It Never Stopped Being Birtherism

Let’s start with the proposition that you should not have to know who Andy Ogles is. It often seems like Andy Ogles doesn’t know who he really is, either. The second-term Republican congressman is a Middle Tennessee George Santos whose partial fabrication of his biography is mostly not compelling enough to summarize here, although I will say that it involves a doughnut shop, a non-existent local governing body, and a dubious proficiency in Russian. In Washington, Ogles does not seem to do much in the way of work. His animating purpose—in addition to staying out of prison—is to say things about President Donald Trump or the Democratic party that might produce a headline that features his words but not his name. But sometimes the things Republican congressmen say are a set-up for other, more important people, to say them too.

Last Friday, a few days after Zohran Mamdani all-but-clinched the Democratic primary for mayor of New York City, Ogles posted on X that the Democratic-Socialist state assemblyman—who was born in Uganda and received his US citizenship in 2018—should be denaturalized and deported on the basis of an old lyric from Mamdani’s rapping days that the congressman argued constituted material support for terrorism. (Like Ogles, I am neither a lawyer nor a “former member of law enforcement,” but: No.) Ogles’s comment was bigoted and insulting and also not how things work, but in the current moment, those are less disqualifiers than they are prerequisites. Citing the Ogles Memorandum, Fox News’ Peter Doocy asked White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt on Monday if Trump believes the Department of Justice should begin the process of stripping Mamdani of his citizenship.

Leavitt gave what is by now the standard Leavitt answer: She couldn’t speak to the specifics, but if what Ogles was saying was true, it’s something the DOJ ought to be looking into.

It was the latest entry in a stunning wave of Islamophobic bigotry against Mamdani. Ogles called him “little Muhammad.” Rep. Brandon Gill (R-Texas) said that Mamdani should “go back to the third world” because he ate with his hands in one video. Fox News legal analyst Emily Compagno said she found it horrifying that Mamdani “won’t condemn the Holocaust”—something he has, in fact, condemned. A Republican on the New York City Council previously called for Mamdani to be removed from the country. The New York Young Republicans Club is selling t-shirts that say “Deport Zohran.” Charlie Kirk invoked the specter of 9/11 and said the US risked “cultural suicide.” Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-New York), the likely Republican nominee for governor of New York, has repeatedly called Mamdani a “jihadist.” New York City Mayor Eric Adams has said Mamdani is “uplifting Hamas.”

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2025/07/zohran-mamdani-birtherism-deportation-trump-new-york-mayor-ogles/