Zohran Mamdani, who has these days become US President Donald Trump’s favourite punching bag, said the attacks are not because of who he is or the way he looks or speaks but because of what he “fights for”. He also alleged that the President has “betrayed the working class Americans” and that his “Big Beautiful Bill” would take food, healthcare away from people.
He further added that if the administration is willing to threaten him with arrest, deportation, and even denaturalisation, he can only imagine the fear under which countless immigrants whose names and stories are unknown live.
‘He wants to distract me from what I fight for’
“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 while speaking during a rally at the Hotel and Gaming Trades Council headquarters in New York.
He added, “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 me from what I fight for. I fight for working people. I fight for the very people that have been priced out of this city, and I fight for the same people that he said he was fighting for.”
Ever since Mamdani won the New York primary, defeating former Governor Andrew Cuomo, he has become a target of Republican attacks. The GOP has sought to portray him as an extreme leftist who is disconnected from the concerns of everyday voters ahead of the November elections.
He has also been facing backlash from Indians over his criticism of PM Modi as well as his pro-Palestine stance, and his refusal to disavow use of the phrase “globalise the intifada,” which is seen as a call to violence for many Jews.
‘Betrayed working class Americans’
Mamdani accused Trump of having betrayed working-class Americans, claiming that his bill would strip healthcare and take food from the hungry.
“This is the same president who ran on a campaign of cheaper groceries, who ran on a campaign about easing a suffocating cost of living crisis, and ultimately it is easier for him to fan the flames of division that to acknowledge the ways in which he has betrayed those working class Americans, not just in the city but across this country, and the ways in which he continues to betray them, because we know that he would rather speak about me than speak about the legislation that he is shepherding through Washington DC,” he said, before adding, “Legislation that will quite literally take healthcare away from Americans, legislations that will steal food from the hungry.”
“We should be fighting for those who do not have what they need to live a dignified life,” he stressed, before adding that this is what he is looking forward to doing.
He concluded, “And ultimately what I fear for is that if this is what Donald Trump and his administration feel comfortable saying about the Democratic nominee for the mayor of New York City, imagine what they feel comfortable saying and doing about immigrants whose names they don’t even know.”
‘Not going to let Communist Lunatic destroy…’
Trump, in a Truth Social post, said that he would not let the “communist lunatic” destroy New York City and will make it “hot and green” again.
“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,” Trump wrote in a message on his Truth Social site Wednesday morning.
“I’ll save New York City, and make it ‘Hot’ and ‘Great’ again, just like I did with the Good Ol’ USA!” he added.
