President Donald Trump predicted democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani "will behave" due to the occupant in the White House if the assemblyman becomes New York City mayor.
Trump spoke to reporters about Mamdani before the president and team members ate dinner with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli officials in Washington on Monday night.
"It all comes through the White House," Trump said in talking about Mamdani. "He needs the money through the White House. He needs a lot. He's going to behave. He'll behave. He better behave. Otherwise, he's going to have big problems."
Trump added Mamdani has been pitching "a philosophy that this country is not ready for and it never will be."
"This a communist, he's not a socialist, he's a communist," Trump said. "And he said some really bad things about Jewish people, and he said some really bad things about a lot of people."
Mamdani became the Democrat candidate for mayor in November after promising such things as immediately freezing the rent for all stabilized tenants and free city bus rides.
He also has long been a vocal critic of the Israeli government and its treatment of Palestinians, The New York Times reported.
Mamdani has said he would arrest Netanyahu if the prime minister came to New York City despite there being no arrest warrant for Netanyahu in the U.S. The International Criminal Court did issue an arrest warrant for the Israeli leader in May, citing war crimes amid its war with Hamas in Gaza, but the U.S. is not part of the ICC.
Netanyahu was asked Monday night whether he took Mamdani's threat of arrest seriously.
"I'm not concerned about that," Netanyahu said.
Trump quickly offered, "I'll get him out."
Following a few laughs, the prime minister continued his answer.
"Look, there's a enough craziness in the world, but I guess it never ends," he said. "This is a folly. It's silly in many ways, because it's just not serious. But what is serious is the question I was asked before.
"You know after Oct. 7, people said Palestinians have a state, a Hamas state in Gaza, and look what they did with it. They didn't build it up, they built down to bunkers and to terror tunnels after which they massacred our people, raped our women, beheaded our men, invaded our cities, and our towns, and did horrendous, horrendous massacres, the kind of which we didn't see since World War II and the Nazis, the Holocaust.
"So, people are not likely to say let's just give them another state. It will be a platform to destroy Israel."
Charlie McCarthy ✉
Charlie McCarthy, a writer/editor at Newsmax, has nearly 40 years of experience covering news, sports, and politics.
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