President Donald Trump waded into the results of the city’s Democratic mayoral primary just one day after the polls closed, calling the presumptive winner, Zohran Mamdani, a “Communist Lunatic” and taking jabs at his appearance and intelligence.
In an interview on Fox News’ Sunday Morning Futures on Sunday, Trump doubled down on his combative stance on the 33-year-old state legislator, standing by his assertion that Mamdani is a communist and threatening the city Mamdani is aiming to run.
“If he does get in, I’m gonna be president and he’s gonna have to do the right thing or they’re not getting any money. He’s gotta do the right thing,” Trump said.
He continued, “I can tell you this: Whoever’s mayor of New York is going to have to behave themselves or the federal government is coming down very tough on them financially.”
During an interview on NBC News’ Meet the Press, Mamdani appeared unsurprised by Trump’s comments and addressed his claim that he’s a communist.
“No, I am not, and I have already had to start to get used to the fact that the president will talk about how I look, how I sound, where I’m from — who I am, ultimately, because he wants to distract from what I’m fighting for. And I am fighting for the very working people that he ran a campaign to empower that he has since then betrayed,” he said.
Financial threats are hardly new territory for the president, who has targeted California and Maine with warnings about the loss of federal funds owing to conflicts with their states’ Democratic governors. But it’s the earliest sign of the White House’s likely posture toward Mamdani if he wins the general election in November.
Trump’s position is already gaining support from some in his party. In an interview with the conservative commentator Benny Johnson, Senator Tommy Tuberville of Alabama rejected the leadership of major American cities as “god-awful” and suggested that the president should consider withholding federal funds from them, especially sanctuary cities.
“You can stop the federal funding. President Trump can do anything he wants when it comes to the federal. Again, these inner-city rats, they live off the federal government. And that’s one reason we’re $37 trillion in debt,” Tuberville said. “And it’s time we find these rats — and we send them back home — that are living off the American taxpayers, that are working very hard every week to pay taxes.”
