In public, President Donald Trump has spent weeks disparaging Zohran Mamdani as an extremist, a communist and a danger to New York City.

He has also insisted he is “much better looking” than the 34-year-old Mamdani.

But in private, Trump has described Mamdani, now the mayor-elect of New York City, as a talented politician, calling him slick and a good talker, according to two people who discussed the president’s comments on condition of anonymity.

Despite the grudging compliment, the two men appear to be headed for a showdown, pitting the young democratic socialist against a president who has already treated him as a useful foil. For Trump, the mayor-elect is the face of Democratic opposition; just hours after Mamdani’s once-improbable victory, the president said that Democrats were “crazy” and so was “Mamdani, or whatever the hell his name is.”

Trump’s aides and allies acknowledge that Mamdani and New York City are likely to be the next targets of the president’s attacks, even as some caution that Trump has a vested interest in New York’s financial success because of his multiple real estate holdings.

On Wednesday, Trump even said he might “help him a little bit maybe” because he wanted New York City to succeed.

Still, the president has already threatened to withhold federal money “other than the very minimum as required” from the city, although he cannot legally hold back money that Congress has authorized, with narrow exceptions. (When the administration has tried to withhold federal funds from cities over immigration policy, it has consistently lost in court.)

There are dozens of different funding streams to New York City from the federal government, including money for health care, transportation and law enforcement, and if the administration were to withhold expected funds for any of those, it would most likely result in a lawsuit.

Mamdani, for his part, seems ready for that fight. In his victory speech, he challenged Trump directly, vowing to fight back against federal efforts to meddle in New York.

“So, Donald Trump, since I know you’re watching, I have four words for you,” he said, taunting the TV-watching president. “Turn the volume up.”

(The White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, later confirmed that Trump was, indeed, watching.)

President Donald Trump delivers remarks at the America Business Forum at the Kaseya Center in Miami, on Wednesday, Nov. 5, 2025. (Doug Mills/The New York Times)

Mamdani said that he would not be cowed by the president’s threats and that New York City would provide the playbook for how to defeat Trump and his political movement.

“So hear me, President Trump, when I say this: To get to any of us, you will have to get through all of us,” he said.

Mamdani may have few, if any, levers to fight back against the Trump administration other than litigation. The mayor-elect has vowed to hire 200 additional lawyers to the city’s law department, partly to stand up to what his campaign described as “presidential excess.”

In his second term, Trump has repeatedly shown his willingness, and at times eagerness, to use the levers of the federal government to exact revenge on his opponents. He has already cut billions of dollars in federal grants to states and cities run by Democrats, including New York City. He has sent the National Guard into Democratic-run cities against their wishes. And he has instructed the Justice Department to prosecute his political opponents, including the attorney general of New York.

But some allies of the president privately said Mamdani’s victory could prove useful to Trump, allowing him to replicate a playbook he has long deployed to demonize Democratic leaders — such as former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi; Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y.; and George Soros, the billionaire supporter of Democrats — to further his political agenda.

Since Mamdani won a surprise victory in the Democratic primary, Trump and his allies have tagged him as the future of the party, seeking to paint the Democratic Party as extreme. On Wednesday, as Trump assailed Democrats for allowing transgender women and girls to compete in women’s sports, the president lumped Mamdani into the fold.

“He thinks it’s wonderful to have men playing in women’s sports,” Trump said.

Mamdani has promised to defend the rights of transgender New Yorkers and to make the city a “sanctuary city” for LGBTQ+ residents in the face of Trump’s policies targeting transgender people. He has not explicitly addressed the athletes issue, and a spokesperson pointed to his record.

Mamdani — who says he is a democratic socialist, not a communist — seems unafraid of mixing it up with the president, and on Wednesday morning, he dismissed concerns that he had sought to provoke Trump in his victory speech.

“I will work with the president if he wants to work together to deliver on his campaign promises of cheaper groceries or a lower cost of living,” the mayor-elect said in an interview on NY1. But, he repeated, “if the president looks to come after the people of this city, then I will be there, standing up for them every step of the way.”

David Axelrod, a Democratic strategist and a longtime adviser to former President Barack Obama, said some of Mamdani’s comments about Trump were “unnecessary playground stuff.”

“I don’t think that getting into a trolling contest with Trump is a very valuable thing to do, but standing firm when he is essentially waging a war on the city, that I think is required,” he said. “The question is: How do you challenge the president and still leave room for the idea that you’re going to be mayor for the whole city?”

Trump, a born-and-raised New Yorker, is deeply concerned with the city’s affairs. His advisers tried to meddle in the race to sink Mamdani, though they were unsuccessful, and Trump campaigned for president multiple times in New York City last year, even though its residents reliably support Democrats.

And so some of the president’s allies in New York are encouraging him to take a more diplomatic approach to the city.

John Catsimatidis, a billionaire grocery and oil magnate in New York, said he told the president not to hold back money that would help New Yorkers. He also said he did not think the president needed to send the military into the city. Instead, he recommended to Trump that the federal government closely monitor all federal funds that are distributed to New York City.

“They’re not going to send him money and allow him to spend it the way he is going to want,” he said, adding, “I think he’ll monitor the situation very closely because he cares about New York.”

The New York Times News Service