Why Trump’s battle with U.S. mayors might hurt everyone, even him

If the fiery victory speech delivered by New York mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani on Tuesday is any indication, a smooth working relationship with the president of the United States may not be in the cards any time soon.

Mamdani warned Donald Trump to “turn the volume up” as he laid out a list of criticisms against the president. 

It was not a surprising admonishment, considering the president has been an outspoken critic of Mamdani, having called the self-described democratic socialist a “100% Communist Lunatic.” 

Trump, on Tuesday, also repeated his previous warnings about cutting federal funding to the city in the event of a Mamdani victory. 

Mamdani might appear to be just another Democratic mayor stuck in an acrimonious relationship with the Republican president, but observers say these relationships matter and can impact both those mayors' cities and Trump's political ambitions.

“At a minimum, there are a wide number of things that the federal government can choose to do or not do that directly affects the quality of life in cities,” said Aaron Saiger, a law professor and faculty director of the Fordham Urban Law Center.

Such things "would affect the residents quite dramatically.”

Cities depend on the federal government to fund a number of initiatives. New York, for example, for the current fiscal year, is expected to receive $7.4 billion US of its $115 billion US budget, about 6.5 per cent, from Washington.

As noted by Axios, New York's Department of Housing Preservation & Development — tasked with creating and preserving affordable housing in a city where hundreds of thousands struggle with housing costs — gets 50 per cent of its budget from the federal government.

Yet some observers have questioned Trump’s legal authority to take some of these actions against the city. Congress, not the executive branch, is tasked with federal spending under the Constitution, for example. 

But withholding funding is only one potential tool Trump has to punish cities. He has also used his executive power to send in National Guard troops to quell supposed unrest and ICE agents to crack down on alleged illegal immigrants.

“Immigration enforcement, I think, is the one on most people's minds, at the top of their list,” Saiger said, noting it is "clearly within federal power … up to the discretion of the executive branch and arguably of the president.”

Trump has also warred with Chicago's mayor, saying last month that Brandon Johnson should be jailed for failing to protect ICE officers. And he has been in a long-standing feud with Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass. Meanwhile, both cities have been flooded with National Guard troops and seen a surge of ICE agents.

Trump has also threatened Boston, saying last month he'd relocate World Cup matches set to be played in its suburbs next year because the city had been "taken over" by unrest.