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    Majority of Latino voters disapprove of Trump, Pew study finds

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    A majority of Latinos disapprove of Donald Trump and his economic and immigration policies, according to a new report from the Pew Research Center.After receiving support from nearly half of Latino voters in the 2024 election, Trump had lost the backing of a majority surveyed in October. Pew found that 70% of Latinos “disapprove of the way Trump is handling his job as president”, while 65% disapprove of his administration’s approach to immigration and 61% believe his economic policies have worsened economic conditions.Trump won 48% of the Latino vote in 2024, up from 28% in 2016. Latinos, one of the fastest-growing demographics in the United States, account for one in five Americans.After the 2024 election, Latinos, particularly Latino men, credited Trump’s economic proposals and immigration policies – suggesting he was not serious about threats of mass deportations – for winning their vote.At the time, two-thirds of Latinos said they “do not feel like he is talking about me” when Trump discussed his immigration policies, and more than 40% approved of his proposal to build a border wall, according to an October 2024 Siena poll for the New York Times.But since Trump implemented sweeping tariffs and social safety net spending cuts, alongside aggressive immigration raids, that support has dwindled. In June, a co-founder of Latinas for Trump criticized widespread immigration arrests as “unacceptable and inhumane”.The results of the November elections showed that Democrats won back Latino voters in New Jersey and Virginia’s gubernatorial races.The shifts within the Latino electorate are still markedly divided by political party. According to the Pew report, while nearly all Latinos who voted for Kamala Harris in the 2024 election disapprove of Trump, 81% of those who voted for Trump approve of the president’s job (down from 93% at the start of his term).A majority of Latinos worry that they, a family member or a close friend could be deported under the president’s heightened immigration enforcement – where 42% expressed such fear in March, 52% do now. Nearly 60% said they had witnessed or heard of immigration raids or arrests in their community in the past six months.For the first time in nearly two decades, Pew reported that “most Hispanics say their situation has worsened”. While 10% of Hispanics told Pew that Trump’s policies helped them, 78% said the president’s policies harmed their community. More

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      Why did young men move left in this month’s US elections? | Cory Alpert

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      Just a few months ago, it seemed that the political landscape was changing permanently, with young people shifting right – especially young men. Democrats spun up a vortex of efforts to win them back, but they often appeared to be flailing. This month’s elections, however, told a different story.Young men in the US face a political identity crisis. It should not be controversial to say that the world that many were promised as children has not come to fruition. Two decades of war and a turbulent economy have combined with a massively changing workforce. Young men’s disaffection should come as no real surprise.An entire ecosystem of hucksters has emerged to take advantage of these young people, peddling a dark vision that offers violence and control as a response to a changing world. Meanwhile, the Democratic party failed to imagine a political future that included these young men. In Democrats’ parlance, anyone who took one step in that direction was hopelessly lost, unable to see the beautiful egalitarian future that we could create together.There is a fine line here. I am not arguing for the redemption, welcome, or whitewashing of the people who have peddled this bleak reality. But we can and should build a political coalition that includes this generation, that doesn’t leave them out in the cold, only to find a home in the most bleak fringes of a political movement that tells them that a lust for control over other people, especially women, is the only way to find meaning.On the left, we tell ourselves the story of our own vaunted sympathy, and yet we assign only blame to the young men who do something similar, looking for community and only finding it among the most opportunistic and dangerous political movements. We have done little to welcome them in.And while Democrats had solid policies and economic plans, Republicans, backed by an army of digital content, were able to take the mantle of running on the economy and framing the left as cultural warriors out of touch with the majority of Americans.But the good news is that this month’s elections in Virginia, New Jersey and New York City show Democrats have learned a lesson.The three marquee campaigns of this year were all remarkably similar, despite coming from different parts of the ideological spectrum. Their messaging was relentlessly focused on affordability – how expensive and difficult life has become for the working and middle-class people of their communities. Their solutions covered a wide ideological range, but the focus remained the same.Most young men, like most trans people and Black people and immigrants and everyone else, are dealing with housing that has skyrocketed in price, especially compared with our parents’ generations. Instead of having one career in our lifetimes, we now have to continually seek new jobs. Living independently as an adult is much more expensive and complicated now than it has been. These affordability campaigns gave young men something to do about those pressures rather than ceding that frustration to the most cynical actors.Undoubtedly this conversation is easier to have when Donald Trump is taking three steps every day to dismantle the economy. There’s a real sense that the economy is getting worse. That it’s more difficult to pay bills and keep food on the table, especially when Republicans are, quite literally, ensuring that 42 million people cannot afford to keep food on their table by refusing to fund Snap during their government shutdown.Republicans got distracted, trying to defend Trump and also trying to repeat his playbook of tying Democrats to the culture war of the moment. But without Trump’s singular ability to control a media narrative, Republicans with far less political talent and capital floundered, making themselves look weak and silly in the process.The political miracle is that this ruthless focus on affordability and cost of living may have brought in many of those same young men who had followed Trump a year ago. In Virginia and New Jersey, men under 30 broke for their new Democratic governors, with about six in 10 supporting Spanberger, according to the AP. In New York, young men went for Zohran Mamdani over Andrew Cuomo by a margin of nearly 40 points, according to a Tufts Circle analysis.It turns out that these young men are not completely lost to us. We just failed to imagine a reality where they could be in our camp.Affordability broke through amid the longest government shutdown in US history, as consumer prices were rising ever higher thanks in part to Trump’s tariffs. For all of his bluster, eventually the economic reality becomes an unavoidable political crisis for anyone not far gone in his cult of personality who has to pay their bills.Mikie Sherrill in New Jersey, Abigail Spanberger in Virginia, and Mamdani in New York City showed us that the frustration that every working and middle-class person feels could be directed into a political coalition that sees marginalized people as people also affected by the greed and corruption that has made life unaffordable for so many.Young men, like everyone else, are looking for a politics that can make life a little better. Democrats are finally figuring out how to offer them that chance.

