Former New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio came to the defense of Zohran Mamdani after the Democratic Socialist was called out by President Donald Trump.
The former Democratic mayor of the Big Apple vowed to form a “human shield” around the controversial 33-year-old Muslim who won New York City’s Democratic mayoral primary, defeating former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo.
“Donald Trump will have to go through a lot of us first if he wants to arrest Zohran Mamdani,” de Blasio blared in a social media post on Wednesday.
“We New Yorkers will put a human shield around him if we need to,” he declared. “No one gets to intimidate us.”
Donald Trump will have to go through a lot of us first if he wants to arrest @ZohranKMamdani.
We New Yorkers will put a human shield around him if we need to.
No one gets to intimidate us. https://t.co/gJMK4ne6dL— Bill de Blasio (@BilldeBlasio) July 1, 2025
The former mayor’s chest-thumping included Mamdani’s post this week, in which he blasted Trump for rightfully threatening him for claiming, if elected, he would stand against US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operations in the city.
“The President of the United States just threatened to have me arrested, stripped of my citizenship, put in a detention camp, and deported. Not because I have broken any law but because I will refuse to let ICE terrorize our city,” he said in a statement.
“His statements don’t just represent an attack on our democracy, but an attempt to send a message to every New Yorker who refused to hide in the shadows: if you speak up, they will come for you,” added Mamdani, who was born in Uganda and became an American citizen in 2018.
Though other New York Democrats haven’t endorsed Mamdani, they jumped aboard the anti-Trump train after the president responded to questions about the candidate’s citizenship, adding that authorities would “have to arrest him” if he obstructed federal immigration efforts.
“I don’t care if you’re the President of the United States, if you threaten to unlawfully go after one of our neighbors, you’re picking a fight with 20 million New Yorkers — starting with me,” New York Gov. Kathy Hochul wrote on X.
“Stop lying about Assemblyman Mamdani,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries posted. “He is neither a communist nor a lunatic. And New York City doesn’t need to be saved by a wannabe King.”
Even Mamdani’s opponent defended him.
President Trump’s threats to arrest Assemblyman Mamdani, while predictable, are insulting to the American principles of justice and further New Yorkers resentment of his heavy-handed tactics and the compliance and complicity of his supplicants.
It should be universally…
— Andrew Cuomo (@andrewcuomo) July 2, 2025
Nevertheless, Mamdani’s far-left policy ideas have many Democrats concerned, but de Blasio, who served as NYC mayor between 2014 and 2022, has attempted to tamp down fears.
“These are not staggering ideas. If he wants to tax the wealthy, he has to get the approval of the legislature. They may or may not give it,” he told ‘Fox News @ Night’ last week.
“I just think there’s a lot of exaggeration here. And we’re not going to see people leaving in droves,” de Blasio said. “They said it would happen when I became mayor. It didn’t happen. I just don’t buy it.”
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said Mamdani’s radical policies make de Blasio “look like Ronald Reagan.”
.@GovRonDeSantis: NYC’s Democratic mayoral candidate makes Bill de Blasio look like Ronald Reagan. pic.twitter.com/Ut4AvuNjnV
— Fox News (@FoxNews) July 2, 2025
Click this link for the original source of this article.
Author: Frieda Powers
This content is courtesy of, and owned and copyrighted by, https://www.bizpacreview.com and its author. This content is made available by use of the public RSS feed offered by the host site and is used for educational purposes only. If you are the author or represent the host site and would like this content removed now and in the future, please contact USSANews.com using the email address in the Contact page found in the website menu.
