Jeffries not yet ready to endorse Zohran Mamdani

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, a New York Democrat, said Sunday he is not ready to endorse Zohran Mamdani, who won the New York Democratic mayoral primary last week.

"We don’t really know each other well," said Jeffries on ABC's "This Week." "Our districts don’t overlap. I have never had a substantive conversation with him. And so, that’s the next step in terms of this process, to be able to sit down, which we agreed to do, in central Brooklyn, discuss his vision for moving the city forward and addressing the issues that are important to the communities that I represent."

At least some Democrats nationally responded with alarm to Mamdani's victory in the primary over former Gov. Andrew Cuomo and others. Mamdani identifies as a democratic socialist, and he's drawn criticism from what has been described as anti-capitalist rhetoric as well as brushes with antisemitism. Jeffries addressed the latter concern.

"With respect to the Jewish communities that I represent," Jeffries said, "I think our nominee is going to have to convince folks that he is prepared to aggressively address the rise in antisemitism in the city of New York, which has been an unacceptable development."

Jeffries also referenced the central issue of Mamdani's campaign, affordability, and used it to criticize President Donald Trump.

"Imagine a country," Jeffries told host Jonathan Karl, "where every single, hard-working American taxpayer can afford to live the good life, work hard, play by the rules, have a good paying job, good health care, be able to afford a home, educate your children, go on vacation every now and then, and one day retire with grace and dignity. The good life. The American dream. That is not accessible to everyone. And so I think it will continue to be important for all of us on the Democratic side to address relentlessly the issue of the lack of affordability in this country."

He added: "Donald Trump promised to lower costs on day one. Costs haven’t gone down."