Comedy Central’s Jon Stewart welcomed New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani to Wednesday’s taping of The Weekly Show podcast to continue his bizarre new habit of admitting the DSA radicals are nuts but also not caring. According to both Stewart and Mamdani, democratic socialism isn’t worth freaking out about because it is basically the same thing as your local library or fire department. Yet, Stewart also didn’t know why people were freaking out over Mamdani’s embrace of price controls.Stewart asked Mamdani about the reaction to the rise of “democratic socialism” and wondered why it was so negative, “So in some respects, is it about the priorities that you have are about quality of life for those, even if they don't make —  because universal pre-K or universal child care, or those kinds of things, you know, de Blasio might have brought that up or, you know, it's not something that—I think that the caricature of democratic socialism is that you're a different, it's a completely different ideology than those that we have seen, or is it perhaps just a different nomenclature than we've seen?” Jon Stewart claims "I think that the caricature of democratic socialism is that you're a different, it's a completely different ideology than those that we have seen or is it perhaps just a different nomenclature than we've seen?"Zohran Mamdani then answers that he's no… pic.twitter.com/nmuEMAsU7F— Alex Christy (@alexchristy17) July 23, 2026 Mamdani began to respond, “I think part of it is that words have lost their meaning over time.”Stewart then interrupted to better articulate his original question, “There we go. That's— this is where I'm getting to is, is it really about the labels?”Mamdani agreed, “I think if you go back to some of the Democrats that we most admire: FDR, LaGuardia, you will see a lot of democratic socialist principles in their vision. And if you think about a lot of what we've come to accept as just the facts of life across our country, a lot of it is also still driven by democratic socialist principles.”He then tried to sanitize his radical program by claiming, “Now if today, you and I were to introduce the idea of a building that lends out books for free, we would be slandered in the same way that so many new ideas are slandered today. And yet that's the library and the same thing with the fire department, the same thing with public schools.”Mamdani also tried to claim the city's subway system as socialism in practice, “I think at its best, the New York City subway is an illustration where no matter how much money you have in your pocket, you understand that if you want to get from point A to point B, best way is to get on that train.”Of course, when people warn of the rise of the DSA, they are not talking about the belief that every city needs a fire department. They are talking about more radical ideas like price controls, which is what Stewart wanted to hype. Later on in the interview, he wondered, “So what about what you're trying to deliver has been slightly more complicated than what you thought it would be, you know, we can walk through it. Housing. So you were able to get through a rent freeze, a two year rent freeze, yes?” From the fire department to price controls, Stewart later hypes "So you were able to get through a rent freeze, a two year rent freeze, yes?" pic.twitter.com/8n1Hi9D0F7— Alex Christy (@alexchristy17) July 23, 2026 Mamdani misleadingly replied, “Yeah. The independent Rent Guidelines Board established a two year rent freeze for over two million New Yorkers who live in rent-stabilized housing.”On the very day this episode was released, a collection of landlords sued, claiming the independent board’s decision wasn’t actually that independent and alleged Mamdani unduly influenced the decision that could break their bottom lines.For his part, Stewart tried to have it both ways, “Right. And again, not when they — people immediately cried communism, it's not unprecedented. The two years is unprecedented, but this has been done for one year by other mayors.”On Monday’s episode of The Daily Show, Stewart admitted that DSA radicals are out of touch on some issues such as abolishing prisons or the border. Later in the episode, he brought that up with Mamdani, who claimed that different socialists have different opinions. That is the real answer to Stewart’s question of why the DSA has gotten the reaction it has. It is not that people are overly concerned about how much it will cost to take the bus in New York. It is positions that are so extreme, even Jon Stewart can’t avoid talking about them. The fact that Stewart is aware of the problem but chooses to minimize it or ignore it says more about him than it does the people responding to the rise of the DSA. Jon Stewart asks Mamdani if he's comfortable with DSA 'abolish prisons and borders' positions.Mamdani: "If you have more than one socialist in a room and there isn't disagreement, then you don't have more than one socialist in a room.""'I'm comfortable with disagreement." pic.twitter.com/Qn9VoOOO5P— Western Lensman (@WesternLensman) July 22, 2026 Here is a transcript for the July 22 show:Comedy Central The Weekly Show7/22/2026JON STEWART: So in some respects, is it about the priorities that you have are about quality of life for those, even if they don't make —  because universal pre-K or universal child care, or those kinds of things, you know, de Blasio might have brought that up or, you know, it's not something that—I think that the caricature of democratic socialism is that you're a different, it's a completely different ideology than those that we have seen, or is it perhaps just a different nomenclature than we've seen?ZOHRAN MAMDANI: I think part of it is that words have lost their meaning over time. STEWART: There we go. That's— this is where I'm getting to is, is it really about the labels? Is—MAMDANI: I think if you go back to some of the Democrats that we most admire: FDR, LaGuardia, you will see a lot of democratic socialist principles in their vision. And if you think about a lot of what we've come to accept as just the facts of life across our country, a lot of it is also still driven by democratic socialist principles. Now if today, you and I were to introduce the idea of a building that lends out books for free, we would be slandered in the same way that so many new ideas are slandered today. And yet that's the library and the same thing with the fire department, the same thing with public schools. And it's to say that a lot of politics has been a debate about who deserves what? And I would prefer a politics that debates how we can deliver that to everyone. And to deliver it at a standard that is so good that no matter how much money in your pocket, you opt for that. And I think at its best, the New York City subway is an illustration where no matter how much money you have in your pocket, you understand that if you want to get from point A to point B, best way is to get on that train.…STEWART: So what about what you're trying to deliver has been slightly more complicated than what you thought it would be, you know, we can walk through it. Housing. So you were able to get through a rent freeze, a two year rent freeze, yes?MAMDANI: Yeah. The independent Rent Guidelines Board established a two year rent freeze for over two million New Yorkers who live in rent-stabilized housing. STEWART: Right. And again, not when they — people immediately cried communism, it's not unprecedented. The two years is unprecedented, but this has been done for one year by other mayors.MAMDANI: Yeah, they have done it in the past. Yeah.