andrew schulz

Andrew Schulz Makes Racist Jokes about Zohran Mamdani, Demands He Kiss the Ring: "Where's That Click-Click Shit?"

Then he argues that in lieu of birthright citizenship, immigrants become indentured servants.

Within the span of a few seconds in today’s episode of Flagrant, Andrew Schulz unleashes a string of crude racist jokes about NYC mayoral contender Zohran Mamdani and then begs, nay, demands that Mamdani sit down for an interview. As with so much else in this horrible little corner of comedy, you really do have to see it to believe it:

Schulz: He's gonna ruin the city, but he’s ready. He’s gonna do it in style and he’s gonna to do it in an accent that nobody with immigrant parents from Queens has ever had. I know accents, I have three. None of them—I have three accents, okay? Most New Yorkers have between two and four accents.

Alexx Media: He is a real New Yorker.

Schulz: No, but this one we don't have here. There is no politician accent in New York.

Akaash Singh: When did he move here? Because he went to school in Uganda or whatever. Probably went to a British school—

Schulz: So where's that click-click shit? Why isn't he clicking? That's what I want. I want him to be frustrated with someone and suck his teeth. Like—[sucking his teeth]—if you do that, if he said that to Cuomo—[to his cohost] Al, you are such a fucking cracker, man. Can't even make African jokes around you, dude. You don't even know what the fuck we're talking about.

Singh: [Unintelligible]—When he was seven. He probably should not have an accent from Ug—

Schulz: I'm pissed off he doesn't have a bowl hanging from his bottom lip. Like, are you from Africa or not? You know what I'm saying? Where is the bowl on your bottom lip, sir?

Gagnon: Yes, dude.

Schulz: [Re: a picture of Mamdani] Look at this guy. Got a regular lip.

Gagnon: He is handsome though.

Singh: I love this guy, dude.

Media: He is handsome.

Gagnon: Between him and Elon, dude, Africans are taking over American politics.

Schulz: Yo, non-African Africans are crushing.

Singh: I mean, they've been ducking us, but I like him.

Schulz: Yo, that is the other thing, because let's put that—

Singh: Cards on the table.

Schulz: No, no, no. Put a nail in it or something like that. Clear the slate, whatever like that.

Singh: Clear the air?

Gagnon: Put a bone in his nose? What are you saying? Wait, what is it? What are you trying to say?

Schulz: Let's put a bowl in the lip right now.

Gagnon: You're being so racist, bro.

Schulz: Let's put a bowl in the lip right now. Listen, let's ring up the neck. Let's ring up that—I don't even know if that's in Africa. I think it might be like an Asian tribal—

Media: I think it's Malaysia. Or Indonesia.

Schulz: Malaysia, alright. Shout out them. Okay, so listen. I've had a lot of people reach out, "Yo, you gonna have Mamdani on?" Yeah, we've been trying to have them on. And Mamdani, maybe your comms people aren't getting back to you or whatever it is, but they've been ghosting us. Initially, I think they were reaching out a lot. You were in touch with them. They were really trying to come on.

Media: Yes, they were.

Schulz: We had to go to Ibiza before they wanted to turn this into expanding the caliphate to New York City… We all went on vacation, and then I come back from vacation and I'm trying to email, I'm texting the comms person, I DM'd them. They gave me a little cold shoulder when I DM’d, and then somebody else in the DMs was like, "Oh, actually, yeah, yeah. We're in touch with some people, blah, blah, blah."

Singh: I tried to get him like a month and a half ago, brown to brown, man to man interview. He wouldn't even, nothing.

Schulz: I'm just saying, this is the biggest podcast in New York City by far. You have the ability to touch all these different people. You're going to do these little live streams and these other things. It probably could be a good idea to come. So maybe Zohran, maybe your people aren't telling you, or obviously things are kind of busy, but if you want it, you want it. It's simple as that. You know what I mean? If you want to be mayor of the greatest city in the world, you gotta get after, you gotta touch everybody.

Gagnon: Yeah, take it from Cuomo. That's how you gotta do it, bro. If you want to win, you gotta touch everybody.

Schulz: We just want to put it out right now so we don't have any of this election shit, right? He's been asked, his people are not getting back to us. They were asking to come on a lot, after the win, they've kind of gone ghost. Win on the primary, they've gone ghost. So Zohran, maybe this will reach you, maybe some—I've also asked other people to go reach out to him, whatever. I don't want to say they're ducking us, but they're ducking us.

Singh: I do.

Schulz: Yeah. So listen, we have a seat right here. We'd love to sit down and talk to you about some of your policies and how you've managed to galvanize white losers to support you and—son, there's no minorities that voted for him. I looked at the demographics.

The group discusses about Mamdani for almost the first half hour of the episode, repeatedly complaining that he hasn’t responded to their outreach and essentially pleading that he come pay tribute to them. (“Nobody can win the general election without coming on Flagrant,” Schulz quips.) Along the way, they make ample false or otherwise incoherent claims about Mamdani’s victory, with Schulz speculating that young people voted for him because they have college loans, and elsewhere stating that Mamdani has called to “globalize the intifada.” He also manages to get in some digs at New York’s Jewish community, claiming that Hasidim vote as a bloc because they have “no individualism.” Then the group has a nice big laugh about the genocide in Gaza:

Singh: Dude, I think it was awesome watching the momentum. He never had a target on his back. He didn't run with a target on his back because nobody saw him as a real threat. So he just got to talk his shit, be spicy.

