Zohran Mamdani Delivers Message to ICE Agents Running Around New York

In a speech Wednesday morning, New York City’s next Mayor Zohran Mamdani warned Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents against violating the law.

Mamdani’s speech at Flushing Meadows–Corona Park in Queens was to announce his transition team, but he also stressed accountability for the federal law enforcement agents carrying out President Trump’s draconian immigration policies, which have resulted in violent raids and abuses.

“My message to ICE agents and to everyone across this city is that everyone will be held to the same standard of the law. If you violate the law, you must be held accountable,” Mamdani said. “And there is sadly a sense that is growing across this country that certain people are allowed to violate that law, whether they be the president or whether they be the agents themselves.”

That message is in sharp contrast to that of the current mayor, Eric Adams, who has been openly cooperating with the Trump administration on immigration, as the Department of Justice kindly dropped its corruption case against him. Mamdani openly embraced immigrants in his campaign for mayor, visiting communities across the city and putting out campaign videos in multiple languages.

That message clearly resonated with voters, and resulted in the highest turnout for a New York City mayoral election since 1969. Mamdani’s message Wednesday morning suggests that his administration will attempt to curtail ICE’s egregious actions in the city, which include interrogating children playing baseball and violently arresting people in immigration court. That message also seems to have the support of the people of New York.

Reactions from the right continue to roll in as they cope with the idea of a Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani introducing basic social democratic policies to New York City. 

Disgraced former New York City Mayor and Trump crony Rudy Giuliani had perhaps the most unhinged reaction, posting a photo on Facebook of planes colliding into the Twin Towers on 9/11, flames and smoke billowing. A picture of him in the city streets during cleanup is edited into one of the smoke plumes. “New York, You Forgot” is pasted onto the image. The song “September 11th, 2001 (9/11)” by The Experience plays in the background. 

“It breaks my heart,” Giuliani captioned the image.  

Insinuating that New York City’s first Muslim mayor will do another 9/11 attack is an incredibly lazy, racist, and Islamophobic strategy that certainly would not be employed if Mamdani’s name, religion, and culture were not what they are. (Mamdani, by the way, was 9 years old at the time of the 2001 attacks.)

Giuliani wasn’t the only Republican working through some things online the morning after Mamdani. 

“Launch the nuke,” GOP Representative Mike Collins posted at 9:50 a.m. Wednesday morning. 

“The battle lines between capitalism and socialism were clearly drawn last night. Texas is now the unrivaled HQ for capitalism in the US,” Texas Governor Greg Abbott wrote on Wednesday, touting the benefits of capitalism as millions of Texans go without SNAP benefits for the month. “We lead the country in finance sector employment & new stock exchanges. Capitalism always prevails. Capitalism has lifted more people out of poverty than all of the social programs in the world. We will secure capitalism for the future of our country and deny the expansion of socialism that is creeping across the US.” 

Donald Trump finally has competition for the media spotlight.

The MAGA president took words right out of Zohran Mamdani’s campaign Wednesday in a flailing attempt to drudge relevance back to his own electoral victory—a year ago. Trump’s celebratory post came with an unexpected echo of the democratic socialist’s policy positions regarding the affordability crisis, despite the fact that Trump spent months waging war against the Muslim New Yorker.

“Happy Anniversary! On this day, November 5th, one year ago, we had one of the Greatest Presidential Victories in History—Such an Honor to represent our Country,” Trump posted to Truth Social. “Our Economy is BOOMING, and Costs are coming way down.

“Affordability is our goal,” he added.

If the last 11 months are anything to go by, then affordability has been far from Trump’s list of priorities. Since his inauguration, Trump has enacted tariffs and sparked trade wars with America’s biggest trade partners, rattling the economy and pushing farmers to the brink of bankruptcy.

Companies, hesitant to invest in the unpredictable market, peeled back on hiring in such a devastating way earlier this year that the White House ordered the dissolution of the monthly jobs report and fired the staffers responsible for organizing and publishing the data. In doing so, Trump stripped a significant indicator from economists, pushing the American public and its myriad industries into the dark regarding the overall health of the country.

And Trump has done very little to make life easier for low-income Americans in recent weeks, allowing the Agriculture Department to ignore its legal requirement to fund SNAP benefits through November using contingency funds. (The USDA announced Monday, two days after benefits expired, that it would partially fund SNAP benefits through the remainder of the month.)

