Even by late-night standards, this was a wild pitch: a “Thumbs-Up or Thumbs-Down” game about the Middle East.
According to a new New Yorker profile of New York City mayoral frontrunner Zohran Mamdani, producers at The Late Show with Stephen Colbert floated the segment idea ahead of Mamdani’s June 23 appearance—a joint interview with fellow candidate Brad Lander that aired the night before the city’s Democratic primary.
Mamdani, who would go on to win the election the following day, was reportedly stunned by the suggestion.
The idea, as recounted by reporter Eric Lach, came after The Late Show received a letter from Jewish leaders urging Colbert to press Mamdani on his views about Israel. One of the signatories, Elisha Wiesel, had publicly called on Colbert to confront what he described as Mamdani’s “antisemitic language.”
In response, producers brainstormed ways to address the controversy on air—landing, briefly, on a “Thumbs-Up or Thumbs-Down” format that would include questions like “Thumbs-up or thumbs-down: Hamas,” and “Thumbs-up or thumbs-down: a Palestinian state.”
“Mamdani’s face dropped,” Lach writes, as his aides became incensed. Senior adviser Zara Rahim reportedly told a producer, “You have the first Muslim candidate for mayor in the history of New York… You don’t want to ask him a question about that?”
Mamdani later told The New Yorker he was “in disbelief” that “a genocide could be distilled into a late-night game.”
Ultimately, the segment was scrapped. When the cameras rolled, Colbert and his guests—who had cross-endorsed each other in the race—ending up engaging in a six-minute discussion about Israel, antisemitism, and how Mamdani would represent Jewish New Yorkers if elected.
The New Yorker reports that a request for comment from CBS about the incident went unanswered.