      Cory Alpert is a PhD researcher at the University of Melbourne looking at the impact of AI on democracy. He served in the Biden-Harris administration for three years More

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      US senator slams Republicans’ silence on Trump’s violent threats to Democrats

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      Senator Mark Kelly on Sunday urged congressional Republicans to publicly reject Trump’s threats against him and five other Democratic lawmakers who stated that military personnel are not obligated to follow illegal commands.“We’ve heard very little, basically crickets, from Republicans in the United States Congress about what the president has said about hanging members of Congress,” Kelly, of Arizona, said on CBS’s Face the Nation.Kelly noted that both Donald Trump and Republican legislators had previously asked Democrats to moderate their language after the fatal shooting of conservative activist Charlie Kirk in September, asking: “What happened to that?”“His words carry tremendous weight, more so than anybody else in the country, and he should be aware of that, and because of what he says, there is now increased threats against us,” Kelly said of Trump’s accusations.Earlier in the week, Kelly and five other Democratic members of Congress released a video on X directed toward active-duty military and intelligence workers, stating: “Our laws are clear. You can refuse illegal orders.” All six participants have backgrounds in military or intelligence service. Kelly spent 25 years in the navy.Trump reacted on social media on Thursday, writing that the lawmakers should be arrested and tried for “seditious behavior”. In another post, he declared “SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH!” and reposted a message saying “HANG THEM, GEORGE WASHINGTON WOULD!”In response, House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries, Democratic whip Katherine Clark, and Democratic caucus chair Pete Aguilar issued a joint statement condemning Trump’s remarks, emphasizing that “political violence has no place in America.”Kelly reiterated on Sunday that the president is “trying to intimidate us” and added: “I’m not going to be intimidated.”Minnesota Democrat Amy Klobuchar, in an interview on Meet the Press on Sunday, condemned Trump’s “dangerous” posts. “What is dangerous is the president of the United States threatening these members of Congress with death. Literally, saying that they should be executed,” Klobuchar said.Vice-president JD Vance also weighed in on Sunday, posting on X: “If the president hasn’t issued illegal orders, then members of Congress telling the military to defy the president is by definition illegal.” More

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      Many prominent Maga personalities on X are based outside US, new tool reveals

