Episode 450 · The Studio Revamp
Zohran Mamdani, Political Rage, & The Hunt | The Tim Dillon Show #450
with Zohran Mamdani
Jun 28, 2025 · 1:11:37 · 741,000 views · 25 segments, 136 moments indexed
Tim shares his thoughts on the New York City Mayor hopeful Zohran Mamdani.
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- 3 min
Cold Open: Osama bin Laden for NYC Mayor
#Tim opens with a bit congratulating a fictional mayoral candidate 'Osama bin Laden' who returns to New York to offer free buses and government grocery stores, riffing on the cost of living and 9/11.
8moments
- Tim announces Osama bin Laden as the Democratic mayoral candidate for New York City.
- Tim notes bin Laden's ambition: he attacked the financial capital, hid out, then returned noticing how expensive lunch had become.
- Bin Laden's fictional campaign pitch: acknowledging the Twin Towers attack while reminding New Yorkers of cheaper living costs in 2001.
- Tim describes what $20 could buy in 2001 when bin Laden attacked the World Trade Center—smokes, cocktail, weed, and a burrito.
- Tim imagines bin Laden justifying the attack to his audiences based on geopolitical grievances: troops in Saudi Arabia and U.S. support for Israel.
- The premise: even while watching people jump from those buildings, bin Laden thought he might return one day and give them free buses.
- Tim summarizes the fictional campaign: Osama returns to offer free buses, government-run grocery stores, and rid the city of police.
- Tim clarifies he's joking about Osama bin Laden being a mayoral candidate.
- 2 min
Zohran Mamdani Isn't Bin Laden (But Republicans Can't Attack Him Right)
#Tim clarifies the bin Laden bit was satire, then argues Republicans fumble attacks on Mamdani by invoking 9/11, since everything post-9/11 was a disaster, undermining their own point.
5moments
- Osama bin Laden was a CIA asset we pretended lived in Pakistan, then sent Navy Seals to kill him, and now all the members of Seal Team Six are supposedly dead.
- Bin Laden is not the nominee — comparing Zohran Mamdani to him is a stretch, especially given how much about 9/11 remains unknown.
- Tim supports cooling down immigration, a settling-in period rather than open acceptance — like when you let a houseguest get situated.
- This isn't a defense of radical Islam or immigration, both things Tim dislikes.
- The official story that a couple of guys in a cave didn't like us doesn't hold up; something else is afoot if you have an education beyond fifth grade.
- 3 min
The Pentagon Pizza Index and War as Purpose
#Tim riffs on how the Pentagon staying late to order pizza is a tell for imminent military action, imagining an absurd pizza-ordering call intercut with a supposed strike on Iran.
5moments
- Republicans attacking Zoran Mama fail because invoking 9/11 reminds people everything after it was terrible.
- War gives people in government something to do and a sense of purpose.
- The Pentagon Pizza Index: military planners ordering late-night pizza signals when the government may drop bombs or go to war.
- Tim jokes through a detailed scenario of Pentagon officials debating pizza deals while planning military strikes on underground targets.
- JD Vance is still working for the government, or at least might be.
- 1 min
Tim reacts to a JD Vance Fox News clip about a shifting Iran deal draft, mocking the 'he's always working' talking point and joking about Vance and Tulsi Gabbard's unclear roles in the administration.
2moments
- JD Vance on Fox News says what he likes about Trump is that he's always working, despite admitting the Iran deal draft he saw was different from what was discussed.
- Tim speculates Trump is only tangentially involved in his own administration and jokes that Tulsi Gabbard is doing something but probably isn't allowed in the building.
- 4 min
Mamdani's Platform: Free Buses, Grocery Stores, and Mental Health Deescalation
#Tim describes Mamdani's proposals — free buses, government grocery stores, sending mental health teams instead of police — and imagines an absurd deescalation scenario with a man about to light someone on fire on the subway.
8moments
- Tim defends Tulsi Gabbard and asks why she won't name specific dark forces pushing toward war.
- The administration rewrote the draft between the president showing it to him and airtime, but he knew it was coming.
- Tim praises the president for always working, even when the vice president is doing an interview—keeping busy while others run interference.
