Mamdani Lies About Libraries, Hospitals
Plus, New York Times in public fight with transgender former editor who likened A.G. Sulzberger to Bari Weiss
Mayor Mamdani’s inaugural address was so full of deceitful language that even in New York, the media capital of the world, the press hasn’t noticed or called out all the lies. The Editors are based in Boston, but given that the New York City press corps seem overmatched by Mamdani, we will try our best to pitch in.
From the fourth paragraph of Mamdani’s inauguration speech: “I stand alongside countless more New Yorkers watching from cramped kitchens in Flushing and barbershops in East New York, from cell phones propped against the dashboards of parked taxi cabs at LaGuardia, from hospitals in Mott Haven and libraries in El Barrio that have too long known only neglect.”
What in the world is Mamdani talking about when he says “hospitals in Mott Haven and libraries in El Barrio that have too long known only neglect”?
Here’s the reality. The main hospital in Mott Haven, which is a neighborhood of the Bronx, is Lincoln Hospital, whose current building was built in 1976 for $220 million. When it opened, the New York Times said “the new Lincoln is bright with one‐bed and two‐bed rooms, large picture windows and the latest in medical equipment.” In 2010 the hospital won a $5.5 million state grant “to almost double psychiatric inpatient capacity.” Also in 2010 it “spent $600,000 updating the Breast Imaging Center, which now offers the newest technologies in breast cancer treatment and detection and provides a one-stop place where a patient can have a mammogram, ultra-sound and biopsies done without having to leave the protective environment.” In 2014 it opened a $24 million “state of the art” emergency department. In 2020 it won a grant of $884,000 for “state-of-the-art digital X-ray rooms.” In 2023 it won $3 million in federal funds “for improvements to critical care units, including 200 new beds in its Intensive Care Unit.” In May 2025 the city approved a new $12 million substance abuse treatment center there. In July 2025 it announced the completion of a $37 million energy retrofit “focused on upgrading the hospital’s infrastructure with extensive enhancements to the lighting, heating, cooling, ventilation and related control systems.” In August 2025 it completed renovations of its employee lounge, including renovated bathrooms with additional stalls. In November 2025 it completed the renovation of its pathology grossing room. How does $80 million in spending on renovations to a $220 million 50-year-old facility count as “only neglect,” especially when many patients in New York prefer to avoid public hospitals and travel a bit farther to flagship facilities of NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, of NYU Langone, Mount Sinai Hospital, or other academic medical centers?
“Libraries in El Barrio” seems to be a reference to East Harlem, the neighborhood in Manhattan “from East 96th street to East 125th street, from Fifth Avenue to the East River.” Public libraries there include the 125th St. Library, the Aguilar Library, and the 96th Street Library. Recent projects to improve those sites include a $34.4 million renovation, completed in October 2024, of the 125th St. Library and a $15 million renovation of the Aguilar Library, which is underway. When the 125th St. Library reopened, Harlem World magazine wrote, “The third floor’s transformation is nothing short of miraculous. A former custodian’s apartment, long abandoned, now houses a state-of-the-art teen center complete with 3D printers and cozy reading nooks.” How do $50 million in recent renovations qualify as “only neglect”?
There are entire architectural firms, subcontractors, and construction project managers putting their kids through college on the basis of New York City hospital and library capital projects. It seems like you can’t pick up the New York Times arts section without reading some glowingly positive review of some elaborate renovation of some previously obscure branch library, which is somewhat ironic, because book circulation has declined and people now use the libraries for heat and air conditioning, bathrooms, and wi-fi access. You start to wonder whether Mamdani actually is in touch with New York City or if he is just parroting the Soviet-era propaganda about class divisions and entrenched poverty. The New York Times has an entire reporter, Linda Qiu, “who fact-checks statements made by politicians and public figures.” She writes story after story about Trump’s “misleading statements,” while Mamdani gets a free ride.
New York Times in public fight with transgender former editor: The New York Times is moving to distance itself from a former editor, Billie Jean Sweeney, who is faulting the paper for what Sweeney calls an “anti-trans propaganda campaign.”
