The impending confrontation between President Donald Trump and New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani looms as the biggest battle yet in the escalating fight between the administration and the nation’s Democratic-run cities.
Trump is using a pincer movement to try to bend blue cities to his will. On one flank, there’s the highly visible, highly militarized immigration enforcement actions and the actual or threatened National Guard deployments in Chicago, Los Angeles, Portland and Washington. On the other, there’s a stealthier attempt to coerce cities into adopting a broad range of conservative policies by threatening to revoke their federal funding.