Name: David Hogg On Zohran Mamdani
Uploaded: 2025-09-27T13:01:25.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'David Hogg On Zohran Mamdani' from TAFS Clips on Comedy Buff. Published 2025-09-27. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'David Hogg On Zohran Mamdani' from TAFS Clips on Comedy Buff. Published 2025-09-27. Transcript available.

It's just they're so ugly there and the people are so, they think they're great.
It's crazy.
What's great about you?
It's crazy that you say that because I had the exact same thought when I first
got to
New York City this week.
I was like looking around and I was like, this looks, the people here look so
much different
from DC.
Yeah.
Like the adage that DC is just Hollywood for ugly people is 100% true.
Why we let those people tell us what to do?
I'm sorry.
No.
I'm sorry.
So you think one of the ways you want to change the Democratic Party is you
want more like
tens?
No.
That's not what I'm getting at.
You got to get some more tens in there.
No.
I think we need some top tier performers in terms of being able to action.
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
What we're working on-
I mean, Zoran is genuinely, that's a handsome guy.
I mean, there was hot girls for Zoran.
Right?
Well, no.
I'm talking about the guy Zoran.
I don't care about these girls.
I'm talking about how great this guy looks.
Well, yeah.
He looks phenomenal.
He's a handsome, charismatic guy.
Yeah.
It's like, why would they want a handsome, charismatic, good speaker in the
party?
Well, you know, I think sometimes-
I think we know.
Yeah.
I think we both do.
Yeah.
I think it's because he actually represents something that is real, right?
That he is saying what voters have been wanting for a long time, especially
younger people have
been wanting for a long time.
Younger men have been wanting for a long time.
We won him, yeah.
We won him, yeah.
We won him, yeah.
In that election.
I've been wanting him for a long time.
Yeah.
And, but the thing is like, he had a clear message and it wasn't just a bunch
of bullshit
talking points.
It was like, oh, we're going to lower prices.
Like, sure, he's on TikTok.
But the thing is, Andrew Cuomo could have been on TikTok.
He would have lost, the only difference would have been is that he would have
lost by even
more.
Sure.
Oh, TikToks would have been fire.
The reason why-
The reason why-
I'm doing a dance.
Right.
Something like that.
I'm doing a dance for Israel.
Just a little boo-boo.
Yeah.
I'm doing the nay-nay for Israel.
Right.
The bottom line is, when he was on TikTok, he actually said something, right?
And gave something-
Zora?
Yeah.
He gave something for young people to actually believe in.
A vision to believe in that.
I think a lot of Democrats have not.
And then he was also, obviously, extremely and rightfully so, vocally critical
of the state
of Israel.
And the atrocities-
I think that that was overstated.
I think people were like, they made, they made, it was a, they were being
racist to
him because he's Muslim.
Certainly.
And they wanted to make him into Osama Bin Laden.
And he's really just a rapper that went to Bowden.
What I think is really admirable is despite all of that hatred, he ran a ruthlessly
positive
campaign.
Right?
Where, I would say, like if you look, when Fox News covers him, it's actually
hard for
them to find photos of him where he's not smiling.
Do you know how hard that is, Adam?
I don't know.
Like, it is quite difficult.
Really?
Yes.
Because they'll find anything.
But even when they put up photos of him, he's always smiling at them.
Do they put frowning pictures of Democrats?
I didn't know that.
Yeah.
It's typically like them being upset or, you know, just whatever makes them
look the
worst way possible.
Of course.
Or like looking fat or something.
But when I was with Zoran, we went to Washington Square Park together, like
during the camp in the
final weeks of the campaign.
And look, like I've worked around lots of young, on different campaigns with
younger candidates
and everything like that.
Yeah.
Because that's what we do at Leaders We Deserve.
We help to elect young people, state legislatures and Congress and sometimes
mayor.
And the reason why we do that is because we want young people to actually
believe that they
can be represented, that are issues, whether it's affordability or addressing
all kinds of
things like the obviously fucked up shit that is happening, that Israel is
doing right now
and the genocide that they are committing against Palestinians.
Yeah, but what does that have to do with New York?
Getting that address.
I think that's one of the annoying things that everyone's like, will you go to
Jerusalem?
And then it's like-
It's so weird.
It's so weird.
The way it tracked wasn't that Zoran didn't win because he was speaking out
against Israel.
He won because people thought, A, he won the Jewish vote.
