NEW YORK (BLOOMBERG) -- Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic nominee for mayor of New York City, said he’s willing to work with Donald Trump, even as the US president disparages him as a “communist lunatic.”
“I would be happy to work with the president and the administration on anything that would benefit New Yorkers,” Mamdani said in an interview Thursday at Bloomberg headquarters in New York. “Where I take issue are the proposals that come at the expense of those same New Yorkers.”
The 33-year-old front-runner in this November’s election said he hasn’t yet spoken to Trump, who has tried to influence the election to foil Mamdani’s bid. Trump has said he wants two of the candidates to drop out of the race to improve the chances for former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo. On Friday he told Fox News that Curtis Sliwa, the Republican candidate, is “not exactly prime time” and denigrated his love of cats. Trump advisers have also floated jobs to current Mayor Eric Adams to entice him out of the race.
“You look at the candidates now, maybe one on one, somebody could beat him, and I’m not looking at the polls too carefully, but it would look like he’s going to win,” Trump said in the interview.
Mamdani, a democratic socialist, surged to victory in the Democratic primary by pitching a message of affordability, including freezing the rent for more than 2 million New Yorkers, providing free child care and operating city-owned grocery stores. But his progressive agenda has also rattled Wall Street and business leaders, with Mamdani promising to raise taxes on corporations and the wealthy.
“I don’t think that we should have billionaires because of the fact that it’s such a gaping chasm of inequality,” Mamdani said, days after speaking alongside US Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont during a campaign event at Brooklyn College.
Tax Debate
Mamdani said he needs to raise $10 billion to fund his key programs, of which $9 billion would come from tax increases and the rest from cost savings.
Any tax hike would require state approval, and Governor Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, has made clear she doesn’t want to raise levies. Businesses need to know “that the city of New York, as powerful and mighty as it is, is still a subdivision of the state, so any tax increase has to come across my desk first,” Hochul told Bloomberg TV this week.
Mamdani said that while he’s confident he could push through his tax hikes he’s “absolutely flexible” in regard to other revenue-raising possibilities to fund his marquee proposals.
“The most important thing is what you fund, not how you fund it,” Mamdani said. “If there was a proposal to raise the same amount of money from different means, by all means we should do that.”
Hochul has refrained from endorsing Mamdani. In addition to opposing some of his fiscal measures, the governor told MSNBC in July that Mamdani has “a lot of healing to do with the Jewish community.” Mamdani, who would be the city’s first Muslim mayor, has been critical of Israel and espoused pro-Palestinian positions at a time when the Democratic party is deeply divided over the issue.
BDS Support
Mamdani said that he wouldn’t invest city money in Israeli government bonds and would disband an effort by Adams to facilitate business partnerships between Israeli and New York City companies.
“I am someone who has supported and support BDS and nonviolent approaches to address Israeli state violence,” Mamdani said, referring to the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement, which many lawmakers across the country have condemned as antisemitic. Hochul has opposed BDS and expressed support for ties between New York and Israel.
Mamdani said there are areas in which he’d be keen to work with the Trump administration — including cutting down on contracting expenses at bloated city agencies.
Trump has also signaled he will work with Mamdani, even while decrying the possibility of his victory.
But there are multiple issues Mamdani is preparing to fight over, including cuts to health care and food assistance programs. He’s also pledging to strengthen New York’s sanctuary city status, which limits the local government’s cooperation with federal agencies over immigration enforcement.
And if diplomacy doesn’t work with Trump, Mamdani said he’d follow California’s lead in its legal battle against the National Guard’s deployment to Los Angeles.
“That is a model for the approach we need to take here to ensure that we continue to receive the funding that New York City and New York state deserves,” Mamdani said.