Sanders slams Trump threat to cut NYC funding if Mamdani wins

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) condemned President Trump for threatening to withhold funding for New York City if Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani wins the general election this November.

“Trump wants to withhold money from New York City if Zohran Mamdani wins. Really?” Sanders wrote Monday evening in a post on the social platform X.

“Because nothing says ‘law and order’ like the President extorting his own city if they don’t vote how he wants,” he continued.

Trump on Monday warned New York City residents not to vote for Mamdani, whom Trump called a “self proclaimed New York City Communist,” and said if Mamdani wins in November, “He is going to have problems with Washington like no Mayor in the history of our once great city.”

Trump continued: “Remember, he needs the money from me, as President, in order to fulfill all of his fake communist promises. He won’t be getting any of it, so what’s the point of voting for him?”

Mamdani, who has maintained a commanding lead over former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and his other opponents in recent general election polling, responded to a montage of clips of Trump calling him a “communist,” saying on CNN, “I’m a democratic socialist. I’ve said that time and again.”

But Mamdani suggested the president is going through the “stages of grief,” as Trump comes to terms with the possibility that a democratic socialist might be elected his hometown mayor.

“What we’re seeing in these clips, and what we’re seeing in what Donald Trump says, is he’s going through the many stages of grief,” Mamdani told CNN’s Erin Burnett on Monday.

“First, it’s denial that this could ever take place. Now it’s acceptance,” he continued, “and still, through it all, he is looking to use every tool at his disposal to help Andrew Cuomo become the next mayor of this city.”