President Trump Monday warned New York City voters not to elect Zohran Mamdani as mayor, threatening to starve the city of federal funding if the Democratic nominee wins in November.
In his latest stab at interfering in the race for City Hall, Trump threatened to slash funding to the city if Mamdani beats Republican Curtis Sliwa and ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who is running as an independent.
“He is going to have problems with Washington like no Mayor in the history of our once great City,” Trump posted on his social media site. “Remember, he needs the money from me, as President, in order to fulfill all of his FAKE Communist promises.”
“He won’t be getting any of it, so what’s the point of voting for him?” the president added.
Mamdani mocked Trump over the post, saying that the remarks show the president is “going through the stages of grief.”
“He began with denial, where he said that there was no way we could win this race, and that he would use every tool at his disposal to ensure that that was the case,” Mamdani said at a press conference in Washington Heights. “Now we’ve reached the point where he’s coming to terms with the fact that we’re going to win.”
Mamdani added that Trump’s comments leave little doubt he and Cuomo are effectively allies, calling a Cuomo mayoralty “the greatest thing that can happen for Donald Trump.”
Mamdani leads polls of the contest even after Mayor Adams has left the race, leaving a three-way contest.
Trump has repeatedly sought to put his thumb on the scale to hurt Mamdani’s chances. It’s unclear if that would help or hurt Mamdani given Trump is unpopular in the city and won just 30% of the vote in the five boroughs in the 2024 presidential contest.
Even as he urges his hometown to vote against Mamdani, Trump paradoxically predicted the “self-proclaimed Communist” would “prove to be one of the best things to ever happen to” the GOP if he gets to Gracie Mansion.
“This ideology has failed, always, for thousands of years,” Trump said. “It will fail again, and that’s guaranteed.”
Trump previously sought to pressure Adams to pull out of the race and endorse Cuomo, a move that reportedly led Adams to haggle with the White House over a possible lucrative administration job in exchange for suspending his campaign.
Those talks are said to have collapsed, but Adams pulled the plug on his reelection anyway over the weekend. His name will still be on the ballot and he declined to overtly back Cuomo, potentially limiting any boost for the moderate candidate in the race.
Originally Published: September 29, 2025 at 10:10 AM EDT