- Republicans don't realize that attacking Zoron Mamdani—an attractive, energetic young person with unconventional ideas—can backfire.
- Free grocery stores and free buses sound reasonable until you consider where homeless people would go: if buses were free, he'd just ride them all day if he were homeless.
- Mamdani's mental health deescalation plan would send compassionate professionals instead of police to subway crises like someone lighting another person on fire.
- Tim questions whether intellectual deescalation works on someone screaming and violent—asking a man about to set a woman on fire to explain his reasoning.
- The threat of lethal force is sometimes necessary; talking someone out of lighting an innocent woman on fire may not address the core problem.
- 2 min
The Government Grocery Store Bit and Gluten Allergy Twist
#Continuing the deescalation riff, Tim imagines the violent man being walked to a government grocery store, sampling hummus cups, and it being revealed his rage was actually an undiagnosed gluten allergy.
4moments
- Tim on apartment buildings as vertical money laundering units used by rich guys who don't live there and pay no taxes.
- Authorities calm down the angry man by validating his grievances about healthcare, women's treatment, and trans people of color.
- The government-owned grocery store is offered as a solution, featuring portion-controlled hummus cups from a Jewish girl with big glasses.
- The man's violent subway urge turns out to stem from a gluten allergy he wasn't metabolizing.
money launderingtrans people of color
- 1 min
Getting Pulled Over on Long Island and Distrust of Cops
#Tim tells a story about getting pulled over for speeding out to Southampton in his Bentley, riffing on class resentment from police, then pivots to comparing Democrat-run cities like Chicago and their teen flash mobs.
4moments
- Tim got pulled over doing 87 on Long Island and refuses to support the police, directing donations to the fire department instead.
- He claims being pulled over in a Bentley is class warfare—cops target him because of the car while everyone else speeds.
- During the stop, the trooper asked where he lives; Tim answered he has no idea and told them to just write the ticket.
- Tim pivots to acknowledging Democratic-run cities like San Francisco, Portland, and Detroit haven't produced great outcomes, though he expresses uncertainty about the direction things will take.
New York State TroopersChicagoSan FranciscoDetroitPortlandSeattle
- 1 min
- 4 min
Mamdani's Coalition: Educated People Whose Degrees Didn't Pay Off
#Tim analyzes Mamdani's base as highly educated but underpaid people frustrated their degrees didn't translate into income, especially in media and entertainment fields hit by layoffs.
5moments
- Tim explains Zoran Mamdani won over everyone making over $100,000 a year by appealing to educated people whose degrees didn't translate to income.
- A generation was promised that college and education were the route to comfort and security, then graduated into alarming debt.
- These educated people moved to cities for jobs in finance, tech, and media, only to watch those industries hemorrhage positions.
- Mamdani's coalition is higher educated and higher income by the numbers, but not high enough to feel rich in New York.
- Tim acknowledges Mamdani is correct about wealth inequality in America and specifically in New York.
- 4 min
Populism, Colonizer Narratives, and Racial Grievance
#Tim compares Trump's populist coalition to Mamdani's, arguing both are fairness movements but Mamdani's is wrapped in a selective 'colonizer' narrative applied inconsistently to white nations versus others.
8moments
- Trump built his coalition around fairness and populist nationalism against elites in media and education.
- Mamani's populist uprising targets elites differently—not the billionaires because many in media support him.
- Tim pitches supporters on sending care packages with bagels and scallion cream cheese instead of money.
- The Mamani camp's populist rage is directed at rich people, white people, and Jewish people—not trans issues in schools.
- Bannon called the Gaza situation a referendum on Netanyahu, but Israel's actions have inflamed sentiment against Jews worldwide.
- The colonizer narrative applied by Mamani supporters treats all white settler colonial projects—America, UK, France, Israel—the same way.
- Under this worldview, violence by groups perceived as non-white gets justified or ignored, while Western actions are condemned.
- If history is being litigated, supporters ignore pre-18th century colonialism and don't discuss colonial projects in the Far East or by Muslim nations.
