Every now and then, someone reminds you that the internet never forgets — even when they desperately wish it would. This week’s lesson comes courtesy of Kaif Gilani, cofounder of “Hot Girls for Zohran,” the slick grassroots campaign that turned socialist Zohran Mamdani from a long-shot candidate into the mayor of New York City.
Gilani’s X account reads like a greatest hits album of everything corporate HR departments have nightmares about. Anti-cop rants. Racial jokes targeting white people. Bizarre accusations against strangers. And the moment reporters started asking questions, posts started disappearing.
Funny how that works.
The Highlight Reel
Let’s walk through it. In May 2020, Gilani bragged about telling a cop to go pound sand during high school track practice. When a teammate said his dad was a cop, Gilani’s response was “fuck your dad too.” Three hundred likes. Very brave. Very edgy. Very much the energy of someone who’s never needed a police officer at 2 AM.
During the George Floyd riots, he predicted that “in 200 years white supremacist kids will be like ‘we are the sons of the cops you couldn’t defund.'” He promoted abolishing the Minneapolis Police Department and shared resources on building a society without police. A society without police, brought to you by a guy who now holds a vice presidency at Citibank — a building that, I’m guessing, has security guards.
On Thanksgiving 2020, he posted that his white girlfriend came to his family’s house knowing she’d tested positive for COVID, “continuing her family’s tradition of killing Indians on the holiday.” Three thousand likes for that one. Nothing says romance like publicly accusing your girlfriend’s entire race of genocide for internet clout.
And when the Daily Caller contacted him about a post where he lectured a biracial person about who’s allowed to use certain words? The post vanished from his feed. Just poof. Gone. Like it never happened — except screenshots are forever.
The Man Behind the Mayor
This isn’t some random troll. Gilani co-created the marketing machine that put Zohran Mamdani in Gracie Mansion. “Hot Girls for Zohran” was everywhere — celebrity endorsements, viral merchandise, a social media operation that mobilized young voters and helped Mamdani knock off Andrew Cuomo in the primary. It was the campaign story of the year.
And one of its architects spent years posting content that, if a conservative had written it, would’ve been a career-ending scandal before lunch.
After the election, Gilani cashed in. He landed a $15,000 consulting contract with Brad Lander’s congressional campaign — the single largest disbursement in Lander’s first FEC filing. When Jewish Insider exposed pro-Hamas content on Gilani’s feed, Lander’s team cut the contract. But the question is why nobody looked before writing the check.
The Citibank Problem
Gilani isn’t just a political operative. He’s a vice president in Citibank’s enterprise data office. That’s a real corporate job at a real financial institution — the kind of place that fires people for far less than what’s sitting on Gilani’s public timeline.
Citibank told Jewish Insider it’s “investigating the matter.” Which is corporate for “we’re figuring out how to handle this without making it worse.” Every company has social media policies. Every company has DEI training that supposedly covers exactly this kind of content. And somehow a VP was posting racial jokes and anti-cop screeds for years without anyone noticing — or caring.
The Defense That Wasn’t
When Jewish Insider gave Gilani a chance to respond, he didn’t address the anti-cop posts. He didn’t explain the racial jokes. He didn’t apologize for any of it. Instead, he pulled the card that every bad-faith actor reaches for when the walls close in: he called it an attack on his Muslim faith.
“I’m grateful for my many Jewish friends who share my opinions. Free Palestine,” he wrote.
That’s not a defense. That’s a deflection wrapped in a talking point. Nobody asked about his religion. They asked about years of inflammatory posts that targeted cops, white people, and anyone who didn’t meet his personal standards of racial authenticity. Playing the faith card when caught posting garbage is the rhetorical equivalent of pulling the fire alarm during a test you didn’t study for.
The Double Standard
Imagine for one second that a conservative political operative had a feed full of racial jokes about any group, anti-cop rants, and posts mocking their partner’s ethnicity. They’d be unemployed by noon. The story would lead every cable news broadcast. Their candidate would be forced to disavow them publicly.
But when it comes from the left? Consulting contracts. Corporate titles. Celebrity-endorsed campaigns. And when it finally blows up, a statement about religious persecution and a quiet delete button.
The rules only apply in one direction. And Kaif Gilani just proved it again.