A billionaire real estate magnate demanded that the ultra-rich be “praised and thanked” in an earnings call reported by Politico on Tuesday — and compared New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s calls to “tax the rich” to racial slurs.
“I must say that I consider the phrase tax the rich — quote tax the rich — when spit out with anger and contempt by politicians both here and across the country, to be just as hateful as some disgusting racial slurs, and even the phrase ‘from the river to the sea,’” said Steve Roth, who runs Vornado Realty Trust.
“Roth decried Mamdani’s recent social media video on a proposed pied-à-terre tax — in which the mayor used [Ken] Griffin’s $238 million second-home as a backdrop — as ‘irresponsible and dangerous.’ Griffin, CEO of the hedge fund Citadel, was offended by the video, and according to The Wall Street Journal, his chief operating officer suggested Citadel may pause its $6 billion plan to develop a Midtown Manhattan office tower with Vornado and Rudin Management,” said the report. “‘We are all shocked that our young mayor would pull this stunt in front of Ken’s home and single him out for ridicule,’ said Roth, who brought up the ‘blunder’ unprompted on the call with investors before launching into a six-minute rant about the mayor.”
Roth previously served as an economic adviser to President Donald Trump in his first administration, and his firm bought out a controversial, failing investment in a Fifth Avenue property by the Kushner family, tied to the Trumps by marriage.
He went on to donate a considerable amount of money to former Democratic New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s rival campaign for mayor, which was widely considered his race to lose before Mamdani won in an upset.
“Roth on Tuesday stressed the significant contributions of the city’s wealthiest residents to its tax base and said these members of the so-called one-percent are ‘not enemies’ and are ‘at the top of the great American economic pyramid for a reason,’” the report concluded.
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