The progressive activist behind a viral Hot Girls for Zohran campaign that helped usher a far-left mayor into power in New York City has a long history of anti-police tirades and racially charged posts targeting white people on his social media accounts.
Kaif Gilani, who operates on X under the handle @chunkyfila, is now facing heightened scrutiny after Jewish Insider highlighted pro-Hamas content scattered across his feed, prompting a broader review of his online footprint. According to the Daily Callers examination, Gilanis rhetoric extends well beyond Middle Eastern politics, revealing a pattern of hostility toward law enforcement and casual bigotry that would almost certainly end the public careers of conservatives who posted anything similar.
In one May 2020 post recalling his high school track and field days, Gilani boasted, i remember when i used to run track one time a cop pulled up by the school and i said fuck cops and one dude on my team said hey my dads a cop so i said fuck your dad too. That boastful anecdote, openly celebrating contempt for police and their families, drew more than 300 likes, underscoring how normalized anti-cop sentiment has become in certain progressive circles.
Just weeks later, as riots and unrest swept the country following the death of George Floyd, Gilani turned his attention to the next generation of law enforcement, sneering, in 200 years white supremacist kids will be like we are the sons of the cops you couldnt defund.' He then amplified the Minneapolis Police Department abolition movement and circulated links to materials on living [in] a society without the current police, aligning himself with the radical push to dismantle traditional public safety.
Gilanis feed also veered into racially tinged commentary about pop culture, including a September 2020 reaction to the trailer for Netflixs Emily in Paris. Complaining about perceived underrepresentation, he wrote, i bet not one poc got a speaking role in this movie. and before you say her asian best friend in the trailer, she doesnt count, that girl def says the n word, a bizarre attack on actress Ashley Parks character that offered no evidence for the accusation.
The basis for that charge remains unknown, but it fits a broader pattern of Gilani casually assigning racial guilt and suspicion online. On Thanksgiving 2020, he turned his fire on his own partner, posting, my white gf came over to my familys house knowing she tested covid positive, continuing her familys tradition of killing indians on the holiday, a remark that drew more than 3,000 likes while trivializing both public health concerns and historical suffering for the sake of a racial punchline.
Gilanis hostility toward police resurfaced in January 2021 after the Capitol riot, when he weighed in on the fatal shooting of Trump supporter Ashli Babbitt by Capitol Police. He declared that officers should never be able to publicly execute someone while simultaneously dismissing those who invoked the say her name slogan on Babbitts behalf, signaling that, for him, the value of a victims life appears contingent on their politics.
He also positioned himself as a gatekeeper of racial authenticity and language, lecturing another user in December 2019, your mother being blasian doesnt mean you know what its like to live as a black person in this day and age. your experiences are not comparable and you have no right to use that word. The original post he was responding to has since been deleted, but the context indicates Gilani was policing who may use the n-word, a role he seemed eager to assume.
Despite this record, Gilani successfully embedded himself in the progressive political machine, co-creating Hot Girls for Zohran in early 2025 with Cait Camelia. The merchandising and canvassing effort became a social media phenomenon, with celebrities such as Emily Ratajkowski sporting the groups T?shirts, and the operation is widely credited with energizing young voters who helped Zohran Mamdani defeat former Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo in the primary before winning the general election for New York City mayor.
After Mamdanis victory, Gilani quickly converted his activist cachet into financial gain, securing a $15,000 consulting contract with former New York City Comptroller Brad Landers congressional campaign, the largest single disbursement listed in Landers initial FEC filing. The campaign told Jewish Insider it cut ties with Gilani once his posts came to light, a move that raises questions about why such vetting was not conducted before taxpayer-adjacent funds were put on the line.
Gilanis influence is not confined to politics; he also holds a senior corporate role as vice president of the enterprise data office at Citibank, according to his LinkedIn profile. The bank told Jewish Insider it is investigating the matter, suggesting that at least some major institutions still recognize the reputational risk of openly bigoted and anti-police rhetoric, even when it comes from the left.
In a statement to Jewish Insider, Gilani sidestepped his anti-cop and racially charged posts, instead portraying the backlash as rooted in religious bias and anti-Muslim sentiment. Im grateful for my many Jewish friends who share my opinions. Free Palestine, he wrote, framing the controversy as a matter of foreign policy and faith rather than accountability for his own words.
Gilani did not immediately respond to the Callers request for comment, leaving unresolved why a man with such a documented history of hostility toward law enforcement and racially loaded commentary was embraced by Democratic power brokers and corporate leadership alike. For many Americans who still believe in equal standards of conduct, the episode underscores a familiar pattern: incendiary rhetoric that would end a conservatives career is too often excused, ignored, or rewarded when it comes from the activist left.
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