{"id":201063,"date":"2026-04-17T19:21:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-17T19:21:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/201063\/"},"modified":"2026-04-17T19:21:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-17T19:21:08","slug":"mamdani-shrugs-off-trump-attack-that-he-will-ruin-nyc-defends-tax-on-luxury-second-homes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/201063\/","title":{"rendered":"Mamdani shrugs off Trump attack that he will \u2018ruin\u2019 NYC, defends tax on luxury second homes"},"content":{"rendered":"

A proposal to tax some of New York City\u2019s priciest part-time homes is giving Mayor Zohran Mamdani<\/a> another fiscal win with Gov. Kathy Hochul<\/a> \u2014 but a minor setback in his chummy relationship with President Donald Trump.<\/p>\n

This week, Hochul said she wants state lawmakers to let the city impose a surcharge on non-primary residences<\/a> valued at more than $5 million, a move her administration says could bring in at least $500 million a year for the city.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The proposal would apply to second homes and investor-owned apartments, not primary residences or units rented to full-time tenants, and arrives as City Hall tries to close a $5.4 billion budget gap without cutting core services.\u00a0<\/p>\n

For Mamdani, the plan amounts to an early Albany breakthrough. He has been pressing for new revenue from the city\u2019s wealthiest residents and biggest winners, and Hochul\u2019s support for a pied-\u00e0-terre-style tax gives him a major piece of that argument \u2014 even if it stops short of the broader income- and corporate-tax hikes he has pushed. <\/p>\n

He notched an early win for his agenda in January, when Hochul came on board with his universal childcare plan, pledging $1.2 billion to build out the program.\u00a0<\/p>\n

City Council Speaker Julie Menin also backed the new tax idea, calling it a sensible way to raise revenue without putting more pressure on working New Yorkers.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Trump, though, cast the proposal as proof that Mamdani is taking the city in the wrong direction. In a Truth Social post Thursday evening, the president wrote that the mayor was \u201cDESTROYING New York,\u201d blasted what he called \u201cTAX, TAX, TAX Policies,\u201d and argued that \u201cPeople are fleeing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Later, asked by the Judge Street Journal<\/a> whether the two men had had a falling out, Trump said, \u201cNo, not at all. He\u2019s going to ruin the city, however. His policies are no good.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mamdani answered the broadside on Friday at a press conference in Crown Heights, using the moment to defend the tax as both practical politics and basic governance.<\/p>\n

He said he was more interested in \u201cwhat New Yorkers have to say about our policies,\u201d added that \u201c93% approve of the pied-\u00e0-terre tax,\u201d and argued that the measure would fund \u201cessential city services like free childcare, cleaner streets and safer neighborhoods.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe President and I both want the city to succeed,\u201d Mamdani said. \u201cThis is how you do it.\u201d He also framed the dispute less as a personal rupture than a familiar ideological split, saying Trump\u2019s opposition appeared to be about policy, not some newly broken relationship.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He also said he and Trump have \u201cmany deep policy differences,\u201d including over ICE, which Mamdani called \u201ca cruel and inhumane agency.\u201d\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

\u201cThe thing that we have in common is that we are both New Yorkers,\u201d Mamdani said, adding that he tries to steer those conversations back to what will help the city.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Asked whether he planned to keep lobbying Albany for higher income and corporate taxes when he travels there later on Friday, Mamdani offered no sign of backing down. \u201cI will always be myself wherever I go,\u201d he said, pairing a continued defense of taxing the wealthy with praise for the pied-\u00e0-terre tax as a step forward.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"ZohranPresident Donald Trump holds a mock\u2011up Daily News front page reading \u201cTrump to City: Let\u2019s Build\u201d after a meeting with Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who called the sit-down productive and said he looks forward to expanding housing in New York City.Photo courtesy of NYC Mayor<\/p>\n

Hochul has not yet set the exact surcharge rates, though her administration has said it is working with city and state budget officials to reach a structure that meets the $500 million target. She said this week that the current estimation is based on about 13,000 second homes.\u00a0<\/p>\n

She has also made clear that she is not embracing the broader tax increases Mamdani has floated, instead presenting the second-home surcharge as a narrower way for wealthy absentee owners to contribute more to the city they use.<\/p>\n

Earlier Friday morning, Mamdani sharpened his contrast with the President in an interview on NPR\u2019s Newsmakers. Asked whether, after meeting with Trump and speaking with him multiple times, he still considers the president \u201ca fascist,\u201d Mamdani answered: \u201cYes.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Asked whether he says that directly to Trump, he answered the same way: \u201cYes.\u201d Even so, he described their dealings as a mix of blunt disagreement and transactional city business, saying they discuss both areas of possible cooperation and major points of conflict, including immigration enforcement. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A proposal to tax some of New York City\u2019s priciest part-time homes is giving Mayor Zohran Mamdani another…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":201064,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[1445,9,56,63,65,64,79763,613,1069],"class_list":{"0":"post-201063","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-city","8":"tag-mamdani","9":"tag-new-york","10":"tag-ny","11":"tag-nyc","12":"tag-nyc-headlines","13":"tag-nyc-news","14":"tag-pied-a-terre","15":"tag-pm-newsletter","16":"tag-trump"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201063","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=201063"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201063\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/201064"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=201063"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=201063"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=201063"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}