Zohran Mamdani on Monday hit back at Donald Trump’s vow to withhold federal funds to New York City if he becomes mayor.
Trump on Monday raged on his Truth Social platform that democratic socialist Mamdani “needs the money” from him to “fulfill all of his FAKE Communist promises” but “won’t be getting any of it, so what’s the point of voting for him?”
CNN’s Erin Burnett asked Mamdani if he was “OK if New York City loses” the $7.4 billion it receives in federal funding each year.
“No,” Mamdani replied, then he defiantly promised: “We will fight for every single dollar that the city currently receives from the federal government.”
“I look for examples across this country that showcase the best way to respond to Donald Trump’s... threats rather is responding with strength,” he continued. “And what we see in California is an attorney general of the state has estimated that for every dollar they spent on lawsuits against the federal government’s threats to withhold funding, they won more than $30,000 in what would otherwise have been lost.”
Mamdani vowed to “take that same approach.”
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Later in the interview, Mamdani suggested Trump, who has falsely labelled him as a “communist” on many, many occasions, was going through the grieving process when it came to his candidacy.
Trump is “going through the many stages of grief,” he said. “First, it’s denial that this could ever take place. Now it’s acceptance. And still through it all, he is looking to use every tool at his disposal to help Andrew Cuomo become the next mayor of the city.”
On Sunday, current New York City Mayor Eric Adams abandoned his reelection campaign, leaving Mamdani, Republican Curtis Sliwa and former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) in the race.