Zohran Mamdani wasted little time after becoming mayor-elect of New York City 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 proclamation was an illustration of how both men have seized on one another as politically advantageous foils as Mamdani has risen from obscure state lawmaker to national Democratic star and as Trump has cast today’s Democratic Party as radical and out of touch with everyday voters.
The day after the election, Trump repeatedly referred to Mamdani as he spoke at a business conference in Miami, depicting 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 naturalized 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 that the city would be ruined if he won, was watching the speech, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt later confirmed.
“…AND SO IT BEGINS!” he posted on social media as Mamdani spoke.
Mamdani, a democratic socialist who campaigned on a slate of far-left progressive policies and a cheery optimism that stands in stark contrast to Trump’s darker and more hardline tactics, is expected to continue to face the president’s persistent political bashing — along with a federal government that may try to thwart his agenda. It remains unclear however exactly how Trump plans to respond and if the courts will stop him.
‘Mayor Trump’
New York has remained relatively unscathed by Trump’s administration, as he has targeted cities including Los Angeles and Washington, dispatching the National Guard. The current mayor, Eric Adams, enjoyed an unusual alliance with the Republican president, whose administration dropped a federal corruption case against the mayor so he could better assist with the president’s immigration agenda.
But Trump for months has threatened to slash federal funding to the city and mount an outright takeover if Mamdani won — threats that became a cornerstone of Mamdani’s rivals’ campaigns against him.
Mamdani says he will try to ‘Trump-proof’ the city
In his first news conference as mayor-elect on Wednesday, Mamdani made it clear that 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 that 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.”
Echoes of Trump
Nearly a decade ago, Trump was the bold yet untested candidate who notched a remarkable political victory of his own after building a populist coalition, harnessing social media, commanding the media spotlight and promising a wave of change.
Those same qualities that propelled the Republican into the White House in 2016 have helped Mamdani rise to become the soon-to-be mayor of Trump’s hometown and the biggest city in the nation.
Mamdani on Wednesday offered an early glimpse into the way he’ll try to reflect those populist messages back against the president. He decried the high cost of groceries, something Trump raised as he campaigned for the White House last year, and said the president’s decision to stop administering federal food aid through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program is “literally making it harder to afford those same groceries whose price he was decrying not that long ago.”
But rather than see Mamdani as a Democratic analogue for his own path to power, Trump has cast him as a prime foil and a reason he may seek to punish or overpower the city.
Though most presidents don’t devote time to tangling with local elected officials, Trump is not most presidents, and New York City holds special significance for him.
The Queens-born former reality star made his fame in Manhattan, where he became a TV star from his gilded penthouse and later launched his improbable presidential campaign after descending his golden escalator.
Trump has kept a particular focus on the city, trying to block its congestion pricing program, cancel construction on new tunnels under the Hudson River and insisting during his comeback presidential campaign last year on holding a mega-rally at Madison Square Garden despite his unpopularity in the city.
As the city prepared to pick its next mayor, Trump got unusually involved. He attacked him on social media, falsely labeling Mamdani a communist and eventually endorsing Cuomo.
And in the fall, intermediaries for the Trump administration approached Adams to try to persuade him to abandon his reelection campaign in an attempt to block Mamdani’s path to victory.
On the eve of the election, Trump said he would likely cut federal city funding if Mamdani won, writing on social media that “it is highly unlikely that I will be contributing Federal Funds, other than the very minimum as required.”
The White House and Office of Management and Budget did not respond to a message Wednesday about federal funds for the city Trump may seek to withhold.
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 criticized him, including suspending funding for some infrastructure projects during the government shutdown and trying to slash grants aimed at addressing the costs of migrants.
The threats also resonated with some voters.
Amy Snyder, an art adviser who voted for Cuomo, said she feared Mamdani “would not be able to stand up to Trump.”
Ariel Kohane, a registered Republican who voted for Cuomo but has voted for Trump multiple times, said he expected the president would do everything in his power to prevent Mamdani from accomplishing his agenda — and hoped it would work.
“Trump will probably have to send in the National Guard and ICE agents, too,” Kohane said.
Wacef Chowdhury, a volunteer for the Mamdani campaign who works in finance, said he fully anticipated Trump would attempt to punish the city in retaliation for the democratic socialist’s victory.
“We know he’s going to try, but we’re ready,” Chowdhury said.
