New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani on Wednesday responded to Donald Trump’s repeated calls for his arrest and deportation, saying the US president’s hostility wasn’t about his identity but about what he stood for. “Yesterday, Donald Trump said that I should be arrested. He said that I should be deported. He said that I should be denaturalised. And he said those things about me, someone who stands to be the first immigrant mayor of this city in generations, someone who would also be the first Muslim and the first South Asian mayor in this city’s history,” he said addressing a gathering.“It is less so because of who I am, because of where I come from, because of how I look or how I speak, and more so because he wants to distract from what I fight for. I fight for working people,” he added.He further said that Trump’s attack was aimed at fanning “the flames of division than to acknowledging the ways in which he has betrayed those working class Americans not just in this city but across this country and the ways in which he continues to betray them.”Criticising the Big Beautiful Bill, Mamdani said, “Legislation that will steal food from the hungry. Legislation that looks to build upon one of the largest transfers of wealth we’ve seen in recent history in his first administration and do it once again for the very Americans who have had enough.”The recent remarks came after Trump vowed to not “let this Communist Lunatic destroy New York”. “As President of the United States, I’m not going to let this Communist Lunatic destroy New York. Rest assured, I hold all the levers, and have all the cards. I’ll save New York City, and make it “Hot” and “Great” again, just like I did with the Good Ol’ USA!” he said in a post on Truth Social.Mamdani’s victory over Andrew Cuomo has made him a prime Republican target, as they try to portray Democrats as extreme ahead of upcoming elections. If elected, Mamdani would be New York City’s furthest-left mayor in modern history, with a platform of city-run groceries, free buses, rent freezes, and higher property taxes on wealthy areas.
