Trump says he’d like to see two candidates drop out of crowded New York mayoral race
President Donald Trump suggested on Thursday evening that Democratic candidate Zohran Mamdani could win the mayor of New York mayor if the candidates’ land does not shrink.
“I do not think you can win unless you have only one, because he has somehow gave ahead of Trump to journalists before a White House dinner with the best technological executives.
“I would like to see two people abandon and be one against one,” added Trump. “I think it’s a race that could be won.”
Trump did not specify which candidates he would like to see the race leaving. Mamdani competes with Mayor Eric Adams, former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa.
When asked if he had encouraged one of the candidates to abandon, Trump said: “No”, before adding: “I don’t like to see a communist to become mayor, I will tell you.”
Trump has repeatedly ridiculed Mamdani, 33, as a communist, arguing that he is not able to direct the largest city in the country. Mamdani identifies himself as a democratic socialist.
The New York Times reported on Wednesday that his best advisers had sought to encourage Adams and Sliwa to abandon the race by offering them roles in the administration. The objective is to stimulate the chances of the former Cuomo to defeat Mamdani after having undergone a deadly loss in the Democratic primary in July.
Cuomo presents himself as a third -party candidate in the general elections. Adams works as independent.
An Adams spokesman said he had no discussion with Trump on the race and denied that he was offered a job at the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development, as some points of sale have reported. However, the spokesperson did not explicitly denote the central angle of the Times reports, namely that Trump intermediaries met Adams to discuss a potential administration role.
Sliwa also denied having had discussions and said he was “not interested in a job in the White House”.
Mamdani described the alleged intervention of the “scandalous” Trump allies in an interview Thursday on MSNBC, although he declared that it was “just as confident to beat Andrew Cuomo today as yesterday”.
“This is an affront to the democracy of our city. It is an affront to values that make so many of us proud to be Americans; that we could choose our own leaders, not that our leaders choose themselves or their friends,” said Mamdani.