- 1 min
Tim reads Mamdani's housing policy pledge to shift tax burden to richer and whiter neighborhoods, calling it explicit racial grievance embedded in policy.
3moments
- A NYC housing policy document pledges to shift tax burden from outer boroughs to richer and whiter neighborhoods.
- Tim: the racial framing of the tax proposal is undeniable—it's about racial grievance, not just economic inequality.
- Tim questions why the proposal includes 'whiter' in the language instead of just targeting wealthier neighborhoods.
Mamani
- 4 min
Racial Humor, Corporate Naivety, and Why AOC Would Lose
#Tim argues Mamdani's base has mostly worked only in corporate America or college, missing out on working-class racial humor bonding, and explains why AOC couldn't detach populism from racial grievance the way Mamdani's coalition does.
7moments
- People who opposed racial humor during 2020 had never worked shitty jobs where coworkers bond over racial ribbing—they only know corporate America or college.
- Running AOC would lose because she can't separate populism from racial grievance the way winning candidates do.
- The winning message is that things aren't fair and people can't live—Republicans should note this instead of looking out of touch like Cuomo.
- Cuomo looks like a diner owner in Carl Place stammering about going to Israel; he needs to read the room and focus on broke New Yorkers' actual concerns.
- Black people are owed more than any group in America and have gotten less, yet the Democratic Party has shifted focus to Latinos, immigrants, Jews, and Muslims.
- Black voters know the Democratic Party has moved on from them—they understand the coalition being built doesn't include them and voted for Cuomo accordingly.
- Democrats are constructing a coalition of coastal, college-educated white people and illegal immigrants, deliberately excluding black Americans.
- 1 min
Cuomo's Bad Optics and the Democrats' Coalition Without Black People
#Tim describes Cuomo looking out of touch amid allegations, then argues the modern Democratic coalition has effectively moved on from Black voters in favor of educated white people and immigrants.
4moments
- The Democratic coalition is educated white people, LGBTQ folks, and immigrants—not black people.
- Hochul wants to Trump-proof New York over federal funding cuts, but Tim distinguishes between opposing ICE raids and deporting criminals.
- When deportations involve families, the narrative ignores that criminals have wives and kids—like a man wanted for attempted murder with a pregnant wife.
- Tim pushes back on the "he's a father" defense by noting that Putin is also a father.
- 2 min
Tim reads a sponsor ad for Kickoff, a service for building credit with small monthly payments and no interest.
2moments
- Tim says he built his credit years ago and wishes he had Kickoff back then.
- Tim tells listeners to stop building credit like a little dirt bag and start using Kickoff instead.
- 4 min
Old Dangerous New York vs. Boring Raising Cane's New York
#Tim contrasts nostalgic stories of dangerous old New York (a Rockette stabbed in Central Park) with a modern, bland story about waiting in line at Raising Cane's, spiraling into a dark fantasy about a plane crash at Newark airport.
8moments
- Tim has lived in New York on and off, watched it become increasingly expensive, boring, and corporate.
- People nostalgic for dangerous old New York never actually lived through it—they're remembering a time when rockettes got stabbed in Central Park.
- Old New York stories were genuinely memorable: getting blown in a CBGB bathroom, waking up in a stranger's apartment, smoking with someone who talked about Buddhism, then seeing a rockette with a butcher knife in her back.
- Modern New York stories are bland by comparison—complaints about crowded Raising Cane's in Times Square and delayed Broadway shows.
- Tim's trip ended with a four-hour flight delay at Newark, where he sat scrolling his phone, wondering if he felt anything.
- Sitting at Newark airport, Tim fantasized about a plane crashing through the terminal and questioned whether he would feel anything dying.
- Tim spiraled into existential thoughts about death, wondering if his disconnection from life was punishment for not eating at Raising Cane's.
- The conclusion: modern life has become bland, predictable, and boring because people no longer feel anything except through politics.
New YorkRaising CanespoliticsRudy GiulianiNewark airportCBGB
- 2 min
Nobody Feels Anything Anymore Except Politics
#Tim argues modern life, sex, and dating have become sanitized and passionless, using his sister's stalled relationship as an example, concluding politics is the only outlet left for real feeling.
