Daijiworld Media Network – New York

New York, Jul 3: Indian-origin New York Mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani has sharply hit back at US President Donald Trump over his calls for Mamdani’s arrest, deportation, and denaturalisation, accusing him of fuelling division to distract from his failures.

At 33, Mamdani a self-described democratic socialist has emerged as a historic figure in the city's political landscape, being poised to become the first Muslim and first South Asian mayor of New York. Speaking at a rally at the Hotel and Gaming Trades Council headquarters, Mamdani said, “Trump wants to distract from what I fight for and I fight for working people.”

His response came after Trump, in a post on his social platform Truth Social, branded Mamdani a ‘Communist lunatic’ and vowed to stop him from ‘destroying New York,’ promising to make the city ‘hot’ and ‘great’ again.

“Yesterday, Donald Trump said that I should be arrested, deported, and denaturalised,” Mamdani told a cheering crowd. “He wants to turn the spotlight away from the way he has betrayed working-class Americans not just in this city, but across this country.”

Mamdani’s surprise victory over former Governor Andrew Cuomo in the Democratic primary has drawn heavy fire from Republicans. The GOP has painted him as an extremist ahead of the November elections, intensifying personal attacks since his win.

He also criticised Trump’s marquee tax and spending legislation, the ‘One Big Beautiful Bill,’ which he said would ‘take health care away from Americans’ and worsen inequality. “This bill steals food from the hungry and cements one of the largest wealth transfers in recent history,” Mamdani said.

Meanwhile, Republicans in Congress were forced to delay a key vote on the bill, grappling with internal rebellion over its projected impact on the national debt and social programmes revealing deep divisions even within Trump’s own party as he pushes forward his controversial domestic agenda.