The White House is emphasizing President Trump’s New York ties as it attacks the city’s leading mayoral candidate, Democrat Zohran Mamdani, referring to the Big Apple as the president’s “home” even though he has long since switched his primary residence to Florida.
“The president is a New Yorker,” Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters on Tuesday. “He loves New York. It is his home. He talks about that all the time. He’s made his thoughts on this election very clear.”
The president, who maintains a homes in Manhattan, changed his primary residence to Florida in 2019. He has voted there multiple times, including using early and mail-in voting, practices he regularly attacks, including in a social media post today.
The president has made a dozen visits to his Mar-a-Lago club and estate in Palm Beach since taking office, according to the Palm Beach Daily News.
President Trump has repeatedly bashed Mamdani, a democratic socialist, and warned that he would try to withhold federal funding if the Democrat was elected. Trump also reluctantly endorsed his longstanding rival Andrew Cuomo, the former governor of New York, who is running against Mamdani.
“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, because of the fact that, as a Communist, this once great City has ZERO chance of success, or even survival!” Trump wrote on Truth Social yesterday. “It can only get worse with a Communist at the helm, and I don’t want to send, as President, good money after bad.”
(The president does not have the power to unilaterally withhold congressional approved funds.)
Speaking at a press conference on Tuesday, Mamdani vowed he would not be “intimidated” by Trump and would use “every single tool” at this disposal to secure the city’s federal funding.
“I will treat his threats as they deserve to be treated, which are the words of a president and not necessarily the law of the land,” Mamdani said. “And too often we treat anything that he says by virtue of who's saying it as if it is already that law.”
During his remarks, when asked about a series of unfounded bomb threats that temporarily closed polling places in New Jersey, Mamdani warned of “attacks on our democracy” and criticized the president’s “general approach” of trying to “intimidate voters with baseless allegations of voter fraud as a means of trying to repress the voice of Americans across this country.”
Conservative commentators latched onto a clip of the comments, which appeared to be edited, as evidence that Mamdani was blaming the bomb threats themselves on Trump.
Leavitt said during her briefing that any attempt to link Trump and threats was “completely irresponsible” and “based on zero evidence.”
The Independent has contacted the Mamdani campaign for clarification.
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