6moments
- Tim argues that people no longer feel genuine messiness and physicality in sexual relationships.
- The perfect has become the enemy of the good—everyone pursuing hyper-specific fantasies instead of raw connection.
- In the seventies people just had sex without self-consciousness, even on cab rides on the West Side Highway.
- Tim's sister dates a guy for three years with no proposal despite 90 vacation opportunities to do it.
- The sister claims she's letting him go at his own pace, but Tim questions whether he's even planning to propose.
- People get excited about politics because it gives them a chance to make other people feel pain.
- 4 min
Political Rage as the Only Remaining Pleasure
#Tim expands on how rage has replaced genuine fulfillment in a corporate, medicated society, then criticizes a comedian who dressed as murdered UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson's ghost for a roast joke as morally sick.
10moments
- Both left and right want other people to feel pain—that's the political impulse.
- People pursue rage because traditional sources of satisfaction—sex, family, success, money—have been sanitized and ruined.
- Rage and anger deliver a more immediate hit than building something slowly that might be valuable.
- When Trump won, people called their kids saying 'He's back in town'—it's the rage that keeps people going.
- College-educated people living in boxes, scrolling dating apps on MacBooks while medicated find happiness only in rage.
- A society celebrating violence in sporadic bouts will degenerate into meaninglessness glorified by different groups.
- Tim's mother died in a public institution that wouldn't pay for her medication to save money in a profit-driven system.
- A successful comedian dressed as the ghost of the killed healthcare CEO and roasted him weeks after his death.
- It's immoral and sick to do jokes about a dead man for almost no money when you're already rich and successful.
- That comedian didn't have to do it—he's incredibly rich, successful, and smart, but the moral code's gone.
- 3 min
Envy, $29 Sandwiches, and Who Democrats Actually Serve
#Tim admits to his own envy of finance guys in his building, argues New York breeds envy because of ultra-wealthy residents, and separates his critique from genuinely underserved Black and working-class New Yorkers.
5moments
- Tim isn't interested in the left-right framing of the Brian Thompson CEO story; it's all the same cycle of who gets in first.
- The real political story is the envious college-educated people paying $29 for sandwiches in New York, angry they have to take orders from bosses.
- He distinguishes between people who genuinely need help and the envious educated class—Democrats don't actually help Black communities whose degradation they're responsible for.
- Tim admits he's envious too and says anyone who claims they aren't is lying—he envies finance people making more money in his own building.
- New York City breeds envy because the world's richest people live there, and they insult you in different languages and accents from all over the globe.
- 3 min
Wishing for a Functional America (and a Christian Politician for Once)
#Tim hopes Mamdani restores affordability without racial scapegoating, jokes about wanting a native-born Christian politician for once, and calls for society to return to basic functionality, segueing into a list of his fictional luxury properties.
6moments
- Tim outlines what would make a new mayor's tenure good or bad for the city.
- Christians who live in America should hold some political office too.
- Tim acknowledges the desert tribes are always fighting religious wars, and finds it tiring.
- America shouldn't be a place where these groups are just warring all the time.
- Society has to return to being functional, not an algorithm-driven cash grab for grifters.
- Tim lists all his homes across the country and world, leading into a mattress ad for Helix.
- 1 min
Tim reads the Helix Sleep ad, joking about the brand's sleep quiz results before giving the discount code.
4moments
- Tim recommends the Helix Midnight Deluxe as his favorite bed.
- Taking the Helix sleep quiz told him he died three years ago.
- Tim says Helix listeners report it's the best bed product he's advertised.
- Exclusive offer for Tim Dillon Show listeners: 25-27% off sitewide on Helix.
- 2 min
Tim reacts to a news headline about $29 sandwiches fueling socialism, recommends a real sandwich spot, then explains using the prediction market app Kalshi to bet on the NYC mayoral race.
6moments
- Tim on $29 ham and cheese sandwiches pushing New York toward socialism.
- Best sandwich in New York is the chicken club with American cheese from My Hero.
- Kalshi betting app lets you create custom bets, including who wins the NYC mayoral race.
- Wealthy NYC donors like Bill Ackman want to dump Eric Adams and replace him with someone else.
