Trump threatens to arrest anti-Israel NYC mayoral candidate Mamdani

US President Donald Trump threatens to arrest New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani.

Trump is asked at a press conference about Mamdani’s plan to oppose Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) activities in New York City.

“We’ll have to arrest him,” Trump says. “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.”

“We send him money, we send him all the things that he needs to run a government,” Trump says.

President Trump on if Zohran Mamdani doesn't cooperate with ICE: "Well, then we'll have to arrest him. 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." pic.twitter.com/oqV7POiClL

— CSPAN (@cspan) July 1, 2025

The president also threatens to reduce federal funding to New York City.

“We’re going to be watching that very carefully and a lot of people are saying he’s here illegally. We’re going to look at everything and ideally he’s going to turn out to be much less than a communist but right now he’s a communist, that’s not a socialist,” he says.

Mamdani was born in Uganda to Indian parents and became a US citizen in 2018. He is a member of the far-left Democratic Socialists of America party that has made anti-Israel activism one of its planks.

Trump praises New York City Mayor Eric Adams, who will compete against Mamdani in the city’s general election in November.

“Mayor Adams is a very good person. I helped him out a little bit, he had a problem and he was unfairly hurt over this question,” he says, calling corruption allegations against Adams a “phony indictment.”

Adams has friendly ties with Trump, who is unpopular in New York City. Federal corruption charges against Adams were dismissed in April, which the judge in the case said “smacks of a bargain” between Adams and the Trump administration.