On the eve of New York’s well-watched mayoral election, President Donald Trump issued a threat to its voters: stop Zohran Mamdani or pay.
“If Communist Candidate Zohran Mamdani wins the Election for Mayor of New York City, it is highly unlikely that I will be contributing Federal Funds, other than the very minimum as required, to my beloved first home,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social. “I don’t want to send, as President, good money after bad.”
Trump’s comments echo those broadcast on Sunday during his appearance on CBS’s 60 minutes, in which he said: “It’s gonna be hard for me as the president to give a lot of money to New York, because if you have a communist running New York, all you’re doing is wasting the money you’re sending there.”
The president does not directly determine how much money any city receives from the federal government; appropriation is the constitutional function of Congress. Control over how money is spent – or withheld in acts of impoundment, which are forbidden under federal law – has become a point of increasing legal contention.
The Trump administration is well on its way toward making good on this threat even before the votes have been counted. The White House began sparring with the state over New York’s plan to enforce congestion pricing for car traffic earlier this year, which Trump revisited in a separate Truth Social post on Monday evening. The White House withheld $18bn for a tunnel project as the government shutdown started. A federal judge ordered the federal government to reverse the rescission about $34m in counterterrorism funding for the New York City, ruling the move as “arbitrary, capricious and a blatant violation of the law”.
Trump’s post described a vote for Mamdani’s fellow candidate Republican mayoral nominee Curtis Sliwa as “a vote for Mamdani” and alluded to a preference for the independent candidate, former New York governor Andrew Cuomo.
“I would much rather see a Democrat, who has had a Record of Success, WIN, than a Communist with no experience and a Record of COMPLETE AND TOTAL FAILURE,” Trump wrote.
Cuomo, who has been a lifelong Democrat but ran in this year’s mayoral race as an independent to bypass the Democratic primary, repeated the president’s line moments after the post while speaking with 77WABC radio.
“Now it’s gonna be up to the Republicans, and I hope they listen to the president,” he said.
In an interview on Fox News later, Cuomo said: “We need a mayor who can stand up to Donald Trump.” He repeated Trump’s threat to stop funding the city and send in the national guard. “Trump will go through Mamdani like a hot knife through butter,” Cuomo said.
Later on Monday, Mamdani responded publicly to Trump’s remarks at a campaign event in Astoria, Queens, saying that he had known “for months” that Trump would support Cuomo.
“In these final days, what was rumored, what was feared, has become, naked and unabashed,” he said, according to the New York Times. “The Maga movement’s embrace of Andrew Cuomo is reflective of Donald Trump’s understanding that this would be the best mayor for him – not the best mayor for New York City, not the best mayor for New Yorkers, but the best mayor for Donald Trump and his administration.”
Mamdani also noted that he would “address that threat for what it is: it is a threat. It is not the law.
“And too often, we treat everything that comes out of Donald Trump’s mouth as if it is already legal, just by virtue of who is saying it.”
He later added: “This funding is not something that Donald Trump is giving us here in New York City. This is something that we are, in fact, owed in New York.”
Recent polling suggests that Mamdani has at least a 10 point lead over both opponents. Atlas Intel poll ending 30 October shows Mamdani leading with 41% in support, compared to Cuomo with 34% support and Sliwa getting 24% support.
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