He won because people were like, this is weird.
Why are people talking about this?
Right.
Cuomo like used it to attack him.
Yup.
And then they tried to like present New York City as like an anti-Semitic hellscape
when
we all live here and it's like, it's New York City.
We live in Seinfeld.
Like what do they think?
Right.
What do they think?
It's not the fucking Warsaw ghetto.
So it wasn't like, that was just like an attack on him more so because like, he
was
like a, he'd been part of like activism in the past.
But in reality, just on a surface level, this is well articulate, charismatic,
and young,
and handsome guy that seemed chill.
Like, and like the aversion really seems to like, the guys that are like there
that are
like, I'm going to just, I'm going to invest heavy in like the military
industrial complex
before I appropriate a weapons package.
Right.
It's bullshit.
You know, they just don't want to.
That should be fucking illegal.
They just don't want to stop like being there, like appropriating weapons
packages.
Yeah, of course not.
And like, they're like, yeah, they're guys that like have been there for 80
years and
they're like, make, they're kind of stealing and they're kind of like entrenched
in like
their position.
They're like, they see like a young talent and they're scared.
And they're scared.
They want to, they should, they want to knife him.
Yeah.
Because he is a inherent threat to them because he's calling them out on their
bullshit and
actually saying something he believes in.
The problem is, is like, how does a party that when 6% of the people think that
what's
happening in Gaza is a genocide in the Democratic Party, I believe, is not, is
not a genocide.
Oh, right.
Yeah, yeah.
I was about to say that.
Or like, maybe like 6% of, are in favor of what's happening in Gaza in the
Democratic Party.
Right.
I mean, Biden appropriated those funds.
Right.
How does the party look like when like basically we're seeing people rounded up
by like a
Gestapo force right now, like migrants?
And we're writing fucking strongly worded letters?
We basically invent-
And that's our response.
Oh, no.
It was a tiny program in the DHS and Obama basically just like-
Blew it up.
Blew it up.
And like, how does it look like when deportations under Biden were like pretty
much on par with
the first term of Trump?
Like consistently, the things that matter to the constituents of the Democratic
Party are
just completely-
Ignored.
Ignored.
It's really difficult, I think, a difficult position to be put in.
Like, the question for you, and like we can parlay this into your experience
with the-
Yeah.
Vice-Chair of the DNC.
Is it salvageable?
Is the Democratic Party salvageable?
An institution that literally wanted to fuck you off for trying to make any
changes.
I mean, I think the bottom line is with the way that our government is
structured-
And trust me, Adam, like this is not a question I take lightly.
This is not something that I'm just saying because it's like, oh, like this is
just the
way things are.
Just structurally speaking, the way our government is set up, we're probably
always going to have
some kind of two-party system in one way, shape, or form.
Yeah.
And I know that sounds like a really boring and academic answer.
I know.
Yeah.
But what I-
Sorry.
Who's that?
Your agent?
No, it's-
Sex in the City 3.
It's a state senator.
You're going to play Mr. Who is a state senator?
It's a great state senator.
You want to hit him up?
Let's talk to him.
Zainab Mohammed.
From here?
New York?
No, they're from Minnesota.
Minnesota?
They actually represent the district that just went through the school shooting,
unfortunately,
in Minneapolis.
Oh, okay.
Yeah.
So she's calling me about that, so I'm not-
You're the guy that gets a call every shooting?
God, your life sucks.
Well, I try to help people after these things-
I know.
It's horrible.
But you just have to relive the past over and over again.
I mean-
I know that's getting us off track.
Yeah, no, no.
I'd love to hear-
I mean, the way that I see this right now, Adam, is the best way to beat them
is to actually-
to win is to defeat them.
And that's what we try to do with Leaders We Deserve.
We're trying to find the best young people.
Like, there's lots of young people who suck.
But the bottom line is, what I saw in the case of somebody like Maxwell Frost
in his race.
Yeah, yeah.
I hired Maxwell from my dorm room, right before COVID actually, to work at
March of Our Lives.
Maxwell then called me a few years later and told me he wanted to run for
Congress.
He was 24.
And he wasn't the best person in that race just because he was young.
He was the best person in that race because he had a decade of experience
fighting against gun violence, working for the ACLU, doing all these different
forms of activism.
And his opponents, his two main opponents were somebody who committed tax fraud
while in Congress as a Democrat.
