important that we stop Zohran Mamdani from becoming the next mayor of New York. The man is a socialist!
The Washington Post
When Mamdani says it, it’s socialism. When Trump does it, it’s genius.
The Trump GOP: Mamdani must be stopped. Also the Trump GOP: Government wants a piece of the action.
August 26, 2025
It’s a good thing we have President Donald Trump and his administration to stop the spread of Mamdani’s socialist agenda. Instead of having the government take greater control of private companies the way Mamdani wants, the administration is having the government take greater control of private companies the way Trump wants.
In the spring, Trump negotiated “golden shareholder” status for the government in U.S. Steel in exchange for approving its takeover by Nippon Steel. With the golden share, the administration has the power to outvote all other shareholders on the issues of relocation, transferring production or jobs outside the United States, closing or idling plants, employee salaries, and sourcing raw materials outside the United States.
It’s a free market as long as U.S. Steel executives and board members get a permission slip from the president. Then they’re perfectly free to do whatever he wants.
That’s hardly the end of it. In July, the Trump administration announced that the Defense Department was using $400 million in taxpayer money to purchase a 15 percent stake in the rare earth mineral mining company MP Materials and became the company’s largest shareholder.
Okay, that sounds kind of Mamdani-esque, but there’s a national security interest, even if it’s hard to square with Trump’s allowing U.S. chipmakers Nvidia and AMD to sell advanced chips to Chinese companies, as long as 15 percent of the money from those sales goes to the federal government. It’s perfectly normal for the federal government to demand a cut of foreign sales that had previously been barred for national security concerns. That’s just smart business, right?
Unlike the previous administration, in this presidency, it’s 15 percent for the big guy. Think of it as an agent’s fee. He’s repping America, after all.
After Trump unleashed his shock-and-awe tariff policy, he demanded that Walmart “EAT THE TARIFFS.” He had no problem in May telling Apple CEO Tim Cook that Apple should no longer make iPhones in India, and threatened tariffs against Apple products.
And then, on Friday, Trump announced on the social media platform he owns — isn’t capitalism great? — that “the United States of America now fully owns and controls 10% of INTEL, a Great American Company that has an even more incredible future. I negotiated this Deal with Lip-Bu Tan, the Highly Respected Chief Executive Officer of the Company. The United States paid nothing for these Shares, and the Shares are now valued at approximately $11 Billion Dollars. This is a great Deal for America and, also, a great Deal for INTEL.”
Once upon a time, Republicans detested the idea of using taxpayer money to bail out a troubled company such as Intel. But that was before the GOP had a savvy dealmaker in charge.
Remember, Mamdani wants the government to intervene in the decision-making of private corporations in the bad ways, but Trump wants the government to intervene in the decision-making of private corporations in the good ways. Mamdani wants to control the means of production; Trump just wants to be the largest shareholder in the means of production. It’s totally different!
Some conservative thinkers about economics, who are usually big Trump fans, are having a hard time with the Intel deal. Stephen Moore joined Larry Kudlow’s Fox Business show on Friday, and when Kudlow asked, “How about the U.S. government owning 10 percent of Intel?,” Moore threw his head back and erupted in laughter.
“I hate corporate welfare!” Moore said. “That’s privatization in reverse! We want the government to divest of assets, not buy assets! So terrible, one of the bad ideas that’s come out of this White House.”
Kudlow concurred: “I am very, very uncomfortable with that idea.”
But remember, Republicans: We’ve got to stop Mamdani because he’s a socialist — because the last thing we need is someone in power calling for even greater government intervention in the private sector. People might start to get ideas.