President Donald Trump warned New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani to “be very nice” to him after Mamdani tore into the president during his Tuesday night victory speech, saying the incoming mayor has to be “a little bit respectful of Washington.”
Trump told Fox News’ Bret Baier on Wednesday’s “Special Report” that Mamdani’s speech, which dared Trump to “turn the volume up” and said that “to get to any of us, you will have to get through all of us,” got the mayor-elect “off to a bad start” in his eyes.
“I think it’s a very dangerous statement for him to make. He has to be a little bit respectful of Washington, because if he’s not he doesn’t have a chance of succeeding,” Trump said.
Baier then asked Trump if he planned to reach out to Mamdani, but the president was dismissive. “We’ll see what happens,” he said. “But I would think it would be more appropriate for him to reach out to us.”
Still, Trump said he hopes Mamdani succeeds as mayor, considering Trump’s own history as a New York native.
“I would like to see the new mayor do well, because I love New York,” he said.
Trump spent much of the mayoral campaign deriding Mamdani as a “communist” who hates Jewish people, saying on Truth Social he would only provide the bare minimum of federal funding if Mamdani won. He urged his supporters to back Andrew Cuomo over Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa, saying he preferred a “bad Democrat” to Mamdani’s Democratic socialism.
Mamdani won Tuesday’s election by more than 50%, defeating Cuomo by nearly nine percentage points. A spokesperson for Mamdani did not immediately respond to TheWrap’s request for comment.