And the other was a hedge fund manager who was a Democrat in Congress while
being a hedge fund manager at the same time.
Maxwell had to Uber drive from 9:00 p.m. to 2:00 a.m.
Yeah, he was homeless.
Every night.
Yeah.
Exactly.
And there's so many young people like that, that have that grit, that have that
will, that have that determination, who don't want to support, you know, all
kinds of the awful things that we're talking about happening that the party is
supporting.
Frankly, many times the only good politician is a scared one, specifically one
that is scared of losing their job.
And if the government is not going to change our gun laws, if they're not going
to address what is happening with whether it's what's going on between with
Israel or what's happening with the climate crisis or the fact that we have a,
we are a military welfare state that is feeding a private prison industrial
complex through our broken immigration system right now, where there is
literally a multibillion dollar incentive to not fix that system.
We, if our government doesn't change that from the pressure on the outside, we'll
just outlive who is in government and change who is in government.
Yeah.
By getting these young people elected that actually do stand for something,
hopefully.
Yeah.
And it's not-
These motherfuckers live though.
They do.
Some of them, I don't know how they, they look like Emperor Palpatine.
And, but that's the crazy thing, Adam.
They'll say like, oh my God, experience is so important.
It's, it matters so much.
It's like, if experience actually was so important.
Yeah.
And helped us so much, I wouldn't be talking to you right now.
Cause we wouldn't be in the crisis that we were in with one of the oldest
Congresses we have ever had.
In Congress right now, do you know how many people are under the age of 30
there?
Um, there's Max.
That's it.
Yeah.
He is the only member of Congress under 30.
That's gotta be the wackest hang ever.
Absolutely.
He's gotta chill with these fucking people.
Right.
Can you imagine how bad the breath is?
And that's what we're trying to do with Leaders We Deserve is change who is in
government by bringing in a substantial amount of funding to get behind them to
elect people like there's a state senator in Texas who we elected last year by
62 votes.
Uh huh.
She, we gave her $300,000 to support her campaign.
She doesn't take corporate money.
Her name's Molly Cook.
And she defeated a different Democrat who voted not only to arm teachers while
in the state legislature, but voted to give them $25,000 for being armed.
Give them a check and a gun?
Yes.
That's what he tried to do.
Just in the abstract you said that and I'm like, that's kind of, just like, it
sounds like, you know, when like Jason Bourne opens like a box and he's got
eight passports and there's $25,000 in a gun.
It's like he's a teacher now.
The teacher would be like, oh, it's like Jason Bourne.

David Hogg On Zohran Mamdani

It's just they're so ugly there and the people are so, they think they're great.
It's crazy.
What's great about you?
It's crazy that you say that because I had the exact same thought when I first
got to
New York City this week.
I was like looking around and I was like, this looks, the people here look so
much different
from DC.
Yeah.
Like the adage that DC is just Hollywood for ugly people is 100% true.
Why we let those people tell us what to do?
I'm sorry.
No.
I'm sorry.
So you think one of the ways you want to change the Democratic Party is you
want more like
tens?
No.
That's not what I'm getting at.
You got to get some more tens in there.
No.
I think we need some top tier performers in terms of being able to action.
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
What we're working on-
I mean, Zoran is genuinely, that's a handsome guy.
I mean, there was hot girls for Zoran.
Right?
Well, no.
I'm talking about the guy Zoran.
I don't care about these girls.
I'm talking about how great this guy looks.
Well, yeah.
He looks phenomenal.
He's a handsome, charismatic guy.
Yeah.
It's like, why would they want a handsome, charismatic, good speaker in the
party?
Well, you know, I think sometimes-
I think we know.
Yeah.
I think we both do.
Yeah.
I think it's because he actually represents something that is real, right?
That he is saying what voters have been wanting for a long time, especially
younger people have
been wanting for a long time.
Younger men have been wanting for a long time.
We won him, yeah.
We won him, yeah.
We won him, yeah.
In that election.
I've been wanting him for a long time.
Yeah.
And, but the thing is like, he had a clear message and it wasn't just a bunch
of bullshit
talking points.
It was like, oh, we're going to lower prices.
Like, sure, he's on TikTok.
But the thing is, Andrew Cuomo could have been on TikTok.
He would have lost, the only difference would have been is that he would have
lost by even
more.
Sure.
Oh, TikToks would have been fire.