Trump’s administration also pressed for ending Obamacare subsidies, forcing tens of thousands of Americans to forgo health insurance as their premiums skyrocket.

New Yorkers elected Mamdani as their next mayor Tuesday night, with more than 50 percent of voting city dwellers casting their ballot for the 34-year-old assemblyman. Mamdani won in spite of Trump’s countless promises to strip federal funding from the city (something that he does not have the constitutional authority to decide) and his threat to deport the Ugandan-born politico. Instead, the city is concentrating on tangible local issues: the ongoing housing crisis, the astronomical cost of living, and the expensive price tags on everyday goods.

All things considered, Trump’s redirection toward affordability is especially odd from a man that considered a $1 million loan from his father to be “small,” is currently building himself a $300 million ballroom on the trampled remains of the White House East Wing, and seems to believe that you need a photo ID in order to purchase groceries. (This was a miraculous improvement in Trump’s comprehension of supermarkets, considering that he seemingly never knew the word “groceries” existed until last year.)

Vice President JD Vance has finally reacted to the significant Democratic victories in Tuesday’s election, downplaying the wins while also mimicking the rhetoric of New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani in his diagnosis of the GOP’s election night failures. 

“I think it’s idiotic to overreact to a couple of elections in blue states,” Vance wrote in a post on X rather condescendingly, before going on to emphasize the need for Republicans to focus on voter registration and the inflation making life unaffordable for so many Americans.

Vance’s comment about “a couple elections in blue states” ignores the reality of the situation. Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Georgia all saw big wins for Democrats Tuesday night, and they aren’t exactly blue states. And even within those states (and in bluer ones like New York and New Jersey), Democrats won in red districts.  

Democrats in Georgia made history by winning two statewide races for public service commissioner, their first nonfederal statewide wins since 2006. In Erie County, Pennsylvania, which went for President Trump in 2024, Democrat Christina Vogel won the county executive race by 24 percentage points. In Virginia’s 66th state House district, Democrat Nicole Cole beat 36-year Republican incumbent Bobby Orrock, the longest-serving GOP delegate in Virginia. And in ruby red Mississippi, Democrats were able to break the GOP state Senate supermajority, flipping three seats after 13 years of Republican control. 

These local victories, combined with Proposition 50 in California, the Democratic gubernatorial victories in Virginia and New Jersey, Trump’s very low approval rating, and what may be a significant Latino exodus, should certainly have Republicans more worried than Vance is in the thoughts he shared. And cutting SNAP benefits and triggering inflation while the president enriches himself and his family is quite a ways away from “working to make a decent life affordable in this country.”

After Zohran Mamdani’s win Tuesday night in New York City’s mayoral election, some top city officials are heading for the exits.

FDNY Commissioner Robert Tucker announced Wednesday that he will resign, and Deputy Mayor for Public Safety Kaz Daughtry will likely follow, the New York Daily News reports. Tucker sent an email to Mayor Eric Adams only hours after Mamdani’s victory, saying that he will step down after December 19.

“Between now and then, I will continue to lead the greatest fire department in the world and will ensure an orderly transition,” the email said, according to the Daily News.

A fire department source told the newspaper that Tucker, who is Jewish and a Zionist, didn’t feel able to work well with Mamdani’s administration due to the mayor-elect’s views on Israel and Palestine. What that has to do with fire safety in New York is not clear, and Mamdani has unequivocally condemned antisemitism multiple times, including on Wednesday morning.

Last month, Mamdani told a Jewish congregation in Brooklyn, “I’m going to have people in my administration who are Zionists, whether liberal Zionists, or wherever they may be on that spectrum.”

Tucker, however, has political ties to Adams that seem to blur ethical lines. He owns a private security company that made some oddly timed donations to Adams without the required disclosures, before being appointed FDNY chief in 2024. He is currently traveling to Israel to meet with the Israel Fire and Rescue Authority, and may speak publicly about his resignation when he returns to New York.

Regarding Daughtry’s departure, the Daily News cited an unnamed source stating that the deputy mayor, as a member of the previous administration, didn’t see a future with Mamdani. Another Adams official told the Daily News that many other Adams staffers would likely resign in the coming days, as well.