Schulz: Yeah, he wasn't a baby in Gaza, why would he have a target on his back, dude?

Media: [Cackling] Stop that shit.

Singh: [Cross-talk, laughter] —Because Hamas has headquarters right under that baby. And you have no idea, dude.

Schulz: Did you think that was a diaper station? No. It was a fucking Hamas headquarters. That's not Aquaphor. That's not Desitin. That's not the thing that you need for diaper rash. That's all Hamas headquarters right there. Come on, dude. Don't you know how they make bombs? They use diapers, Desitin and Aquaphor. You mix that together, it's a fucking nuke. We gotta take it out. We gotta take it out.

Somehow these aren’t even the most reprehensible parts of the episode. Much later, discussing last week’s heinous Supreme Court decisions, Schulz & Co. manage to argue both against birthright citizenship, which they don’t understand at a factual level, and for the indentured servitude of immigrants:

Schulz: Yo, not to divert, but are we citizens? Yeah, 'cause the birthright shit is done, right? 'Cause my mom, my mom's a citizen now, but when she had me, she wasn't a citizen… So how do you become an American citizen? Your parents gotta be citizens, and then, if you're born here, through them—what if one of your parent is a citizen?

Singh: Then I think you're good. I think you're good. [Ed. note: They are wrong about all of this. “Birthright citizenship” means anyone born in the US is a citizen, regardless of their parents’ citizenship status.]

Schulz: So at least one of your parents gotta be citizens. Now let me think about this rule. Is this rule that bad? And do other countries operate in the same way?

Singh: The actual Supreme Court ruling, I think was that you can't—an injunction only applies to the people that are suing. So if people are suing President Trump for trying to sign this order, and then a court says, "nope, President Trump can't pass the order, we're going to protect these people that are suing for now," it's only these people. There's no precedent beyond the people that are actually suing.

Schulz: Got it.

Singh: And then it would be state to state. And I think what they're trying to say is, non-US citizens who have kids don't get automatic citizenship now. Now, not just illegals—

Schulz: Oh, the kids. Do the kids get citizenship?

Singh: No, they do not. Just ‘cause you’re born here, if you're born to a non-US citizen—I assume one of them is a citizen, you're okay. But if it's two non—that includes visas, I think that includes a lot of things.

Schulz: There's a part of me that's like, I don't know if it's that crazy, because there are people who will just get pregnant and then, month seven, come to America, you can stay here for three months on a tourist visa, and then you have a kid that's born here, and then they have American citizenship. And they're taking advantage of American citizenship, obviously. And they're not only people that are coming from third-world countries. We're talking about people coming from Europe just so they can stack on, you know American citizenship.

Singh: I know people who do that too.

Media: Then there are people who are here legally, but on a visa. So they're not a citizen, but they're working here.

Singh: I think if it's a work visa—

Media: That kid should be a citizen.

Singh: If you're here on a work visa—

Schulz: We gotta look at your work. Are you doing good work?

Singh: It's like a corporate indentured servitude thing.

Schulz: I feel like if you're working here, if you're working here and then your partner is also on a visa, so you're both working here and then you have a kid, then yeah, that kid should be a citizen.

Singh: Or if you're on a work visa and you're allowed to bring your partner, that kid, if a kid is born here, I think you should be a citizen.

Schulz: I don't think it's crazy that people who just come here when they're nine months pregnant to have a baby and then—

Singh: Yeah, well, I'm not super mad at that. And I get the idea that someone comes here illegally and then has a kid, why is that kid—

Schulz: —and then their whole family gets to stay… Wasn't this to make it so that children of slaves were considered American citizens? I believe it was the 14th Amendment. So the idea was that you are a citizen of the United States of America. And I believe that there are illegals that are taking advantage of that rule that was put in place to give citizenship to—

Dov Mamann, producer: The 13th Amendment stopped chattel slavery. And then the 14th Amendment was basically like, how do we make these people citizens? And the 14th was birthright.

Schulz: Well, so this is actually a really interesting point. So maybe here's a good option, if you want to gain citizenship through, if you want your kid to be a citizen, but you're illegal, you have to be a slave for a little, because that is the 14th amendment. If you're going to use the 14th amendment, which was specifically put in place so that the kids of slaves would get citizenship, you are using that without going through the enslavement. So if you slave it up a little bit, then it should apply to you and your family. But if you're doing it without the whole purpose of it, then it feels like you're taking advantage of a system… I think it depends what we need to get done. Some of these projects, it is going to take a little while.

Singh: What do we need done? What are the big things we need done?

Schulz: We need housing. We need them to build housing.

Singh: That's the Mexicans. That's the Mexicans. All construction projects.

Schulz: Who are the best builders in the world? Should they come here on an indentured servitude term and their kids that they do have end up becoming citizens?

Allow me to state the obvious: these guys are high on their own supply. With Schulz dubbed “America's foremost political journalist” by the New York Times, it’s clear he sees himself and wishes to be treated as a serious media figure. At the same time, he and his cohosts fail to meet any of the basic standards of accuracy or fairness that they themselves critique traditional media for failing to uphold.

I’m not just talking about their racist jokes, although it certainly is lamentable that what would have been a career-shaking scandal five years ago is now just another riff sesh on one of the biggest podcasts in comedy. The horrifying thing is that this cohort is demanding a seat at the table in local and national politics while constantly, proudly declaring its ignorance of the basic principles of democracy—an ignorance that time and again allows them to reason their way into fascism.