Claim:
U.S. Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., read aloud a “trust-fund manifesto” for New York Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani on the Fox News TV show “Hannity.”
Rating:
A rumor that circulated online in November 2025 claimed U.S. Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., appeared with New York Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani on the Fox News TV show “Hannity.” According to the rumor, Kennedy read aloud — to Mamdani’s face — a supposed “trust-fund manifesto” detailing Mamdani’s alleged life of riches.
On Nov. 10, a Facebook user named Kienen-Patricia-Natasja shared (archived) the claim with a collage of photos of Kennedy, Mamdani and conservative commentator Sean Hannity. The post was headlined “KENNEDY READS ZOHRAN KWAME MAMDANI’S ENTIRE TRUST-FUND MANIFESTO ON FOX PRIMETIME – THEN SAYS ‘GO CASH DADDY’S CHECK FIRST, JUNIOR.'”
Other users shared this same story word-for-word on Bluesky (archived), Facebook (archived), LinkedIn (archived), Threads (archived), Truth Social and X (archived).
(Kienen-Patricia-Natasja/Facebook)
The post began as follows:
Sean Hannity thought he was just tossing Kennedy a softball about “defund the police.”
Zohran Mamdani jumped in from split-screen, sneering: “Senator Kennedy is a fossil who needs to do his homework on abolition. Maybe start by paying reparations with his oil money.”
Kennedy didn’t speak for four full seconds. He just reached under the desk, pulled out a gold-embossed folder labeled “ZOH-RENT,” and started reading like he was calling hogs:
“Zohran Kwame Mamdani
Born: $28 million trust fund, Upper West Side
High school: Dalton, $61k/year
College: Bowdoin, full ride named after a slave trader
Rent: $0 – mommy pays the $14k/month Tribeca loft
Security: two off-duty NYPD (the same police he wants abolished) outside his door 24/7
Carbon footprint: 47 private jets in 2024 while lecturing subway riders about climate
Latest bill: ban gas stoves – introduced from his Wolf range kitchen
Quote, last week: ‘No one should own a second home’ – filmed inside his third Hamptons property”
Kennedy closed the folder, looked dead into the camera, and delivered the kill-shot: “Son, I did my homework. I even highlighted the parts where you demand poor kids give up their safety while you hide behind daddy’s armed guards. When you can live one month on an EBT card instead of a Black Card, then come talk to me about abolition. Till then, take your silver-spoon sermons, roll ’em tight, and shove ’em where the trust fund don’t reach.”
The rest of the post claimed the alleged Fox News video clip featuring Kennedy and Mamdani received 134 million views in two hours. The end of the post also said the network “just green-lit ‘Kennedy’s Receipts’ as a weekly segment.”
In short, the rumor was false. No such viral video clip exists, nor did Mamdani ever appear for an interview on “Hannity.” The story featured fabricated details about Mamdani’s life, possibly written with the help of artificial-intelligence tools. A scan of the text with unreliable AI-detection tools produced differing results, with Copyleaks concluding a 100% likelihood of AI-generated content and ZeroGPT displaying a 0% match.
The Kienen-Patricia-Natasja Facebook page’s “page transparency” tab lists at least two of its managers as residing in Vietnam. Snopes previously reported many stories about Vietnam-run Facebook pages promoting fabricated, AI-generated stories about celebrities, politics and tragedies.
We contacted the Facebook page via Messenger to ask about its fabricated content — featuring many other completely fictional stories with writing resembling AI-generated content, as well as AI-generated pictures of Kennedy — and will update this story if we receive more information.
Digging into the rumor
The New York State Assembly website hosts a biography for Mamdani, who serves as an assembly member for a district in Queens. Mamdani was born and raised in Kampala, Uganda, and moved to New York City with his family at age 7.
The West Side Rag blog reported Mamdani said he attended the private Bank Street School for Children, which currently lists tuition for grade school between $66,236 and $68,793, then later the public Bronx High School of Science.
The posts’ mention of Mamdani’s mother paying for his supposed $14,000-per-month Tribeca loft conflicted with credible reporting from The New York Times, which on Nov. 7 detailed Mamdani’s $2,300-a-month one-bedroom apartment recently experiencing a sink leak.
Searches of Bing, DuckDuckGo, Google and Yahoo located no information about Mamdani being the recipient of a $28 million trust fund, nor details about attending the private Dalton School, owning properties in the Hamptons or regularly flying on private jets.
For further reading, we previously investigated many other Mamdani rumors, including one alleging his swearing-in ceremony was abruptly canceled after he refused to take his oath on the U.S. Constitution.
