BROKE BLUES: CNN host surprisingly bashes liberal policies and spending by Democrat cities
CNN host Fareed Zakaria sharply criticized Democrat-led “blue cities” such as New York City and Los Angeles on an episode of his weekly program “Fareed Zakaria GPS,” accusing them of fiscal irresponsibility that prioritizes expansive entitlements over core governance.
The Indian-American journalist and author, long viewed as a centrist voice on the left-leaning network, described the pattern as “out of control,” stating: “Blue cities are out of control, promising more, spending more, delivering less and pushing off the fiscal problems to some future date.”
He singled out New York as “a prime example of a problem Democrats seem unwilling to confront,” highlighting Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s newly unveiled preliminary budget for fiscal year 2027 that balloons to $127 billion—roughly the size of Greece’s or Thailand’s entire national budget—while proposing property-tax increases of up to 9.5 percent.
Zakaria took particular aim at Mamdani’s emphasis on subsidies, noting that New York’s rental-assistance spending has exploded more than fivefold, from $263 million in fiscal 2020 to $1.34 billion in fiscal 2025, yet housing affordability continues to deteriorate. He contrasted this approach with what he called the mayor’s “correct instinct” on affordability, arguing that simply handing out government aid has only driven rents higher.
The CNN host extended his critique to Los Angeles, where the city budgets roughly $950 million annually for homelessness programs yet has seen street homelessness surge 80 percent between 2015 and 2024, and to Chicago, where he warned that oversized pension obligations will “surely bankrupt the city at some point” while the mayor’s approval ratings sit “underwater.”
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Instead of announcing new entitlements such as free buses or expanded child care, Zakaria urged Democratic city leaders to focus on practical governance: safer streets, functioning schools, reliable sanitation, and above all, dramatically increasing housing construction.
“That will bring in more people, expand the tax base, fill the schools and increase local GDP, and that will make the budget affordable,” he said.
He framed the choice clearly for officials in city halls: “Stop governing as if the goal is to announce new entitlements, and instead make government work.”
The segment drew immediate attention from the Trump administration’s rapid-response team, which shared a clip on X, amplifying the rare public rebuke from a prominent CNN voice. New York City Comptroller Mark Levine had already projected a $2.2 billion shortfall for the current fiscal year and a $10.4 billion gap for fiscal 2027—the largest mid-year deficit since the Great Recession—underscoring the very pressures Zakaria described.
The commentary arrives as several major blue cities grapple with post-pandemic budget strains, record migrant costs, and voter frustration over visible failures in public safety and housing, raising questions about whether progressive fiscal models can deliver sustainable results without structural reform.