President Trump upped his attacks on New York State Assembly member Zohran Mamdani, New York City’s Democratic mayoral nominee, warning Monday he “better behave” if he’s elected in November.
“He needs the money through the White House. He needs a lot. He will behave,” Trump told reporters during a dinner with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “He better behave. Otherwise, he will have big problems.”
The president added that Mamdani was experiencing a “honeymoon” phase after besting former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo in the Democratic primary last month. He also pushed his belief that the 33-year-old is a “communist” and not a democratic socialist, despite his ties to the national Democratic Socialists of America organization.
“Who knows? We don’t know who the mayor is going to be yet. But this a communist — he’s not a socialist, he is a communist,” Trump said. “And he said some really bad things about Jewish people, and he said some really bad things about a lot of people.”
GOP lawmakers have slammed Mamdani for supporting Palestinian sovereignty and pledging to arrest Netanyahu if he visits New York during his tenure in office.
“As mayor, New York City, I would arrest Benjamin Netanyahu,” the state lawmaker said during an interview last month. “This is a city that — our values are in line with international law. It’s time that our actions are also.”
His comment came after the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for the Israeli leader in May, citing war crimes committed by the country in its war with Hamas in Gaza — though Israel is not a part of the entity.
“I’m not concerned about that,” Netanyahu said Monday in response to a question asking if he was worried about being detained.
“I’ll get him out,” Trump quickly shot back.
The Israeli prime minister said Mamdani’s threat to detain him was “silly” and should not be taken seriously while suggesting the Palestinian territories do not deserve to be recognized as a state.
“After [Oct. 7, 2023,] people said Palestinians have a state, a Hamas state in Gaza, and look what they did with it. They didn’t build it up,” Netanyahu said.
“They didn’t build it up, they built down to bunkers and to terror tunnels after which they massacred our people, raped our women, beheaded our men, invaded our cities, and our towns, and did horrendous, horrendous masters,” he claimed, adding that giving sovereignty to the territories would “be a platform to destroy Israel.”
Trump, earlier this year, floated that the U.S. could take over the Gaza Strip, with a goal of developing commercial and leisure resorts to help bolster “economic development.”