- Tim imagines Adams winning, then trolling everyone by showing up in a yamaka saying "just kidding."
- Politics needs fun, twists, and turns like a good show, not just serious discourse.
- 3 min
The Zoran 'Gotcha' Fantasy and Eric Adams Doing Blow
#Tim imagines Mamdani staging a fake MAGA/Muslim reveal switcheroo with Israeli flags as a joke, then jokes about Eric Adams' cocaine use and reviews the Kalshi odds for the mayoral race.
5moments
- Zoran Mamić fantasy: he's revealed to be pro-Israel all along, dancing in Tel Aviv after admitting he was never actually Muslim.
- Tim argues Eric Adams is perfect as NYC mayor precisely because he's just doing cocaine in nightclubs instead of weighing in on geopolitics.
- Eric Adams is concerned with the price of drugs in America—the ones he's taking.
- Tim uses the betting website regularly for small money, finding it fun to play around with the predictions.
- Comparison between catchiness of Muslim music and desert peoples' music; America works differently than other cultures despite the difficulty in making it all function.
- 11 min
Tim reacts to news of Norwegian Prince Marius Borg Høiby being charged with rape, spinning an elaborate invented tradition of European royal families holding ritual human hunts on their castle grounds, with the prince being scolded for not waiting for the sanctioned hunt.
11moments
- Tim defends the Norwegian prince's appearance, asking if he really looks like someone who would rape three people.
- The Glee documentary is depressing: one cast member is a pedophile, others kill themselves, someone dies in a lake.
- European royalty holds castle parties in basements where workers and children are forced to strip and run through the woods.
- Tim describes the hunt ritual: the elite chase and kill runners, with elderly royals watching and receiving victims brought to them.
- The prince grew up in a system of organized human hunts, but at least the old generation had discipline about when to hunt.
- Tim insists the castle human hunts are real and probably still happen, calling them well-organized annual festivals.
- When the prince's parents tell him to stop, he should respond that they were hunting and killing people in front of him as a child.
- European royalty hunts humans, rapes, tortures, and eats them on special occasions, but parents need to teach kids it's only a holiday, not everyday behavior.
- Modern European royals have no real power thanks to the EU, so the hunt is their only source of feeling powerful.
- Tim advises Marius to wait until the hunt instead of raping random people, comparing it to a hungry dog running farthest before a meal.
- Tim urges the prince not to ruin the hunt experience with casual sexual assaults beforehand, treating it like eating snacks before dinner.
Marius Borg HoyGleeCory MonteithEuropean royalty
- 5 min
Wishing Mamdani Well and the Two Populisms Closing Thought
#Tim closes by wishing Mamdani, New York, and Trump well, arguing everyone should find happiness outside political rage while laying out his theory that American politics will be shaped by two competing populist movements aimed at financial and cultural elites.
9moments
- Tim wishes Mamdani well despite his complicated feelings about New York City.
- In closing: sometimes old dogs have to be put down, like Andrew Cuomo.
- People who took out massive student loans and moved to expensive cities were told they deserved more—they don't, Tim says, they're just normies.
- Tim wishes Zoron well and hopes the city thrives, despite wishing he could avoid involvement with Iran.
- You have to find things that make you happy outside of political rage—jealousy and envy work too.
- The future of American politics will be written by two opposing versions of populism: one targeting financial elites, the other also blaming cultural elites.
- Tim describes himself being hunted in a Belgian castle, embarrassingly slow, with peasants needing to be killed just to give him a chance.
- American peasants have turned and are now hunting the elites, who've split into two factions blaming each other for starting the hunt.
- The class war has two opposing populist versions competing to define American politics going forward.
Andrew CuomoNew York CityDonald TrumpIlhan OmarZohran MamdaniWe wish them well
- 1 min
Closing Riff: Peasants Hunting the Castle Elites
#Tim closes with an extended metaphor imagining himself failing at the royal hunt while declaring that in American politics, the peasants have turned and are now hunting the elites, who blame each other from their balconies.
1moment
- Tim closes the segment by saying goodbye and wishing the audience good luck with hunting.