On Tuesday (July 2), hours after being declared the official Democratic candidate to run for mayor of New York City, state assemblyman Zohran Mamdani was attacked by President Donald Trump who threatened to arrest him if he interfered with immigration officials if elected mayor. He also made the outlandish false claim that Mamdani is an illegal immigrant, and stated that his administration would “look at everything.” Mamdani, who was born in Uganda, became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 2018.
Trump made the comments in response to a question posed to him at an unrelated press conference held after he visited a migrant prison facility in the Everglades in Florida, nicknamed “Alligator Alcatraz.” When asked what he would do if Mamdani followed through on a past pledge not to cooperate with Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials and their arrests if elected mayor, Trump replied, “Well, then we’ll have to arrest him. Look, we don’t need a communist in this country, but if we have one, I’m going to be watching over him very carefully on behalf of the nation.”
Trump then added, “A lot of people are saying he’s here illegally. We’re gonna look at everything,” repeating a false claim which was first raised by City Councilmember Vickie Paladino last month in a post on X, formerly Twitter, in which she called for Mamdani to be deported. That has been echoed by several right-wing figures within the past few weeks, including Tennessee Representative Andy Ogles who also called for the 33-year-old politician to be deported, using Islamophobic slurs.
It’s a familiar line of attack for Trump to promote far-right conspiracy theories about his political foes. He rose to prominence in the Republican Party by parroting the lie that former President Barack Obama wasn’t legitimate because he wasn’t born in the United States ahead of his 2016 presidential campaign. He also openly questioned former Democratic presidential nominee and Vice President Kamala Harris’ identity as a Black woman and attacked GOP rival Nikki Haley in the 2024 Republican primary, claiming she wasn’t eligible due to her Indian heritage.
Mamdani issued a rebuttal in a post on X, formerly Twitter, later on Tuesday, dismissing Trump’s attacks. “The president of the United States just threatened to have me arrested,” he wrote, adding: “We will not accept this intimidation.” He also noted Trump’s praising of Mayor Adams as “unsurprising,” writing that it “is a scandal that Eric Adams echoes this President’s division, distraction, and hate.”
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