Mamdani tells Trump New York is ready to fight
Michelle L Price and Jill Colvin |
Zohran Mamdani has wasted little time after becoming mayor-elect of New York before addressing the man who threatened to not only defund the city, but also to arrest and deport him, if he won.
“Donald Trump, since I know you’re watching, I have four words for you: Turn the volume up,” Mamdani, a Democrat, told the Republican president from the stage of his Brooklyn victory party.
He issued a direct challenge to the president. “If anyone can show a nation betrayed by Donald Trump how to defeat him, it is the city that gave rise to him,” he said.
The day after Tuesday’s election, Trump repeatedly referred to Mamdani as he spoke at a business conference in Miami.
The president depicted the mayor-elect as a nightmare he vowed to fight while broadly linking other Democratic politicians to their party’s new political star.
“If you want to see what congressional Democrats wish to do to America, just look at the result of yesterday’s election in New York where their party installed a communist as the mayor of the largest city in the nation,” Trump said.
Mamdani, who was born in Uganda and became a naturalised American citizen after graduating from college, cast himself as the embodiment of the resistance against the president, who has pursued an aggressive, anti-immigrant agenda during his second term.
“New York will remain a city of immigrants, a city built by immigrants, powered by immigrants and, as of tonight, led by an immigrant,” he said in his election night speech.
“So hear me, President Trump, when I say this: To get to any of us, you will have to get through all of us.”
Trump, who has spent months insulting Mamdani and warning the city would be ruined if he won, was watching the speech, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt later confirmed.
“…AND SO IT BEGINS!” Trump posted on social media as Mamdani spoke.
In his first news conference as mayor-elect on Wednesday, Mamdani made it clear the city’s most powerful former resident is one of the chief challenges he’ll face in his new job.
“New Yorkers are facing twin crises in this moment: an authoritarian administration and an affordability crisis,” he said. “And it will be my job to deliver on both.”
Mamdani spoke about “Trump-proofing” New York City, which he said involves “protecting those with the least from the consequences of a man with the most power in this country”.
But Mamdani said several times he was willing to work with anyone, including Trump, if they can help New Yorkers. He said he has not heard from the White House or the president following his win.
Trump on Wednesday seemed to suggest he might be willing to work with Mamdani too.
“We want New York to be successful,” Trump said. “We’ll help him, a little bit, maybe.”
In the lead-up to the mayoral election, Trump attacked Mamdani on social media, falsely labelled him a communist and eventually endorsed opposing candidate Andrew Cuomo.
On the eve of the election, Trump said he would likely cut federal city funding if Mamdani won, writing on social media “it is highly unlikely that I will be contributing Federal Funds, other than the very minimum as required”.
But he had already sought to punish the city this year as part of a broader pattern of asserting power against Democratic elected officials who’ve criticised him, including suspending funding for some infrastructure projects during the government shutdown and trying to slash grants aimed at addressing the costs of migrants.
AP
