Sounding off on New York City’s far-left Democrat mayoral candidate, Zohran Mamdani, President Trump vowed to arrest him if he does, in fact, try to block Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers from doing their job and arresting illegal aliens. As could be predicted, those comments sparked a firestorm.
It began when Mamdani, making a promise on the campaign trail, told his far-left New York City Democrats that he would, if elected, make sure to “stop masked ICE agents from deporting our neighbors.” President Trump was then asked about that when touring Florida’s “Alligator Alcatraz” and vowed to arrest Mamdani if he does block immigration enforcement.
Precipitating the president’s remarks, a reporter asked him, “Your beloved New York City may well be led by a communist soon, Zorhan Mandami, who in his nomination speech said he will defy ICE and will not allow ICE to arrest criminal aliens in New York City. Your message to communist Zorhan Mandami?”
Responding without hesitating, the president said that Mamdani would be arrested if he does step in to block ICE raids and immigration enforcement, as he has promised and would be even more radical than NYC’s present sanctuary city policy. The president said, “Well, then we’ll have to arrest him.”
Continuing, President Trump went on to say that America certainly doesn’t need any communists in the country and that those who are here, like Zohran, will be watched quite closely. He said, “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.”
Then, turning to Governor DeSantis, the president noted that New York gets far more federal dollars than Florida despite being a terribly run state, saying, “We send him money, we send him all the things that he needs to run a government. And by the way, they get already, they get about three times what you get, Ron. If you look at the per capita, Florida gets one third of what New York gets in terms of the numbers.”
Still not done, the president then said that Zohran’s immigration background would be closely checked as he is being watched very closely, saying, “We’re going to be watching that very carefully and a lot of people saying he’s here illegally, he’s, you know, we’re going to look at everything. But, 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.”
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Releasing a statement after the incident, Mamdani said that he wouldn’t be intimidated by the president’s threats of arrest and deportation, as that would set a bad example for New Yorkers. He said, on that point, “His statements don’t just represent an attack on our democracy but an attempt to send a message to every New Yorker who refuses to hide in the shadows: if you speak up, they will come for you. We will not accept this intimidation.”
Featured image credit: base image By Bingjiefu He – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=166035777