The reason why-
The reason why-
I'm doing a dance.
Right.
Something like that.
I'm doing a dance for Israel.
Just a little boo-boo.
Yeah.
I'm doing the nay-nay for Israel.
Right.
The bottom line is, when he was on TikTok, he actually said something, right?
And gave something-
Zora?
Yeah.
He gave something for young people to actually believe in.
A vision to believe in that.
I think a lot of Democrats have not.
And then he was also, obviously, extremely and rightfully so, vocally critical
of the state
of Israel.
And the atrocities-
I think that that was overstated.
I think people were like, they made, they made, it was a, they were being
racist to
him because he's Muslim.
Certainly.
And they wanted to make him into Osama Bin Laden.
And he's really just a rapper that went to Bowden.
What I think is really admirable is despite all of that hatred, he ran a ruthlessly
positive
campaign.
Right?
Where, I would say, like if you look, when Fox News covers him, it's actually
hard for
them to find photos of him where he's not smiling.
Do you know how hard that is, Adam?
I don't know.
Like, it is quite difficult.
Really?
Yes.
Because they'll find anything.
But even when they put up photos of him, he's always smiling at them.
Do they put frowning pictures of Democrats?
I didn't know that.
Yeah.
It's typically like them being upset or, you know, just whatever makes them
look the
worst way possible.
Of course.
Or like looking fat or something.
But when I was with Zoran, we went to Washington Square Park together, like
during the camp in the
final weeks of the campaign.
And look, like I've worked around lots of young, on different campaigns with
younger candidates
and everything like that.
Yeah.
Because that's what we do at Leaders We Deserve.
We help to elect young people, state legislatures and Congress and sometimes
mayor.
And the reason why we do that is because we want young people to actually
believe that they
can be represented, that are issues, whether it's affordability or addressing
all kinds of
things like the obviously fucked up shit that is happening, that Israel is
doing right now
and the genocide that they are committing against Palestinians.
Yeah, but what does that have to do with New York?
Getting that address.
I think that's one of the annoying things that everyone's like, will you go to
Jerusalem?
And then it's like-
It's so weird.
It's so weird.
The way it tracked wasn't that Zoran didn't win because he was speaking out
against Israel.
He won because people thought, A, he won the Jewish vote.
He won because people were like, this is weird.
Why are people talking about this?
Right.
Cuomo like used it to attack him.
Yup.
And then they tried to like present New York City as like an anti-Semitic hellscape
when
we all live here and it's like, it's New York City.
We live in Seinfeld.
Like what do they think?
Right.
What do they think?
It's not the fucking Warsaw ghetto.
So it wasn't like, that was just like an attack on him more so because like, he
was
like a, he'd been part of like activism in the past.
But in reality, just on a surface level, this is well articulate, charismatic,
and young,
and handsome guy that seemed chill.
Like, and like the aversion really seems to like, the guys that are like there
that are
like, I'm going to just, I'm going to invest heavy in like the military
industrial complex
before I appropriate a weapons package.
Right.
It's bullshit.
You know, they just don't want to.
That should be fucking illegal.
They just don't want to stop like being there, like appropriating weapons
packages.
Yeah, of course not.
And like, they're like, yeah, they're guys that like have been there for 80
years and
they're like, make, they're kind of stealing and they're kind of like entrenched
in like
their position.
They're like, they see like a young talent and they're scared.
And they're scared.
They want to, they should, they want to knife him.
Yeah.
Because he is a inherent threat to them because he's calling them out on their
bullshit and
actually saying something he believes in.
The problem is, is like, how does a party that when 6% of the people think that
what's
happening in Gaza is a genocide in the Democratic Party, I believe, is not, is
not a genocide.
Oh, right.
Yeah, yeah.
I was about to say that.
Or like, maybe like 6% of, are in favor of what's happening in Gaza in the
Democratic Party.
Right.
I mean, Biden appropriated those funds.
Right.
How does the party look like when like basically we're seeing people rounded up
by like a
Gestapo force right now, like migrants?
And we're writing fucking strongly worded letters?
We basically invent-
And that's our response.
Oh, no.
It was a tiny program in the DHS and Obama basically just like-
Blew it up.
Blew it up.
And like, how does it look like when deportations under Biden were like pretty
much on par with
the first term of Trump?
Like consistently, the things that matter to the constituents of the Democratic
Party are
just completely-
Ignored.
Ignored.