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      Many of the most influential personalities in the “Make America great again” (Maga) movement on X are based outside of the US, including Russia, Nigeria and India, a new transparency feature on the social media site has revealed.The new tool, called “about this account,” became available on Friday to users of the Elon Musk-owned platform. It allows anyone to see where an account is located, when it joined the platform, how often its username has been changed, and how the X app was downloaded.As soon as the update was rolled out, users found numerous Maga and rightwing influencers who presented themselves as patriotic Americans were operating from other countries.“This is easily one of the greatest days on this platform,” wrote liberal influencer Harry Sisson. “Seeing all of these MAGA accounts get exposed as foreign actors trying to destroy the United States is a complete vindication of Democrats, like myself and many on here, who have been warning about this.”The account MAGANationX, with nearly 400,000 followers and a bio reading “Patriot Voice for We The People”, is actually operated from eastern Europe, according to the Daily Beast. Another popular profile, IvankaNews, an Ivanka Trump fan account with around one million followers that frequently posts about illegal immigration, Islam and support for Trump, was revealed to be based in Nigeria.Another user also uncovered several additional cases. Dark Maga, a smaller account with roughly 15,000 followers, is run from Thailand. MAGA Scope, which has more than 51,000 followers, operates out of Nigeria, while MAGA Beacon is based in south Asia.Users on Reddit also joined the exposé effort, posting examples of accounts that appeared to misrepresent their origins. One Reddit user posted a screenshot of a woman who claimed to live in Texas but instead appeared to be located in Russia, though as of Sunday, the user named in the post appears to have a US location. Many in the comments posted other examples they found.Bots spreading misinformation and propaganda has been a long-running problem on Twitter, a problem that has been significantly exacerbated since Musk bought it in October 2022 and then renamed it X. Its AI chatbot, Grok, has also been found to frequently make and amplify false claims. More

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      Politicians shocked by Marjorie Taylor Greene’s surprise resignation announcement

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      Marjorie Taylor Greene’s surprise resignation from Congress late on Friday, saying she refused to be a “battered wife” following her public fallout with Donald Trump, has been slammed by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the Democratic congresswoman and Greene’s frequent sparring partner.“She’s carefully timing her departure just 1-2 days after her pension kicks in,” Ocasio-Cortez said in a statement on her Instagram account, and criticized her voting record on healthcare.Greene abruptly resigned from Congress, effective 5 January, in a 10-minute video post outlining her unhappiness with Republicans on issues including the public release of the Jeffrey Epstein files in the government’s possession, US financing of foreign conflicts, Trump’s decision to potentially back a candidate against her, and the cost of living and healthcare.After her service to Trump, she said she objected to being “expected to defend the President against impeachment after he hatefully dumped tens of millions of dollars against me and tried to destroy me”.“I refuse to be a ‘battered wife’ hoping it all goes away and gets better,” Greene said.But Ocasio-Cortez said Greene “is saying a lot but her ACTIONS have not backed up the rhetoric. For all her talk, she’s STILL voting with them to gut healthcare … ”Greene voted in the summer for cuts to Medicaid and the reduction of enhanced tax credits for the Affordable Care Act, but then in October criticized the ACA cuts as premiums soared.Ocasio-Cortez also repeated some of her criticism of shares bought by Greene earlier this year before Trump said he was pausing tariffs. Greene has denied any impropriety in her stock trading.Kentucky Republican congressman Thomas Massie, who has also taken public stands against Trump including over the Epstein files release, said on X that he was “very sad for our country but so happy for my friend Marjorie. I’ll miss her tremendously.”Massie added that Greene “embodies what a true Representative should be. Everyone should read her statement; there’s more honesty expressed in these four pages than most politicians will speak in a lifetime.”Early on Saturday, Trump also reacted to Greene’s announcement, posting on Truth Social that “Marjorie ‘Traitor’ Brown” had decided to call it “quits” because of “PLUMMETING Poll Numbers, and not wanting to face a Primary Challenger with a strong Trump Endorsement (where she would have no chance of winning!) … ”Trump also said that Greene’s political relationship with Massie “did not help her”.“For some reason, primarily that I refused to return her never ending barrage of phone calls, Marjorie went BAD,” he added. “Nevertheless, I will always appreciate Marjorie, and thank her for her service to our Country!”But Trump later told NBC News he would like to see Greene resume her political career.“It’s not going to be easy for her” to revive her career in politics, he said, adding: “I’d love to see that.” In the meantime, “she’s got to take a little rest”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionDavid Hogg, a survivor of the Parkland school massacre in 2018 who briefly served as a co-vice-chair of the Democratic National Committee and tussled with Greene over gun control, posted: “See ya!” on X.Greene was seen in a 2019 video following a then-18-year-old Hogg outside Capitol Hill, calling him a “coward” for not defending his stance on guns and accusing him of “using” kids to pass gun control laws. Hogg and other Parkland survivors used the video as evidence to call for Greene’s resignation when she was appointed to the House Republican committee in 2021.Barbara Comstock, a former Republican House member and a Trump critic, lauded Greene’s decision on social media. “She doesn’t want to be a Republican ‘battered wife’ taking Trump’s abuse and getting death threats and pretending it’s all ok only to end up in the minority. Good for her,” Comstock posted.Greene’s decision to leave Congress came soon after another plot twist was playing out in the White House between Trump and New York City’s mayor-elect, Zohran Mamdani, who spoke of their shared commitment to the future of the nation’s most populous city.Trump, who had in the past called Mamdani a “100% Communist Lunatic” and a “total nut job”, spoke of how impressed he was with the man who had called his administration “authoritarian” and said he anticipates a productive relationship.“I expect to be helping him, not hurting him,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office after a private meeting on Friday afternoon that lasted under an hour. “Because I want New York City to be great.”Mamdani said that he appreciated that during their meeting they “had focused not on places of disagreement, which there are many, and also focused on the shared purpose that we have in serving New Yorkers”.Both said they had shared ideas about affordability and developing new housing in the city. “Some of his ideas are really the same ideas that I have,” the president said of Mamdani about inflationary issues. 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      Republicans will be left holding the bill for Trump’s policies in the midterms | Sidney Blumenthal

