AMNY: President Donald Trump sought to put his thumb on the scale of the NYC Mayor’s Race Tuesday — threatening to lock up newly minted Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani if he dares to interfere with ICE operations while appearing to throw his support behind incumbent Mayor Eric Adams’ long-shot independent reelection bid.
During a July 1 visit to a Florida migrant detention center dubbed as “Alligator Alcatraz,” Trump said “we’ll have to arrest” Mamdani if he interferes with federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agents (ICE) as mayor — something the Democratic mayoral nominee has said he would do.
“Look, we don’t need a communist in this country,” Trump said, referring to Mamdani, who identifies as a democratic socialist and not a communist (democratic socialists and communists are not one and the same). “But if we have one, I’m going to be watching over him very carefully on behalf of the nation.”
He also lied in suggesting that Mamdani, who became a naturalized citizen in 2018, is in the country illegally.
Trump’s comments came as Mamdani clinched the Democratic nomination in ranked-choice voting tabulations released by the city Board of Elections on Tuesday. Mamdani won in the third round of ranked-choice with 56% of the vote, beating out second-place contender former Gov. Andrew Cuomo by 12 points.
Mamdani said he refused to be intimidated by Trump’s remarks.
“The President of the United States just threatened to have me arrested, stripped of my citizenship, put in a detention camp and deported. Not because I have broken any law but because I will refuse to let ICE terrorize our city,” Mamdani said in a statement. “His statements don’t just represent an attack on our democracy but an attempt to send a message to every New Yorker who refuses to hide in the shadows: if you speak up, they will come for you. We will not accept this intimidation.”
