President Donald Trump said his administration is considering a federal takeover of Washington, D.C., and has suggested that he would also consider targeting New York City should Democratic candidate Zohran Mamdani win the mayor’s race this fall.
His Tuesday remarks to reporters at the White House escalated his attacks against the 33-year-old Democratic nominee, who Trump has threatened with arrest, denaturalization and removal from the country while repeatedly branding him a communist.
“I’m not getting involved,” Trump told reporters during a Cabinet meeting.
“But I can tell you this. I used to say we will not ever be a socialist country. Well, I’ll say it again. We’re not gonna have it,” he continued. “If a communist gets elected to run New York, it can never be the same. But we have tremendous power at the White House to run places where we have to.”
Trump then said “we could run D.C.”
“I mean, we’re looking at D.C,” he added. “We’re thinking about doing it, to be honest with you. We want a capital that’s run flawlessly, and it wouldn’t be hard for us to do it.”
Trump said his chief of staff Susie Wiles is working with the capital city’s Democratic Mayor Muriel Bowser but did not offer any details about what that entails, or how the White House could upend decades of local control.
The president has repeatedly publicly criticized the nation’s capital, labeling it “filthy and crime-ridden” and using the city as a test case for his tough-on-crime agenda. He issued an executive order in March creating a White House task force to boost police presence and immigration enforcement with plans to “beautify” the city.
In 1973, D.C. residents were granted the right to elect their own local government, including mayor and city council members, but Congress still maintains significant authority to review or overturn local laws. Residents of the city do not have any voting representatives in Congress; the city is represented by one non-voting delegate, Rep. Eleanor Norton.
Mamdani, who defeated Andrew Cuomo in June’s Democratic primary election for New York City mayor, has largely focused his campaign around affordability issues, including proposals for no-cost childcare, free buses and city-run grocery stores, which Trump and his allies are falsely calling plans to “take over grocery stores.”
Mamdani has warned that Trump’s statements about him amount to “intimidation” and “represent an attack on democracy” that seek to undermine election outcomes.
The state assemblyman, if elected, would be the city’s first South Asian and Muslim mayor. He was born in Uganda and moved to New York when he was seven years old. He was naturalized as a U.S. citizen in 2018.
Trump has amplified baseless allegations that Mamdani is “here illegally,” and right-wing influencers and Republicans in Congress have called on the administration to deport him.
New York Governor Kathy Hochul is among Democrats who have rallied against Trump’s attacks.
“I don’t care if you’re the President of the United States,” she wrote. “If you threaten to unlawfully go after one of our neighbors, you’re picking a fight with 20 million New Yorkers — starting with me.”
