US President Donald Trump commented on New York City mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, saying that he "would like to see the new mayor do well," but that if Mamdani did not respect Washington, he "does not have a chance of succeeding," in an interview with Fox News on Wednesday.
"I think he should be very nice to me. I'm the one who, sort of, has to approve a lot of the things coming to him," Trump said.
Trump said he might offer assistance to Mamdani at a speech in Miami earlier on Wednesday.
"We want New York to be successful," Trump said. "We'll help him a little bit, maybe."
In his victory speech on Tuesday, Mamdani wasted no time calling out Trump.
"Donald Trump, since I know you’re watching, I have four words for you: turn the volume up!" Mamdani said.
"If anyone can show a nation betrayed by Donald Trump how to defeat him, it is the city that gave rise to him," he added. "And 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."
Mamdani slams Trump's claims of antisemitism
Trump has repeatedly turned the massive powers of the presidency on political rivals, and already before the election had threatened to possibly withhold billions of dollars in federal funding from New York City if Mamdani, a democratic socialist, was elected. This would follow previous funding cuts by the Trump administration in political moves targeting Democratic congressional leaders also from the city.
"If you have a communist running New York, all you're doing is wasting the money you're sending there," Trump told CBS' 60 Minutes on Sunday, previewing how Republicans will use Mamdani's embrace of a socialist agenda as a line of attack against the Democratic Party.
Trump also said Tuesday that any "Jewish person that votes for Zohran Mamdani, a proven and self-professed JEW HATER, is a stupid person!!!"
Mamdani slammed that assertion in his victory speech.
"We will build a city hall that stands steadfast alongside Jewish New Yorkers and does not waver in the fight against the scourge of antisemitism," Mamdani told the crowd in Brooklyn.
Mamdani acknowledged his win poses a challenge in implementing what he calls "the most ambitious agenda to tackle the cost-of-living crisis this city has seen” since the 1940s, including a proposed rental freeze, universal childcare, and other government actions targeting the private sector.
In the meantime, Mamdani pledged to fight.
"So hear me, President Trump, when I say this: To get to any of us, you will have to go through all of us."