A January 1, 2026 interview with Sweeney posted on Trans News Network says Sweeney “worked at The New York Times for over a decade, until her retirement in mid-2024, eventually becoming the day assignment editor at the international desk. There, as one of the Times’ few trans staffers, she witnessed the highest echelons of the paper’s management increasingly push anti-trans bigotry and disinformation.” It quotes Sweeney: “I was there about 11 years in total, almost all of it on the international desk. I was the day assignment editor at the time. I’d been the night editor prior to that. The day assignment editor does what you might imagine: to respond to breaking news, to make sure we’re covering things properly, to make sure the stories say what we think they’re going to say, we’re matching up the right reporters with the right editors, etc.”
Sweeney says Times publisher A.G. Suzberger was a driving force in the coverage. “I wrote to Sulzberger directly, because he was the one who animated this, and I still believe that. I think he saw this as a political project, that he could take a stance that the hard right would like, that the Trump campaign might like. Whether it was an explicit agreement [with the Trump campaign], probably not, but this was coverage he knew the right wing would like. And he pursued that, because he thought it was a position — spreading anti-trans discrimination, spreading anti-trans disinformation — was something he could push and most readers would say ‘well I don’t know much about it.’”
“It’s one thing for Bari Weiss, when she was just running the Free Press or whatever, to report this. It’s another thing for The New York Times to report this. I think they put a stamp of legitimacy on medical falsehoods. They also legitimized anti-trans hate, really,” Sweeney says in the interview. “Maybe just reading the Times and subscribing to the Times isn’t really the best investment of your money or your time.”
The Times issued a response headlined “Fact-Checking False Claims About Our Gender Identity Coverage.” (Maybe this is why the Times fact-checkers had no time for Mamdani’s inaugural speech, they were too busy fact-checking the former editor?)
“A recent post from Trans News Network included numerous falsehoods about New York Times stories on gender identity and maligned some of the journalists involved in the work,” the Times response says.
“Our journalists are dedicated toward one aim: fair-minded, fact-based reporting,” the Times statement says. “The post from TNN featured an interview with a former editor on the International desk at The Times who was not involved in these coverage decisions. Despite numerous inaccurate statements, the author conducting the interview did not seek comment or check facts with The Times before publication and has refused to make substantive corrections or include a statement that The Times provided about the interview. Though presented as news, it did not meet the most basic journalistic standards of fairness or accuracy.”
“Here is a small sampling of inaccuracies, which range from easily disprovable facts to wholly invented conspiracy theories: The post claims multiple times without evidence, including in the headline, that upper leadership at The Times issued directives to attack trans people. This is false. It also claims these stories were done to please the Trump administration. This, too, is false,” the Times statement says.
It’s not an obscure issue; President Trump, speaking to Republican members of congress today, listed issues he hoped Republicans would emphasize going into the midterm elections. He talked about “most favored nation” medicine pricing, voter identification, borders, energy, no tax on tips, no tax on overtime, tax-deductible auto loan interest, and “fertilization,” or IVF, which Trump backs. He encouraged Republicans to take the health care issue away from Democrats, who are “all owned by the insurance companies,” and to “let the money go directly to the people, not to the big fat cats in the insurance companies.” Trump also talked about opposing men in women’s sports and opposing what Trump called “transgender for everyone.” Said Trump, mockingly, “We’re gonna change the sex of your child…they don’t tell the parents.” Trump said he’d prefer to save the men-in-women’s sports issue for the last two weeks of the campaign so that the Democrats and the “fake news” don’t have time “to correct themselves.”
Trump seemed more annoyed at the Wall Street Journal— the “so far off the Wall Street Journal,” he called it, “They’ve lost their way. This is not the Wall Street Journal of old”—than at the New York Times. Trump joked with New York Times photographer Doug Mills—“three Pulitzer prizes…make me look thin for a change, Doug.”
Trump told the Republicans he was particularly keen to break the historical pattern of the party that wins the White House loses control of the House of Representatives in the next election. If Democrats win the House, “They’ll find a reason to impeach me. I’ll get impeached,” Trump predicted.
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Probably better to call him willfully ignorant rather than a liar.