Lydia Moynihan reports Roth compares tax-the-rich slogan to slurs
lydia moynihan reports that Steve Roth, the Vornado Realty Trust CEO, said on a recent earnings call that he considers the phrase “tax the rich” to be “just as hateful as some disgusting racial slurs.” He also called Zohran Mamdani’s decision to film a tax video in front of Ken Griffin’s penthouse “irresponsible.”
Roth’s language lands in a debate already shaped by large wealth figures and public tax proposals. Mamdani is New York’s first Muslim mayor, and he filmed a video announcing a tax on second homes worth more than $5 million in front of Griffin’s penthouse, which sold for $238 million in 2019.
Roth’s earnings call remarks
Roth’s comment was direct. He said, “I consider the phrase ‘tax the rich’ … spit out with anger and contempt by politicians … to be just as hateful as some disgusting racial slurs.” That comparison pushes his criticism beyond policy disagreement and into the language he says politicians are using around wealth.
He tied that criticism to Mamdani’s video, using the word “irresponsible” for the choice of location. The setting was not random in the debate around New York tax policy: it placed the proposed second-home tax in front of one of the most expensive residential properties ever sold in the United States.
Ken Griffin penthouse and tax debate
Griffin’s penthouse was bought for $238 million in 2019, a price described as the highest ever paid for residential US property. Mamdani’s proposal targeted second homes worth more than $5 million, putting a concrete dollar threshold on the political argument Roth was reacting to.
The clash is sharpened by the scale of wealth in the background. An Oxfam report said billionaire wealth jumped by more than 16% in 2025 and has increased by 81% since 2020, while one in four people do not regularly have enough to eat. Oxfam also said billionaires own more than half the world’s largest media companies and all the main social media companies.
Oxfam figures and public reaction
That backdrop helps explain why the fight over the phrase has spread beyond New York real estate and into a broader argument over how wealth is discussed. Kyle Smith, in a column titled “Billionaires Rock,” wrote that billionaires are “denounced, despised and disrespected.” He added: “Our greatest billionaires ought to have statues placed in public squares. Their stories ought to be taught to children as parables of inspiration.”
For readers watching the tax fight, the practical point is that the rhetoric has now moved into open conflict over who gets framed as the target of policy. Roth used his earnings call to push back on the slogan itself, while Mamdani kept the debate focused on second homes above $5 million and the wealth concentrated in properties like Griffin’s.
