Mamdani, Hochul prepare for possibility of troops, funding cuts if Trump moves on NYC

Chris Sommerfeldt, New York Daily News on Nov 13, 2025

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NEW YORK — Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani and New York Gov. Kathy Hochul met Thursday to prepare for the possibility President Donald Trump could take punitive actions against New York City after Mamdani is sworn in seven weeks from now.

For months, Trump threatened to cut federal funding for New York and boost ICE’s presence or deploy the National Guard in the city in the event that Mamdani, a democratic socialist, was elected mayor. Trump routinely called Mamdani a “communist” whose left-wing agenda would put New York at risk.

“I’m not going to send a lot of money to New York,” Trump said in mid-October at the White House. “We’re not going to ruin one of our great cities, because we’ll make that great. We will clean up the crime in about 30 days.”

“It took 12 days to do Washington, DC, so New York is bigger, and Chicago, we’ve already made a lot of progress despite fighting from the government. All of these cities, we want to clean them up,” he added.

Since Mamdani’s Nov. 4 election victory, the Queens-born president has been a bit more circumspect, though, even saying last week he hopes “it works out for New York” and that he’ll “help him a little bit, maybe.”

Still, Hochul invited Mamdani to her Midtown Manhattan office on Thursday afternoon to talk about a range of topics — including what Trump might do after Mamdani is inaugurated Jan. 1 as the youngest mayor in city history in more than a century.

“The Governor and the Mayor-elect discussed the possibility that the federal government would surge ICE and/or National Guard to New York City,” said a readout of the meeting provided by Mamdani’s transition team.

“Both agreed that New York is safe and that a federal surge would not improve public safety, especially given continued declines in crime and the governor’s investments in subway safety. State officials provided an update on ongoing preparedness efforts should the federal government target New York, and the mayor-elect’s team will formally join these coordinated efforts.”

While ICE has been detaining men and women across New York for months as part of the Trump administration’s “mass deportation” agenda, the city has not seen the same level of confrontation and conflict as other parts of the country, notably Chicago.

The readout of the Mamdani-Hochul meeting said it lasted about an hour. There was no detail on the exact nature of the preparedness efforts they discussed.

But Politico reported earlier this month that Hochul has for weeks been convening New York business leaders and law enforcement officials to game out how New York would respond in the event of various Trump-induced scenarios.

One purpose of those meetings has been to nudge business leaders to signal to Trump that it’d be a waste of federal resources to deploy U.S. troops to New York.

According to the meeting readout, Mamdani and Hochul also discussed other key New York City issues, like child care and budgeting.

Mamdani said earlier this week that he plans to speak to Trump before he takes office Jan. 1.

Unlike outgoing Mayor Eric Adams, Mamdani has vowed to fight Trump, especially over his “mass deportation” efforts targeting undocumented New Yorkers.