Posted 28 minutes agoSubscribe to BuzzFeed Daily NewsletterCaret DownThe Latest Conservative Meltdown Over Zohran Mamdani Is Possibly The Stupidest Thing I've Seen In Politics This Year"The Zohran scandals are really piling up. First he takes his wife to dinner. Now he's calling a family elder 'auntie'... monstrous."by Morgan SlossBuzzFeed StaffFacebookPinterestLinkHot Topic🔥 Full coverage and conversation on Politics Note: This post is an Op-Ed and shares the author's personal views. Throughout his NYC mayoral campaign, Zohran Mamdani has faced some pretty wild online attacks, but this whole aunt controversy is the most ridiculous yet. VIEW Press / Corbis via Getty Images Born in Uganda, Zohran is a Muslim man of Indian descent who moved to New York as a child. Social media trolls have complained about each of these points. To recap: People have continuously mocked him for using his hands to eat (despite doing the same thing themselves?). @PeterTwinklage / x.com Then, there was the terrible scandal of Zohran and his wife - gasp! - going out to dinner. @offbeatorbit / x.com BuzzFeed TrendingHot TopicLet's chat about all things PoliticsSee our Politics Discussions And now, conservatives are freaking out over Zohran's family dynamics. Pool / Getty Images While delivering a recent speech on Islamophobia, he said, "I want to speak to the memory of my aunt, who stopped taking the subway after September 11th because she did not feel safe in her hijab." ABC7 / x.com Some people like JD Vance posted their usual ignorant takes... @JDVance / x.com ...but other folks became OBSESSED with Zohran's use of the word "aunt." In perhaps the stupidest gotcha attempt of all time, conservatives are having a meltdown because the woman in question was his father's cousin, not his sister. Google During a Monday press conference, a reporter asked Zohran if the aunt was a blood relative. He replied, "Yes. I was speaking about my aunt. I was speaking about Zehra Fuhi, my father's cousin, who sadly passed away a few years ago. And for the takeaway from my more than 10-minute address about Islamophobia in this race and in this city to be the question of my aunt tells you everything..." Fox / x.com But that wasn't enough for his opponents, who are accusing Zohran of "changing his story." @EricLDaugh / x.com Even Ted Cruz piled on. @tedcruz / Twitter: @tedcruz The whole thing has me looking around and wondering if this is real life. As a Samoan woman and the child of immigrants, I only recently learned that some Americans don't consider their parents' cousins to be their aunts and uncles. When I tell you this blew my mind! For us and many other cultures, it goes by generation. Anyone in my parents' age group (or above) is automatically an aunty or an uncle. Everyone in my generation is a cousin, whether our parents, grandparents, or great-grandparents were siblings. And any of my cousins' kids are my nieces and nephews. BTW, this extends beyond blood relatives! Family friends and many elders are often called aunty or uncle as a sign of respect. Do other people walk around calling their older relatives by their first name?! The amount of trouble I would've gotten in if I tried to do that growing up, LOL. Anyway, I'm not the only one who thinks this backlash is nonsense. Plenty of X (formerly Twitter) users are jumping to Zohran's defense: Editor's Note: While we can't endorse what X has become, we can bring you the worthwhile moments that still exist there, curated and free of the surrounding chaos. "Who calls their father's cousin their aunt??"Literally every brown person. https://t.co/ha8ITQwPeE- Sammy Obeid (@SammyObeid) October 28, 2025 Fox / Twitter: @SammyObeid Twitter: @Kathleen_Tyson_ Twitter: @mehdirhasan Twitter: @dieworkwear Twitter: @CypressDahlia And finally: Twitter: @ravi_mangla What do you think about all this? LMK in the comments below! Want to know if Trump's economy is actually doing as well as he promised? Subscribe to the Economy Hate Watch newsletter and never miss our monthly update. BuzzFeed