Mamdani got the bigger laugh, and he still lost the argument. When Jake Tapper slipped in a shot at the Knicks on the way out of a CNN hit after the midterms, "Just one note, the Sixers have beaten the Knicks twice this season," the mayor fired back: "We've got the pied-à-terre [tax] coming anyway." The clip took off, and Mamdani came off as the quick wit who put the Philly-raised anchor in his place. On delivery, it's a clean win. On the facts, it's a swing at a target his own law doesn't reach.
Give him the setup, because it held up. The Sixers did beat the Knicks twice in the young 2026-27 season before that exchange, once on the road and once at home. Tapper's been loud about his Philly roots his whole public life, he's said he'll be an Eagles, Phillies and Sixers fan forever, and he grew up there. The tweak was earned, and lobbing it at a New York mayor on live TV was a soft toss over the plate. Mamdani didn't whiff. Good for him.
The problem is the pitch he chose to swing at. His punchline only works if you picture LeBron James, now a Sixer, sitting on a fancy New York apartment he barely uses while his real home is somewhere else. That's exactly the setup the pied-à-terre tax was built to punish. The tax hits NYC properties that aren't your primary residence. That's the whole mechanism.
Now look at what's actually been reported about LeBron. He signed with Philadelphia in the summer, and the chatter is that he'd commute from the New York area, maybe live there at least part-time. If New York becomes his primary residence, the pied-à-terre tax doesn't touch him. Nobody's exploiting a loophole. The law is written to skip your first home, and the tax only lands on a second one. Make New York your first home and there's nothing left to tax.
It gets worse for the joke. Reporting this fall says LeBron may not even own a New York residence yet, and you can't tax a pied-à-terre that doesn't exist. His wife and daughter reportedly stayed in Los Angeles. So the guy Mamdani's line was aimed at either owes nothing because he's making New York his home, or owes nothing because he hasn't bought anything to owe on.
Mamdani wasn't even first to the material. Back in July, Gov. Hochul's team had already tagged LeBron "LePied-a-Terre." The mayor grabbed a line that was already circulating among New York politicians and delivered it better than any of them. Delivery was never the issue.
The timing was genuinely sharp. An appellate panel had cleared his administration to resume collecting the tax two days before the interview, so "coming anyway" rode a fresh court win. Even that's shakier than it sounds. Two more lawsuits are still pending, and the constitutionality question is set to be decided next month. "Coming anyway" is a forecast.
Mamdani out-joked a CNN anchor on live television, which is harder than it looks, and he did it with a line that collapses the second you check how his own tax actually works. He used the policy as if it would boomerang on LeBron. It doesn't. Funnier line, weaker logic, and the gap between the two belongs to the man who wrote the law.