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      The elections of 4 November were the end of a grandiose illusion. After his 2024 victory, Donald Trump claimed he had an “unprecedented and powerful mandate”, that his “mandate” was “massive” and that his “Maga movement” was irresistible, the wave of the future. It lasted 10 months, in which he had betrayed his chief promise to lower inflation, turned the public against him on every issue and Republicans at last faced a battering by voters.Trump’s image of omnipotence has rested upon a pyramid of dread. His ability to maintain the servility of the Republican Congress, whose members are intimidated by the danger that if they defy him he would support primary opponents to run against them, has been the political foundation for all the other forms of fear he incites throughout American institutions. Trump could not have leveraged himself as “dictator on day one” without congressional abdication. The Republicans immediately fell into lockstep. But within two weeks of the 4 November elections, only one Republican in the House voted against the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files, which Trump had called a “hoax” before he felt compelled to bend in the cyclone to sign the bill – and yet still suppresses the files.The Republicans in Congress now have another fear that places them in a terrible tightening vise. They have allowed Trump to avoid accountability and in next year’s midterms – of which these elections are an augury – they will be held mercilessly to account in his stead. Trump is the cause for which they will suffer the effect. He will not be on the ballot. Only they will pay the butcher’s bill.The Republicans are helpless. Through their abject obedience to him they have permitted Trump to sever their organic connection to their voters. None dare venture any longer to town halls in their districts. They cower before their constituents’ wrath over Trump. He is more unpopular than any president of recent time, including himself after January 6, with the exception of George W Bush at the end of his presidency in the financial collapse. The colossus who proclaims “I have the right to do anything I want to do, I’m the president” has reduced the Republicans to ciphers. They are not public servants, but his sycophants. Their lord, however, is not their protector. The closer they attach themselves to him, the more vulnerable they become. The voters repudiate Trump by rejecting Republicans.If the Republicans had paid more attention to his career, they would have observed that he always maneuvers to set up fall guys to take the rap. Trump has his Roy Cohns and his Michael Cohens. “He directed me to make the payment,” Cohen testified about the hush money paid to Stormy Daniels in order to shut her up to affect the outcome of the 2016 election. Trump was ultimately convicted in 2024 of 34 felonies of business fraud in an election scheme. “Michael has great liability to me!” Trump tweeted. Cohen served two and a half years in prison for tax evasion, lying to a bank, and campaign finance violations for the payments to Daniels and Karen McDougal, a Playboy model with whom Trump had an affair. “The man doesn’t tell the truth,” said Cohen. “And it is sad that I should take responsibility for his dirty deeds.” Trump called Cohen, who testified in the trial, a “rat”, a Mafia term for an informant. “The more people that follow Mr Trump as I did blindly are going to suffer the same consequences that I’m suffering,” Cohen told a congressional committee in 2019. The Republicans collectively are now Michael Cohen.A Marist-NPR poll on 19 November sent a shock wave. Democrats held a towering 14-point advantage. Then a Marquette University poll rolled in later that day showing Democrats with an 11-point advantage among likely voters. In the 2018 midterms, a Democratic lead of around seven to eight points on the generic ballot translated into a gain of 40 seats. The latest numbers might project roughly 60 seats. The supposedly dead Democrats would easily carry a large majority. With those margins, they would also likely take the Senate.If that seems too breathless, consider what the recent 4 November elections portend. Republican turnout cratered; Democratic enthusiasm ran high. The polls, which were weighted on the basis of the 2024 results, were distorted in showing closer races than the final counts. In the New Jersey gubernatorial contest, in the highest voter turnout in an off-year election in two decades there, the Republican vote count declined 42% for the Republican candidate, Jack Ciattarelli, compared with Trump’s 2024 