It's really difficult, I think, a difficult position to be put in.
Like, the question for you, and like we can parlay this into your experience
with the-
Yeah.
Vice-Chair of the DNC.
Is it salvageable?
Is the Democratic Party salvageable?
An institution that literally wanted to fuck you off for trying to make any
changes.
I mean, I think the bottom line is with the way that our government is
structured-
And trust me, Adam, like this is not a question I take lightly.
This is not something that I'm just saying because it's like, oh, like this is
just the
way things are.
Just structurally speaking, the way our government is set up, we're probably
always going to have
some kind of two-party system in one way, shape, or form.
Yeah.
And I know that sounds like a really boring and academic answer.
I know.
Yeah.
But what I-
Sorry.
Who's that?
Your agent?
No, it's-
Sex in the City 3.
It's a state senator.
You're going to play Mr. Who is a state senator?
It's a great state senator.
You want to hit him up?
Let's talk to him.
Zainab Mohammed.
From here?
New York?
No, they're from Minnesota.
Minnesota?
They actually represent the district that just went through the school shooting,
unfortunately,
in Minneapolis.
Oh, okay.
Yeah.
So she's calling me about that, so I'm not-
You're the guy that gets a call every shooting?
God, your life sucks.
Well, I try to help people after these things-
I know.
It's horrible.
But you just have to relive the past over and over again.
I mean-
I know that's getting us off track.
Yeah, no, no.
I'd love to hear-
I mean, the way that I see this right now, Adam, is the best way to beat them
is to actually-
to win is to defeat them.
And that's what we try to do with Leaders We Deserve.
We're trying to find the best young people.
Like, there's lots of young people who suck.
But the bottom line is, what I saw in the case of somebody like Maxwell Frost
in his race.
Yeah, yeah.
I hired Maxwell from my dorm room, right before COVID actually, to work at
March of Our Lives.
Maxwell then called me a few years later and told me he wanted to run for
Congress.
He was 24.
And he wasn't the best person in that race just because he was young.
He was the best person in that race because he had a decade of experience
fighting against gun violence, working for the ACLU, doing all these different
forms of activism.
And his opponents, his two main opponents were somebody who committed tax fraud
while in Congress as a Democrat.
And the other was a hedge fund manager who was a Democrat in Congress while
being a hedge fund manager at the same time.
Maxwell had to Uber drive from 9:00 p.m. to 2:00 a.m.
Yeah, he was homeless.
Every night.
Yeah.
Exactly.
And there's so many young people like that, that have that grit, that have that
will, that have that determination, who don't want to support, you know, all
kinds of the awful things that we're talking about happening that the party is
supporting.
Frankly, many times the only good politician is a scared one, specifically one
that is scared of losing their job.
And if the government is not going to change our gun laws, if they're not going
to address what is happening with whether it's what's going on between with
Israel or what's happening with the climate crisis or the fact that we have a,
we are a military welfare state that is feeding a private prison industrial
complex through our broken immigration system right now, where there is
literally a multibillion dollar incentive to not fix that system.
We, if our government doesn't change that from the pressure on the outside, we'll
just outlive who is in government and change who is in government.
Yeah.
By getting these young people elected that actually do stand for something,
hopefully.
Yeah.
And it's not-
These motherfuckers live though.
They do.
Some of them, I don't know how they, they look like Emperor Palpatine.
And, but that's the crazy thing, Adam.
They'll say like, oh my God, experience is so important.
It's, it matters so much.
It's like, if experience actually was so important.
Yeah.
And helped us so much, I wouldn't be talking to you right now.
Cause we wouldn't be in the crisis that we were in with one of the oldest
Congresses we have ever had.
In Congress right now, do you know how many people are under the age of 30
there?
Um, there's Max.
That's it.
Yeah.
He is the only member of Congress under 30.
That's gotta be the wackest hang ever.
Absolutely.
He's gotta chill with these fucking people.
Right.
Can you imagine how bad the breath is?
And that's what we're trying to do with Leaders We Deserve is change who is in
government by bringing in a substantial amount of funding to get behind them to
elect people like there's a state senator in Texas who we elected last year by
62 votes.
Uh huh.
She, we gave her $300,000 to support her campaign.
She doesn't take corporate money.
Her name's Molly Cook.
And she defeated a different Democrat who voted not only to arm teachers while
in the state legislature, but voted to give them $25,000