Donald Trump Jr. said on Thursday that it is unlikely Democratic mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani will lose the New York City election, but this could be “exactly” what the nation needs.
Mamdani is leading by double digits against both independent mayoral candidate Andrew Cuomo and Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa, and early voting is set to begin on Saturday. Trump said he hates to see New York City, “the birthplace of American capitalism go down in flames,” but added this could be “a lesson” for the rest of the country.
“If the rest of the country watches New York fail, and I believe it will under these disastrous ideas, maybe that’s what we need to stop the spread of this scourge, of this disease of Communism in America. I hate to see it. It’s a disaster for us, we have incredible assets there,” Trump said on Fox News’s Fox & Friends.
“My father spent his entire life changing the skyline of New York City, employing tens of thousands of people. But as you saw and as you watched, it didn’t stop them from going after him, trying to sue him, trying to weaponize the government there against him, having him lose half a billion dollars, which was later overturned once it got to reasonable people,” Trump said.
Trump added that the city is “impossible” to do business in unless people “tow the line with their radical Democrat policies,” and reiterated his belief that the city must hit “rock bottom” to come back “on top.”
Trump also criticized Mamdani’s proposal for a $30 per hour minimum wage, comparing it to a similar effort by Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA). He said this “didn’t work out well” for fast food restaurants, which replaced human workers with touchscreen kiosks, and predicted a similar outcome would come to New York City.
Trump’s Thursday appearance on Fox News comes only a few weeks after he said he doesn’t watch the network anymore. His father, President Donald Trump, criticized the network for airing an interview with Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) and his “totally unabated or challenged” claims on healthcare.
Washington Examiner’s Chief Political Correspondent Byron York said Wednesday he doesn’t believe Cuomo can beat Mamdani even in the unlikely event that Sliwa were to drop out. He added that Cuomo is “such terribly damaged goods.”
ANDREW CUOMO IS NOT SOME MORAL ALTERNATIVE TO MAMDANI
Mamdani, Cuomo, and Sliwa all partook in a second debate Wednesday night, during which the latter two candidates turned up the heat in a bid to make ground on Mamdani’s double-digit lead.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams dropped his independent reelection bid last month and is set to endorse Cuomo. Cuomo said earlier this month he would accept an Adams endorsement, but not an endorsement from Trump since “the tent isn’t that big.”