Why the New York Mayor will drive Trump nuts

He has enjoyed past public rows with ‘Mini Mike’ Bloomberg and ‘Worst Mayor in the US’ De Blasio.

Zohran Mamdani will be elected Mayor with a substantial majority and Trump calls him a ‘communist lunatic.’

Like Trump, Mamdani has mastered the art of social media content to build a brand as the fresh outsider shaking up the establishment and feeding off the deep frustrations of voters who are willing to take a chance on a completely untested political novice and hand him a huge job. That is where the similarity ends.

Mamdani is a Democrat but also a member of the Democratic Socialists of America. His signature policies, if implemented, could be life changing for struggling New York families who feel increasingly priced out of their city.

He has promised free childcare for under-fives, free bus travel, a rent freeze, more affordable housing and a new chain of city-owned non-profit grocery stores. He intends to pay for all this with higher income tax on top earners, higher corporation tax and higher property tax.

There is one problem. The Mayor of New York can’t increase those taxes. Only the state legislature has that power. Governor Kathy Hochul fears a bigger tax burden will push high earners and large companies to relocate to states with lower taxes.

The Mayor can lobby hard to raise funds for his policies and put pressure on state politicians, but that is all he can do. Any public campaign to raise taxes will, in turn, be a gift to President Trump and his out riders, who will say this is what the Democrats would do in office and contrast this with their own tax-cutting policies. Trump has even said he will withhold federal funds from the city if Mamdani is elected.

Mamdani also intends to ban US Customs and Immigration Enforcement (ICE) agents from entering New York City facilities. How that works out in practice and to what extent it emboldens more protests against ICE in New York will determine whether President Trump decides to send National Guard troops to the city, as he controversially did in Los Angeles and Portland.

Mamdani’s past statements about the New York Police Department are also a gift to Trump. He has called for the NYPD to be defunded and dismantled and said they were ‘racist, anti-queer and a major threat to public safety’. He has since rowed back from these statements and apologised by paying tribute to officers who put their lives on the line every day.

Violent crime is less of a problem in New York than it once was, with 49 per cent fewer homicides than last year. But that won’t stop Trump seizing on any future rifts with the NYPD and using them as an opportunity to attempt, as he did with Chicago, to send in the National Guard claiming the city is a ‘war zone.’

Trump has invested immense political capital and diplomatic energy in the Israel-Hamas peace plan. He sees the conflict as a bitter struggle between a close US ally and a brutal terrorist organisation, repeatedly making reference to the horrors of the 7 October attack when speaking about Israel and the Palestinians.

His worldview is instinctively supportive of Israel, reflecting the majority of US voters who hold those views, and he has been very critical of the movement to boycott and sanction Israel.

By contrast, Mamdani, an Indian Muslim born in Uganda, has campaigned against Israel since he was a student and made a decision long ago to put the Palestinians at the centre of his political identity. He has campaigned intensively for a full boycott of Israel, which he says is an apartheid state.

He said elected officials should ‘be pressured’ to stand with Palestinians and ‘there are consequences’ for speaking up for Israel. He believes there should be a one-state solution to the conflict rather than a Jewish majority Israel alongside a Palestinian state.

Although he supported calls to globalise the intifada and was slow to condemn the Hamas attack on 7 October, he has since modified those statements and developed a story about desiring peace and justice that has won over a significant minority of New York’s 1.8m Jews.

This despite chilling past statements like ‘When the boot of the NYPD is on your neck it has been laced by the Israel Defence Forces.’

Asked recently if Mamdani was a younger left-wing version of himself, Trump replied he's better looking. The feud with this New York Mayor is only just getting started.

One thing is certain: Trump will attack Mamdani and portray him as the very worst of what the democrats want to do to the American people. In turn, Mamdani will delight in that spotlight and use it to further his political career.

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James Sorene is a commentator and writer.

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