How Trump could hamper Zohran Mamdani’s New York agenda

Just moments after Zoran Mamdani won the battle to become New York City's next mayor, the rising political star is focused on his next fight: taking on the President of the United States.

In his victory speech on Tuesday, Mamdani turned to the cameras to directly mock the president: “So, Donald Trump, since I know you're watching, I have four words for you: Turn it up,” he said.

Minutes later, Trump responded on his Truth Social social media site: “…AND THIS IS HOW IT BEGINS!”

President Donald Trump condemned the 34-year-old as a “communist” future of the Democratic Party.

Trump endorsed Andrew Cuomo, a former Democratic governor who ran as an independent, and told New Yorkers that if they elected Mamdani, he would cut funding to the city. The morning after the victory, Mamdani warned that people would “flee” New York.

This is not the first time Trump, a native New Yorker, has tried to intervene in the city's affairs, from increasing immigration raids to trying to defund the congestion pricing system, which he opposes.

But Mamdani doesn't seem to mind.

“If anyone can show a nation betrayed by Donald Trump how to defeat him, it is the city that gave birth to him,” he said during his victory speech.

Since taking office, Trump has used federal power against several Democratic-run cities, sending in National Guard troops and cracking down on immigration across the US.

He has also cut billions of dollars in funding to cities since the government shutdown on October 1, including New York, where he froze $18bn (£13.6bn) of federal money for major infrastructure projects.

Political experts told the BBC Trump could easily cut even more – and that could undermine Mamdani's campaign promises to lower the cost of living.

The self-described democratic socialist advocated for free and faster buses, a rent freeze for rent-stabilized housing, universal child care and city grocery stores, among other policy goals.

“The reality is that the mayor-elect will have to focus a lot of his attention on President Trump and the attacks on New York rather than on all the issues he wants to deal with,” said Julian Zelizer, a history professor at Princeton University. “This will be a challenge for the city, and it will be a challenge for the mayor-elect to stay focused.”

Mamdani did not respond to the BBC's request for comment.

Mamdani, a former state legislator, faces several challenges beyond Trump in achieving his ambitious political goals, political experts say.

He suggested he could raise $10 billion in revenue by increasing taxes on wealthy corporations and the top 1 percent of people in New York, but that would require approval from the state governor.

Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul, who faces a difficult re-election next year, has so far been hesitant to support Mamdani's tax plan. Trump ally Elise Stefanik said she will seek the Republican nomination for the state's top office.

Trump could poke even more holes in those plans if he cuts even more federal funds, which totaled about $8.5 billion last year, or 7% of the city's total budget.

“To do anything in the city, money is going to be a problem,” Mr. Zelizer said. “But if federal dollars start drying up, it will become much more difficult to do anything new.”

According to the New York City Independent Budget Office, these funds are used for a variety of services, including the housing department, disaster response and children's services, as well as funding education for low-income students and school meals.

Trump did not specify which federal funds he would target.

New York is required by law to provide some of these services, such as funding for homeless shelters. That means without federal funding, city and state governments will have to make up the difference by putting pressure on other programs, said Sarah Parker, senior research and strategy officer at the New York City Independent Budget Office.

“There are a lot of emergency plans being developed at the city and state level for a variety of different scenarios,” she said.

Trump is likely to face legal challenges for withholding funds approved by Congress, including food aid, said Justin de Benedictis-Kessner, a professor of public policy at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government.

“However, this slows down the process of getting these supplies to the people who need them,” he said.

Trump has also used the threat of law enforcement against Democratic-led cities. He has deployed National Guard troops across the country, including in Los Angeles, Portland, Oregon and Washington, portraying the cities as crime hotspots requiring federal intervention.

He has so far refrained from sending troops to the largest US city, but political analysts believe that the situation may change.

“He already has a template,” Mr. Zelizer said. “It's hard to imagine it won't happen.”

Mamdani said he would take legal action to respond to New York's National Guard deployment, as other states have done. Many cases are still pending in the courts.

Political experts also expect Trump to expand his crackdown on immigration in New York, which has been a sanctuary city since the 1980s. This means the city is limiting cooperation with federal immigration authorities.

The administration has already stepped up enforcement in the city's immigration courts, where U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents have arrested hundreds of people attending mandatory immigration hearings.

The current mayor, Eric Adams, has been largely cooperative with the administration. But Mamdani, who came to the United States from Uganda when he was seven, took a different course.

He said New York “will remain a city of immigrants, a city built by immigrants, fueled by immigrants and, as of tonight, led by immigrants.”

“So, hear me, President Trump, when I say: To get to any one of us, you'll have to go through all of us,” he said on election night.

Adams did so after Trump's Justice Department dropped federal bribery and fraud charges against him. The move led to the resignation of New York's top prosecutor, who alleged that Adams' lawyers asked Justice Department officials to drop the case in exchange for enforcing Trump's immigration policies.

Mamdani will likely need time to develop a strategy to respond to Trump's first moves since he won't take office until January, said Bob Shapiro, a political science professor at Columbia University.

Other city Democratic leaders have taken different approaches, including progressive Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, who has often railed against the president. Trump once threatened to move World Cup games from her Massachusetts town.

San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie reportedly relied on tech industry leaders to dissuade Trump from sending National Guard troops to the city, arguing it would impact the economy.

Mamdani could take similar steps in New York to evade federal action by reaching out to Wall Street leaders from the city where Mr. Trump made his real estate career, Mr. Shapiro said.

In a policy document on “Trump-proofing” New York, the mayor-elect said he plans to hire 200 more lawyers to strengthen the city's legal department and respond to the Trump administration's “presidential excesses.”

Mamdani faces greater challenges in pursuing his ambitious political agenda, so he may be choosing his battles with the president to win support for certain policies among anti-Trump New Yorkers, de Benedictis-Kessner said.

“I think he will work with Trump if it helps him achieve his political goals,” he said. “And I think he's a smart enough politician not to do it until that happens.”