New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani appeared at a press conference featuring Antonia Marrero, an organiser with the Housing Organizers for People Empowerment tenant union, who stated that evictions constitute a form of 'violence' carried out as standard business practice. Marrero credited the Mamdani administration with empowering tenant organising efforts and enabling residents to reject what she termed the violent nature of evictions.

Conservative observers on social media responded critically to the event, with commentators objecting to the characterisation of evictions as violence and to the mayor's public endorsement of the tenant activist's rhetoric. The backlash highlighted broader disagreement over housing policy framing and whether eviction terminology aligned with the definition of violence.