Fox News host Sean Hannity joined forces with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to urge a mass exodus from New York City to the “free state of Florida” in the wake of Democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani‘s mayoral election win.
Hannity, 63, welcomed DeSantis onto his primetime show on Nov. 4, moments before Mamdani, 34, was declared the winner of the 2025 election, beating independent candidate Andrew Cuomo and Republican Curtis Sliwa.
However, the writing was very much on the wall when the two men began their on-air conversation, with Hannity confessing that he was “literally in tears” and “having a hard time keeping a straight face” at the prospect of Mamdani becoming mayor.
The Fox News host—who relocated to Florida from New York in January—said that his “funny friends” had been flooding his phone with memes about the dire state they believe the city will descend into as a result of Mamdani’s win and how that might push a wave of city dwellers to relocate to the Sunshine State.
“Joining me now from the free state of Florida, Governor Ron DeSantis, my governor,” Hannity began. “I’m literally in tears, I’m having a hard time keeping a straight face, only for this reason: I have really funny friends and my funny friends are sending me … one is a meme of the Statue of Liberty sitting down, smoking a cigarette, [saying], ‘Eff it, I’m going to move to Florida.’
“The other one has a picture of Mamdani and it says, ‘Realtor of the year in the state of Florida.’ It’s cracking me up.”
DeSantis then took a jab at actress—and former Florida resident—Rosie O’Donnell, who relocated to Ireland at the start of the year, joking that he is grateful Hannity isn’t planning to make the move himself.
“If it was a trade where Florida had to give up Hannity in exchange for Rosie O’Donnell, I would veto that trade on behalf of the free state of Florida, don’t you worry about that,” he said, prompting Hannity to respond: “Well I’m grateful I have a good governor.”
DeSantis then assured New Yorkers who are disgruntled with Mamdani’s planned changes for the city that they would be more than welcome in his “free state,” insisting that he would give a home to statues posted in honor of Christopher Columbus and even bring the Statue of Liberty to the Sunshine State.
“This is a guy, Mamdani, he wants to take down the Columbus statue. I’ve already said, if they take that from Manhattan, we’ll take it in Florida,” he said. “Hey, if they want to put the Statue of Liberty in Lake Okeechobee, we’ll get that done as well.”
He went on to issue a dire warning about Mamdani’s win, describing the election result as a “ballistic act of podiatry, shooting yourself in the foot by New York City voters.”
Addressing several of Mamdani’s specific policy plans and campaign promises, DeSantis slammed him for vowing to “lower everyone’s costs by having the government run grocery stores” and for failing to “express sympathy” for those who lost their lives in the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
However, DeSantis said the “No. 1 thing” that he believes will prompt New Yorkers to flee south is the “collapse of public safety,” pointing to Mamdani’s desire to take away funding from city police.
Hannity then turned his attention to New Jersey and the election for the state’s governor, which was won by Democratic candidate Mikie Sherrill, who claimed victory over Republican Jack Ciattarelli.
The TV anchor alleged that, in the last three years, “nearly a quarter of a million people left the state of New Jersey,” although he did not reveal where this statistic came from, describing it as a “math problem” he cannot figure out—and warning that more will likely leave as a result of Sherrill’s win.
DeSantis then insisted that, had New Jersey not seen such a significant exodus, Ciatterelli “would have won” the election, adding that he believes the results in New York City would have also taken a very different turn.
“Jack would have won four years ago, and he would have won tonight if you just take all of the Republicans who’ve left New Jersey since I’ve been governor and moved to Florida, if they could have still voted in New Jersey, he would have won both of those races,” he said.
“Same thing with New York City—maybe not a Republican, but [Rudy] Giuliani would not be able to win with this electorate the way it is now.”
DeSantis noted that politically motivated migratory patterns are having a grave impact on the future of major cities like New York and states like California and Illinois—and will likely result in a continuing shift to the far left.
“What happens is a leftist politician gets in, whether it’s destroying a state like California, Illinois, New York, whether it’s a city like New York City or Chicago, and the people it tends to drive off are the center-right voters,” he said.
“When they leave, the resulting electorate is actually more liberal. That’s how you go from Lori Lightfoot to Brandon Johnson in Chicago, which is digging the hole deeper, that’s why you’ve gone from eight years of [Bill] de Blasio now leapfrogging to have Mamdani who is even going to be worse.”
While it’s unclear where Hannity found the “quarter of a million” figure, recent reports have suggested that more people wish to leave New Jersey as a result of the soaring cost of living in the state.
A March 2024 poll conducted by Monmouth University revealed that 48% of New Jersey residents said they would like to move out of the state “at some point,” with increasing property taxes being named as one of the key factors in this decision.
In January 2025, the U-Haul Growth Index, which analyzed one-way customer journeys out of every U.S. state, determined that New Jersey ranked fourth in the country for the number of resident departures in 2024.
Meanwhile, the 2024 Migration Trends Report by the National Association of Realtors® revealed in November 2024 that Florida and Texas were the states that had seen the biggest increase in new residents.
“Texas and Florida have both seen more than 10% increases in job gains since the arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic,” Matt Christopherson, NAR’s director of business and consumer research, said at the time.
“With more affordable housing, lower taxes, and strong job markets, Florida and Texas are highly desirable to America’s homebuyers.”
Addressing this “mass migration” to the Sunshine State “out of states like New York and New Jersey and Illinois, and even California,” Hannity questioned DeSantis about what kind of impact this has had on the areas that are seeing the biggest influx of movers, like Florida, Texas, the Carolinas, and Tennessee.
“We’re not asking for anyone to move, I mean people have talked about putting a tariff on people moving in at this point because so many have done so. I know a lot of people in Florida would think that would be necessary!” DeSantis said, hours after Texas Gov. Greg Abbott threatened to do the same to New Yorkers feeling to the Lone Star State.
“But here’s the truth, if you look at all 49 other states since I’ve been governor and look at who has migrated to Florida, [out of] all 49, more Republicans have moved to Florida than Democrats. Vermont, New York, Illinois, you name it.”
DeSantis revealed that this trend has resulted in a major shift in voting patterns in the state, explaining: “The result of that is not just migration because we’ve had a lot of people shift within Florida, but when I got elected, we had 300,000 more registered Democrats in Florida, today we have 1.4 million more Republicans. Nobody has ever seen a change that profound.”
Hannity—who owns multiple properties in Palm Beach and Manalapan—then doubled down on previous warnings about Florida becoming the new financial hub for the U.S., stating that “Wall Street South is real.”
“Every investment firm, every big bank, every private equity firm, they are all down in Florida,” he claimed, before once again thanking DeSantis for “having me in your free state of Florida.”