President Donald Trump tore into mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani after incumbent Mayor Eric Adams quit the race for City Hall, NBC News reported.
In a back-handed compliment, Trump on his Truth Social site called democratic socialist Mamdani “one of the best things to ever happen to our great Republican party.”
Trump then reiterated his threat to withhold federal funding from the city if Mamdani is elected mayor. The president wondered “what’s the point” of anybody voting for the Queens assemblyman under those circumstances.
“He is going to have problems with Washington like no Mayor in the history of our once great City,” wrote Trump, who hails from Queens. “Remember, he needs 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?”
The president wrote, “This ideology has failed, always, for thousands of years. It will fail again, and that’s guaranteed!”
Mamdani did not immediately respond to Trump’s jibe.
The assemblyman instead took aim at former three-term Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who remains in the mayoral race on an independent party line.
“New York deserves better than trading in one disgraced, corrupt politician for another,” Mamdani said after Adams’ exit. “On November 4th, we are going to turn the page on the politics of big money and small ideas and deliver a government every New Yorker can be proud of.”
Mamdani stunned the political world by beating heavyweight pol Cuomo in the Democratic mayoral primary earlier this year.
Trump has worked to make the City Hall campaign a two-way race between Cuomo and Mamdani. During a White House dinner, the president told tech executives, “I think that’s a race that could be won” if the field were to narrow down to the duo.
Guardian Angels founder Curtis Sliwa is the Republican Party candidate in the race.