Mayoral frontrunner Zohran Mamdani has pledged to work with Donald Trump, if elected, even though the president has vowed to defund New York City if he wins.
During a Thursday night debate, Mamdani was asked what he would say in his first official call with Trump “to set the tone for your relationship” if he’s elected NYC mayor on November 4.
Mamdani, who has publicly feuded with Trump, said, “I would make it clear to the president that I am willing to not only speak to him, but to work with him, if it means delivering on lowering the cost of living for New Yorkers.”
But convincing Trump to talk to Mamdani is another story.
Trump raged against Mamdani on Truth Social late last month, writing, “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?”
Mamdani has called Trump’s administration “authoritarian” and railed against the president’s mass deportation efforts.
“Donald Trump and his ICE agents are snatching our immigrant neighbors from our city in broad daylight right before our eyes,” Mamdani said at a campaign rally on Monday.
In July, the president threatened to arrest Mamdani if he won the election and followed through on his promise to defy immigration raids in New York City.
Former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa also answered how they would respond to a call from Trump if they won the mayoral race.
Cuomo, who is running as an independent and has also had a rocky relationship with the president, said, “I would say to the president in the first conversation, ‘Look, we have had many, many battles. We fought together every day during Covid...I'd like to avoid them.’”
Sliwa said he’d negotiate with Trump over New York City infrastructure projects.
“I've had a love-hate relationship with Donald Trump that goes back over 30 years, but I know one thing...you can be tough, but you can't be tough if it's going to cost people desperately needed federal funds,” Sliwa said.
White House budget office director Russell Vought announced earlier this month roughly $18 billion in New York City infrastructure projects, specifically, the Hudson River tunnel project and the Second Ave Subway project, were paused “to ensure funding is not flowing based on unconstitutional DEI principles.”
Next month, New Yorkers from the five boroughs will flock to the polls to cast their ballot for the city’s new mayor.
Mamdani, a democratic socialist, has run on a platform of affordability with promises of rent freezes and free buses.
During the debate, Mamdani said he would freeze the rent for more than two million rent-stabilized tenants and build 200,000 “truly affordable homes across the five boroughs over the next 10 years to ensure that tenants, whether rent stabilized or market rate, can actually have more housing such that they are not being priced out of this city.”
Cuomo has also campaigned on affordability, but has focused on public safety as well. He wants to add 5,000 more police officers to the streets of New York City.
As the founder of the Guardian Angels, a community safety group, Sliwa is also big on law and order. He wants to hire an extra 7,000 police officers. Mamdani says he wants to keep the police force the same size.
“The police will be on the subways, and they will be patrolling the old-fashioned way where they need it, going up and down the moving subway cars, where people want to see the visual protection,” Sliwa said of his vision for the New York City Police Department.
Cuomo criticized Mamdani’s lack of political experience during the debate. Mamdani has been a New York state assemblyman representing a district in Queens since 2021. Cuomo was governor for nearly 11 years and New York’s attorney general before that.
“He has no experience, and this is not a job for someone who has no management experience to run 300,000 people, no financial experience to run $115 billion budget,” Cuomo said.
Mamdani is leading in the polls. A recent Quinnipiac University poll found Mamdani with 46 percent of support from likely voters, Cuomo with 33 percent and Sliwa with 15 percent. Another survey from Fox News saw Mamdani leading with 47 percent of likely voters and Cuomo trailing with 29 percent. Sliwa had only 11 percent of voter support.
Former Democratic New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, who has endorsed Mamdani, wrote on X Thursday night in reaction to the debate, “They say @ZohranKMamdani is dreaming and his plans are impossible. EXACTLY what they said about Pre-K for All… until we made it happen.”
Former Republican New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who has endorsed Sliwa, wrote, “Curtis Sliwa is a New Yorker through and through. He knows this city—and its neighborhoods—better than almost anyone alive. If New Yorkers pay attention and wake up, they’ll elect this good man as their next mayor.”
Photos of the first New York City mayoral debate between Mamdani, Cuomo and Sliwa
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