total. In the Virginia gubernatorial race, the Republican vote count dropped by nearly 45% compared with 2024, while the Democratic vote fell by only 22%.The final polls significantly underestimated the winning margins for the Democratic candidates, Abigail Spanberger in Virginia and Mikie Sherrill in New Jersey. Late polls had Spanberger leading by seven to 11 points, while others suggested a lead as narrow as 2.5 points or a virtual “dead heat”. In New Jersey, final polls had the race even closer. A RealClearPolling average showed Sherrill’s lead at approximately four to eight points, with some polls placing the race within a single point’s margin of error. Spanberger won by 15 points, Sherill by 13. The polls generally, in election after election, miscalculated the Democratic margin of victory by approximately five to nine percentage points compared with the actual results.All of Trump’s gains were swept away in every demographic group. In the two New Jersey cities with the greatest percentage of Hispanic voters, Union City and Perth Amboy, Sherill won by 69 points compared with Kamala Harris’ 17, and by 56 points compared with nine, respectively. Sherill won all 21 counties. The Democrats picked up enough state legislative seats, including in a district held by Republicans for more than three decades, to achieve a super-majority in the assembly.In Virginia, Spanberger outperformed Harris in more than 95% of Virginia’s counties and independent cities. The Democrats gained more than 16 points in small cities and 12 in rural areas. Before the election, Democrats held 51 seats and Republicans 48 in the house of delegates, with one vacancy. The Democrats won 13 seats and now have 64 delegates. Voter urgency to defeat Republicans was so persuasive that Jay Jones, the Democratic candidate for state attorney general, whose emails expressing his desire to shoot the Republican speaker of the house of delegates in the head were a central focus of the campaign, won by six points.Elections elsewhere demonstrated the same pattern. In Erie county, Pennsylvania, which Trump had narrowly won, the Democratic candidate for county executive beat the Republican by 25 points. For the first time since 2006, Democrats in Georgia won statewide nonfederal offices with two candidates gaining about 60% of the vote for seats on the Georgia public service commission. Little noticed, Democrats flipped two state senate seats in Mississippi, which broke the Republican super-majority.The claim that Trump’s 2024 election represented a fundamental realignment of American politics has swiftly turned into a mirage. He had won by a slender margin of 1.5 points, overwhelmingly on the issue of inflation, and dependent on winning the 7% of voters who decided in the last week for him by nine points, generally considered low-propensity voters. This time, many of them apparently either switched to vote for the Democrats or stayed home. The much touted newly consolidated Trump electorate has vanished. Trump in office has built no mandate. His coalition has disintegrated and been reduced to his base, which is beginning to splinter over continuing inflation, increases in premiums for Obamacare and the Epstein files.Projecting forward, accounting for the discrepancy between the polls and the results in 2025, conservatively giving the Democrats running for the Congress an additional five points to make up for it, and assuming similar party turnout, the outcome would be startling. If that formula is to be believed, Democrats would win more than 60 seats in the 2026 midterms and capture the Senate, too.The circumstances that produced the Democratic sweep in 2025 will not be replaced by election day next year with the dawning of Trump’s “Golden Age”. His economic damage through his draconian and chaotic tariffs, a major contributing factor to inflation and unemployment, the poisonous combination of stagflation, can hardly be unraveled quickly, even if the supreme court supports lower court rulings against his invocation of emergency authority as unlawful. The rest of Trump’s policies radically redistributing wealth and resources upward and immiserating the working and middle classes, which have had unanimous Republican support, will not be reversed. In 2026, the midterms will be fought on even more difficult ground for Republicans of an even lengthier period of economic decline.