Charles Kushner leaves NYC for Florida, says he won't 'pay taxes' under 'antisemitic' Zohran Mamdani

NEW YORK CITY, NY: Charles Kushner, the father of Jared Kushner and a longtime Trump ally, says he's leaving New York City to become a Florida resident, but he's not cutting ties entirely: he plans to keep his Manhattan apartment and will continue paying the city's pied-a-terre tax on it.

"I don't want to pay taxes and live in a city with a blatantly antisemitic mayor and his antisemitic wife, period," Kushner told The Post. "I also don't want to live in the city with the people who voted for him."

Antisemitism, not economics, driving the decision

Kushner, currently serving as US ambassador to France, framed the move as a lifestyle decision as much as a political statement, saying he's looking forward to what comes next in the Sunshine State.

"I'm going to have a very nice life as a resident of Florida, with a lot of family and a lot of friends that are doing exactly that, have done, and continue to do exactly the same thing," he said.

Kushner did not specify exactly where in Florida he plans to settle, though his son Jared and daughter-in-law Ivanka Trump have lived in the Miami area for several years, and the broader Kushner and Trump families have deep South Florida roots, including President Trump's own Palm Beach County residence at Mar-a-Lago. 

Kushner said his move was driven far more by concerns over hostility toward Jews and Israel than by Mayor Zohran Mamdani's socialist economic agenda.

He pointed to Mamdani's refusal to march in the Israel Day Parade, his push to have Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrested as a "war criminal," his outreach to Columbia University protesters who celebrated Hamas, and comments from first lady Rama Duwaji that Kushner said appeared to celebrate the Oct 7 attacks.

"I don't think you can reason with people that celebrate brutality on October 7 and say it was a hoax," Kushner said.

"I don't think they are people worth talking to. I speak to a lot of people that don't have political views that I have, and there's two sides, and I respect everybody's opinion, but I don't respect anybody that celebrates m****r, r**e, brutality."

A broader critique of Zohran Mamdani's politics

Kushner also connected Mamdani's rhetoric to what he described as a broader resentment toward wealth-builders, citing the mayor's viral attack on billionaire hedge fund manager Ken Griffin over his pied-a-terre tax proposal, in which Mamdani singled out wealthy New Yorkers who "store their wealth in New York City real estate but don't actually live here full time."

Kushner pushed back on that framing directly: "You know, Ken Griffin worked hard to earn all that money," he said. "He took a lot of risk to earn all that money. That's what America's about."

Kushner, a longtime real estate developer and investor, built Kushner Companies into one of the country’s best-known family real estate firms. In 2004, he pled guilty to tax evasion, witness tampering and making illegal campaign contributions but was later pardoned by President Trump.

His eldest son, Jared Kushner, is a former senior White House adviser and Trump’s son-in-law. His younger son, Joshua Kushner, founded Thrive Capital.