US congressional candidate alters clip of opponent talking campaign finance

"Is our quarter-billionaire Congressman who has 'no problem taking money from anyone' really looking out for you?" Lander, the progressive former New York City comptroller and ally of Mayor Zohran Mamdani, wrote in a June 1, 2026 post sharing the video on Facebook.

Lander splashed the same post across Instagram, Threads, X, TikTok, YouTube and Bluesky.

The short clip appears to show Goldman saying: "I do take corporate PAC money, and I have no problem taking money from anyone who wants to give it to me."

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Screenshot from Facebook taken June 4, 2026

The next day, Lander claimed in video message that "what Dan Goldman said is he's perfectly fine taking money from anyone."

Goldman has represented New York's 10th Congressional District, which includes part of Lower Manhattan, since his election to the House in 2022. He will face off against Lander, who built name recognition during an unsuccessful run for New York City mayor in 2025, in the state's Democratic primary on June 23, 2026.

Goldman, a Levi Strauss heir, is one of Congress's wealthiest members.

But the clip Lander plastered across social media is deceptively edited, rearranging Goldman's words from their June 1 primary debate to distort the meaning of what he said.

Goldman accused his opponent of "lying" in a series of posts on X, sharing a longer clip of his debate comments while blasting Lander's truncated version as "altered," "doctored" and intended "to mislead voters" (archived here, here, here and here).

In context, Goldman's comments came in response to a question Lander posed about corporate donations to his leadership PAC (archived here). The PAC, Democracy Action Now, is by law separate from Goldman's campaign fund (archived here and here).

Lander said: "Congressman, the last time that you were in this room, you told Errol (Louis of Spectrum News NY1) that you don't take corporate PAC contributions. But you do -- not into your current campaign account, but into your leadership account, which is called Democracy Action Now, or DAN for short, which is cute. That account this cycle has cashed checks from American Express, from Walmart, from Google, from Aflac."

He proceeded to ask why Goldman considered it "appropriate to take corporate PAC contributions into your leadership account."

Goldman responded that the money flowing through that channel is intended not for his campaign use, but "to help the Democrats take back the majority" from the Republican Party, which gained control of all three branches of government during the 2024 election.

Here is what he said, with the lines spliced together by Lander in bold:

"Well, you are right. I do not take any corporate PAC money in my own campaign account to be used on my own campaign. And you also are correct that I do take corporate PAC money in my leadership PAC. That leadership PAC cannot be used for me. It cannot be used for my campaign. It is only used to help my colleagues win back the majority, and I have no problem taking money from anyone who wants to give it to me to help the Democrats take back the majority. That's the only purpose it's used for."

A politician's leadership PAC is legally separate from his or her campaign and typically meant to gain influence within the party, according to the Campaign Legal Center and OpenSecrets, though concerns have been raised about elected officials abusing them as slush funds (archived here and here).

The Federal Election Committee (FEC) says on its website that "any support from the leadership PAC that could be paid by the candidate's authorized committee is a contribution from the leadership PAC to the candidate," subject to contribution limits (archived here and here).

Reached by AFP, Goldman's team pointed to a June 2, 2026 X post from campaign manager Simone Kanter, who responded to Lander to call his claims "a malicious disinformation campaign" (archived here).

AFP also contacted the Lander campaign for comment, but no response was immediately forthcoming.

AFP has fact-checked other claims about US politics here.