Comedian Pete Davidson, a Staten Island native, questioned whether Mayor Zohran Mamdani has any real connection to the borough, telling Variety in a recent interview he doesn’t believe the mayor is “Staten Island” at heart.
“Zohran Mamdani … is he Staten Island? I don’t know,” Davidson said. “I don’t think he’s from Staten Island.”
Davidson, 32, went back and forth on whether Mamdani had “Staten Island’s heart” before concluding he didn’t think so. “I don’t have a problem with the guy, but I definitely don’t think he’s Staten Island at all. Staten Island’s the only red place in New York, and it’s violently red,” he said.
He described his own family’s politics as not extreme, saying, “You know, most of my family is, you know, on the red side. It’s not that, like, storm the capital vibe. It’s more just like, ‘[Trump is] funny. Like, I don’t care. I just need something different.'”
Davidson added that Staten Island politics has its own distinct culture. “Like, it’s not like a racist, misogynistic sort of thing, it’s just like … it’s 1985 over there. You are not a real Staten Island politician unless you have a secret family and know one mobster,” he said, adding, “I would not trust you to run Staten Island.”
A running bit about the BQE
The comments follow an appearance Davidson made last week on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!,” where he pressed the mayor, through Kimmel, to address the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, a major city highway long criticized for congestion and crumbling infrastructure.
When Kimmel mentioned Mamdani was booked as the next guest and asked if Davidson had a question for him, Davidson didn’t hesitate. “Yes, could he fix the f—ing BQE, please?” he said in a clip shared on the show’s Instagram page, drawing loud cheers from the studio audience.
“The BQE has been under construction since before I was born. And here’s my problem with it,” Davidson said. “They’re never doing anything. Someone’s just standing there eating a sandwich or on the phone, and there’s all these cones around.” He added, “So I don’t know what mob front or whatever, who’s getting money from whatever, but just fix it, please.”
Kimmel later put the question directly to Mamdani during his own appearance on the show, relaying that Davidson sees no progress on the highway and that it’s “been like since before he was born.”
Mamdani responded by pointing to his office’s BQE Central Project, a $4 billion plan to rehabilitate the city-owned stretch of the expressway between Atlantic Avenue and Sands Street, with construction expected to begin in 2030.
“We’re going to be putting a multibillion-dollar plan to actually repair the part the city owns,” Mamdani said. “Which is the part that is currently the most at risk and that’s going to be proceeding over the next 10 years. Full safety. No diversion of traffic into local neighborhoods and actually bring it back.”
Kimmel joked in response, “So you’re saying Pete’s daughter will also be complaining about this,” prompting laughter from Mamdani and the audience.
