{"id":266081,"date":"2026-06-06T15:59:00","date_gmt":"2026-06-06T19:59:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/06\/complete-hypocrite-mamdani-backed-congress-candidate-slams-billionaires-and-ai-industry-while-raking-in-their-cash\/"},"modified":"2026-06-06T16:20:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-06T20:20:09","slug":"complete-hypocrite-mamdani-backed-congress-candidate-slams-billionaires-and-ai-industry-while-raking-in-their-cash","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/06\/complete-hypocrite-mamdani-backed-congress-candidate-slams-billionaires-and-ai-industry-while-raking-in-their-cash\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Complete hypocrite:’ Mamdani-backed Congress candidate slams billionaires and AI industry while raking in their cash"},"content":{"rendered":"

‘Complete hypocrite:’ Mamdani-backed Congress candidate slams billionaires and AI industry while raking in their cash<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/nypost.com\/2026\/06\/06\/us-news\/complete-hypocrite-mamdani-backed-congress-candidate-slams-billionaires-and-ai-industry-while-raking-in-their-cash\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Publish Date: 2026-06-06 15:59:00<\/a><\/p>\n

Source Domain: nypost.com<\/a><\/p>\n

A Queens pol running for Congress backed by NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani and the rest of the Democratic Socialists of America has repeatedly railed against billionaires and the artificial intelligence industry \u2013 while quietly pocketing their money.<\/p>\n

Democratic state Assemblywoman\u00a0Claire\u00a0Valdez\u00a0\u2013 who is running to replace retiring Rep. Nydia Vel\u00e1zquez \u2013 accepted $7,000 in donations in January from Silicon Valley-based billionaire AI investor and software developer Tom Preston-Werner and his wife Theresa, records show.<\/p>\n

Valdez, 36, has also collected at least another $1,850 in donations from employees of AI companies. And her campaign \u2014 which her latest filings show had taken in $751,680 as of the end of March \u2014 is also being heavily supported by political action committees that have received hundreds of thousands of dollars directly from billionaires and other AI investors, records also revealed.<\/p>\n

State Assemblywoman\u00a0Claire\u00a0Valdez\u00a0(D-Queens) \u2014 who is running for Congress backed by NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani and the rest of the Democratic Socialists of America \u2014 has repeatedly railed against billionaires and the artificial intelligence industry, while quietly pocketing their money. LightRocket via Getty Images<\/span><\/p>\n

Valdez has routinely vowed to take on \u201cthe billionaire class\u201d throughout the campaign and reject donations from people in the AI industry \u2013 and even bragged her team is vetting donations carefully.<\/p>\n

She has also repeatedly tried to tie AI and tech billionaires to what she feels are systemic economic and environmental problems.<\/p>\n

\u201cAI. Fossil fuels. Private utilities,\u201d Valdez posted May 11 on X. \u201cThe same oligarchs creating an affordability crisis are burning the planet. The solution must address both problems at once.\u201d<\/p>\n

The donations aren\u2019t sitting well with some of New York\u2019s most seasoned Democratic operatives.<\/p>\n

\u201cClaire Valdez is a complete hypocrite,\u201d said a top NYC Democratic…<\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

‘Complete hypocrite:’ Mamdani-backed Congress candidate slams billionaires and AI industry while raking in their cash…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":266082,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/06\/crop-39591424.jpg?quality=75&strip=all&w=1200","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-266081","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artificial-intelligence"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266081"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=266081"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266081\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":266083,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266081\/revisions\/266083"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/266082"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=266081"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=266081"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=266081"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}