Trump threatened to cut funding if New Yorkers voted for Mamdani. They did it anyway

Zohran Mamdani wasted little time after becoming mayor-elect of New York City before addressing the man who threatened to not only defund the city, but also to arrest and deport him if he won.

"Donald Trump, since I know you're watching, I have four words for you: Turn the volume up," Mamdani, a Democrat, told the Republican president from the stage of his Brooklyn victory party.

He issued a direct challenge to the president. "If anyone can show a nation betrayed by Donald Trump how to defeat him, it is the city that gave rise to him," he said.

The proclamation was an illustration of how both men have seized on one another as politically advantageous foils as Mamdani has risen from obscure state lawmaker to national Democratic star and as Trump has cast today's Democratic Party as radical and out of touch with everyday voters.

Mamdani, who was born in Uganda and became a naturalized American citizen after graduating from college, went on to cast himself as the embodiment of the resistance against the president, who has pursued an aggressive, anti-immigrant agenda during his second term.

"New York will remain a city of immigrants, a city built by immigrants, powered by immigrants and, as of tonight, led by an immigrant," he said. "So hear me, President Trump, when I say this: To get to any of us, you will have to get through all of us."

Trump, who has spent months insulting Mamdani and warning that the city would be ruined if he won, seemed to be watching.

"…AND SO IT BEGINS!" he posted on social media as Mamdani spoke.

Mamdani, a democratic socialist who campaigned on a slate of democratic socialist progressive policies and a cheery optimism that stands in stark contrast to Trump's darker and more hardline tactics, is expected to continue to face the president's persistent political bashing — along with a federal government that may try to thwart his agenda.

It remains unclear however exactly how Trump plans to respond and if the courts will stop him.

New York has remained relatively unscathed by Trump's administration, as he has targeted cities including Los Angeles and Washington, dispatching the National Guard.

The current mayor, Eric Adams, enjoyed an unusual alliance with the Republican president, whose administration dropped a federal corruption case against the mayor so he could better assist with the president's immigration agenda.

But Trump for months has threatened to slash federal funding to the city and mount an outright takeover if Mamdani won — threats that became a cornerstone of Mamdani's rivals' campaigns against him.

"It will be Mayor Trump," if Mamdani wins, former Gov. Andrew Cuomo said during their last debate, warning that Mamdani was too inexperienced and too much of a target to effectively negotiate with the president.