Rand Paul didn’t soften his language reacting to Fox News’ report on New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s latest threat against landlords. “Land confiscation is not just un-American,” he wrote. “It’s also the definition of fascism.”
Watch the video below to see Thomas Sowell's view of socialists like Mamdani.
The report Paul was responding to detailed Mamdani calling for “aggressive legal action” against landlords and threatening to transfer ownership of “chronically neglected buildings” to “the community.” That’s not a minor code enforcement crackdown. That’s the mayor of America’s largest city floating the seizure of private property from owners he’s decided haven’t managed it well enough.
Pairing the words “un-American” and “fascism” in the same breath isn’t a contradiction from Paul. It’s the point. He’s arguing that once government starts seizing private property and reassigning it based on political judgment about who deserves to own it, the specific ideological label stops mattering. The mechanism, government force overriding private ownership, is the same regardless of what banner it flies under.
Mamdani’s rhetoric hasn’t been limited to housing either. Paul flagged another example of the same governing instinct when Mamdani posted a message to New Yorkers during a heat wave, writing, “New York: it’s hot out there, and the power grid is working overtime to keep us cool. Set your AC to 78 degrees, turn off lights/electronics you’re not using, and unplug what you can.” Paul’s response was blunt. “Proof that communism is (unfortunately) alive and well.”
That reaction might sound harsh applied to a routine energy conservation request, but Paul’s underlying point tracks with everything else he’s said about Mamdani’s administration. A mayor asking residents to ration air conditioning during a heat wave, while simultaneously threatening to seize buildings from landlords who don’t meet his standards, isn’t two unrelated stories. It’s the same worldview showing up twice in one summer: government deciding it knows better than private citizens how to manage their own property and their own comfort, and being willing to use force or pressure to make that vision happen.
Rand Paul was also asked point blank about comments from Trump’s top trade negotiator, who told a New York Economic Club audience the president would “love a stake in every company that’s doing well.” The interviewer didn’t let it slide either, pointing out that Paul is “a free markets, true capitalism kind of guy,” and that this doesn’t sound like any free market she knows.
Paul didn’t dodge the comparison. He went straight at the hypocrisy. “Yeah, if you’re going to criticize Mamdani for wanting to own the grocery stores, you have to be equal parts critic to any Republican who wants a share of Nvidia, a share of Intel, or a share of U.S. Steel,” Paul said. “It’s a bad idea. It’s a slippery slope. And really, it is heading in the direction of what socialism is, which would be owning all of the means of production. If you only own a percentage of the means of production, it still is a step in the wrong direction.”
He did draw a distinction worth noting. Government negotiating drug prices down for Medicaid and Medicare using its actual purchasing leverage is different, in Paul’s view, from government taking an ownership stake in a private company. “I do think the government should negotiate. We have to negotiate with the full leverage that they have in size for both Medicaid and Medicare,” Paul said, pointing to his own voting record. “As far as bullying companies or taking a percentage of companies, I’m opposed to that... But if it’s just trying to get a better price from Medicaid to pay for drugs, you know, that is taxpayer money. And I think we should get the best deal we can get.”
That’s the consistency worth paying attention to here. Paul isn’t arguing government should never touch the economy. He’s arguing there’s a real line between negotiating a better price with taxpayer money and the government literally owning a piece of a private company, and he thinks Mamdani’s grocery store plan, his threats to seize landlord buildings, his AC rationing request, and a Republican administration’s equity stakes in Nvidia, Intel, or U.S. Steel all land on the same wrong side of that line: government deciding it knows better than private citizens and businesses how their property and decisions should be managed.
If you want the deeper economic case for why that instinct is correct, the great Thomas Sowell made it decades before Mamdani or Trump Rx ever existed. Check out the Thomas Sowell video on socialism and government ownership of the means of production, and if you haven’t already, follow the Thomas Sowell Substack for more.
