New York City mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani wasted no time calling out US President Donald Trump, formally kicking off the battle that will likely define relations between the 34-year-old mayor and the president whose celebrity is tied to the city.
“Donald Trump, since I know you’re watching, I have four words for you: turn the volume up,” Mamdani, a Democrat, said during a Tuesday night speech to a raucous crowd of supporters shortly after being declared the victor.
Democrats swept a trio of races on Tuesday in the first major elections since Trump returned to power nine months ago, elevating a new generation of leaders and injecting fresh momentum into the beleaguered party ahead of next year’s congressional elections.
Mamdani made countering the 79-year-old Republican president’s actions in the city, especially on immigration, a centrepiece of his campaign. The next three years will test his ability to go toe-to-toe with Trump, who wields the world’s biggest bully pulpit and thrives on bare-knuckle politics.
“If anyone can show a nation betrayed by Donald Trump how to defeat him, it is the city that gave rise to him,” Mamdani told supporters. “If there is any way to terrify a despot, it is by dismantling the very conditions that allowed him to accumulate power. This is not only how we stop Trump, it’s how we stop the next one.”
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