NEW YORK — New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani condemned the U.S. military strikes on Iran Saturday, stress-testing his increasingly productive working relationship with President Donald Trump.
“Today’s military strikes on Iran — carried out by the United States and Israel — mark a catastrophic escalation in an illegal war of aggression,” Mamdani said in a statement on X. “Bombing cities. Killing civilians. Opening a new theater of war. Americans do not want this. They do not want another war in pursuit of regime change. They want relief from the affordability crisis. They want peace.”
Mamdani’s condemnation of Trump’s military move comes on the heels of their Thursday meeting at the White House — after which Mamdani told reporters he and Trump had a “productive” talk about housing development in New York City and that he looks forward to continuing to work with the president.
The whiplash between that cordial tone and Saturday’s forceful rebuke of the strikes highlights the delicate nature of Mamdani’s balancing act, as he tries to work with the president without tying himself too closely to a figure hated by his political base.
In criticizing Trump on any given issue, Mamdani risks angering the mercurial president, who has so far held off on subjecting New York to the sort of mass ICE deployments and federal funding cuts with which he's hit other blue cities. At the same time, Mamdani did not touch off blowback from the president when he questioned the legality of the Trump administration’s capture of Venezuela’s leader, Nicolás Maduro, last month.
During his mayoral campaign, some of Trump's more vitriolic attacks directed at the now-mayor was due to his foreign policy stances. Mamdani suggested he would seek the arrest of Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu should he step foot in New York.
The mayor’s Saturday missive came over nine hours after Trump announced in a pre-dawn video statement that the U.S. had initiated “major combat operations” inside Iran.
The president explicitly stated that the goal of the incursion is regime change, saying once the bombs stop falling, Iranians should “take over” the country’s government from the hardline clerics who have ruled with an iron fist for decades.
Mamdani’s NYPD reacted to the dramatic development before he did, issuing a statement early Saturday morning saying the department is “enhancing patrols to sensitive locations throughout the city, including diplomatic, cultural, religious and other relevant sites” in light of the U.S. military operation.
In his statement, Mamdani said he has been in contact with NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch and other law enforcement officials about “proactive steps.”
The mayor also had a message for Iranian New Yorkers: “You are part of the fabric of this city — you are our neighbors, small business owners, students, artists, workers, and community leaders,” he said. “You will be safe here.”
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