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionTrump’s absence from the ballot eliminates his attraction to the low-propensity voters that previously backed him. In any case, they have mostly evaporated, as the 2025 results demonstrated. It is a further illusion about the past election that if Trump campaigns on the stump for Republicans it will benefit them. In fact, Trump’s vote in 2024 was for Trump, but even so the congressional Republicans actually performed better than Trump. Overall, Trump did better in 198 congressional districts and the GOP House candidates did better in 237. For districts with GOP incumbents, Trump did better in 29, but the House candidates did better in 191, according to calculations derived from the Downballot.Now Trump’s enveloping presence casts a shadow over Republicans which they cannot escape. His unpopularity is deep and settled. The more he appears next to them, the more intensely the larger public is galvanized against them, if they need the reminder that the Republicans and Trump are one and the same. The Republicans have trapped themselves, willingly so. He is their cement shoes.The key propulsive numbers for turnout in the 2026 election are to be found among those who strongly approve and disapprove of Trump. In the latest Marist Poll, 68% of Republicans strongly approve of Trump, while 81% of Democrats and 60% of independents strongly disapprove. Those numbers can get worse for Republicans. Polarization now works against them. The numbers are inexorable harbingers of 2026.Trump himself is an immutable factor. He is hardwired against flexibility and self-reform, which he believes is the core of his strength and appeal. He is certain that his intransigence is his greatest asset. If he never gives in, he will always win. His only road to victory is that everyone must fear him. He cannot admit a mistake. It would violate his canon of power. Any erosion of his followers’ subservience is taken as not only an unjustifiable attack on his authority, but on his very being.Trump perceives every challenge, no matter how sensible, as an existential threat. He prizes unstinting fealty above reason. He can respond in only one way. Refusing to acknowledge the repudiation of the 4 November elections, he explodes in rage and aggravates alienation.He must call Marjorie Taylor Greene for questioning him a “traitor”. He must shout at a Bloomberg News reporter for asking a question about the Epstein files: “Quiet, quiet, piggy!” He must label an ABC News correspondent who also asks a question about his suppression of the Epstein files “insubordinate”. He must declare that Democratic members of the Congress, all military and national security veterans, invoking the law that the armed forces and intelligence officials are obligated not to follow illegal orders, are “traitors” who should be “ARRESTED AND PUT ON TRIAL” for “SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH!”But in the midterm elections to come, however distant they may still seem, it is the Republicans in the Congress who will stand alone to receive the final verdict before the people for their cowardice in collaborating with Trump and as contemptible exemplars of all his collaborators.

      Sidney Blumenthal, former senior adviser to the Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton, has published three books of a projected five-volume political life of Abraham Lincoln: A Self-Made Man, Wrestling With His Angel and All the Powers of Earth. He is a Guardian US columnist More

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      Marjorie Taylor Greene to resign from Congress in January amid fallout with Trump

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      Marjorie Taylor Greene announced on Friday evening she will be resigning from office effective 5 January 2026, in the wake of souring relations with President Donald Trump, mostly recently over a vote to force the release of files related to the late Jeffrey Epstein.In a four-page statement, the Georgia congresswoman said the legislative branch had been “sidelined” and accused Republican leaders of refusing to advance conservative priorities such as border security or “America First” policies.Until recently, Greene had been one of the most vocal and visible supporters of Trump’s Make America Great Again movement, crediting him with inspiring her to run for Congress in 2020. But in recent months, the congresswoman had become a surprising critic of the Trump administration – taking on the president not just over the release of the Epstein files, but also his administration’s support for Israel, and extending expiring Obamacare subsidies. She began questioning whether Trump was truly an “America first” president.“No matter which way the political pendulum swings, Republican or Democrat, nothing ever gets better for the common American man or woman,” Greene said.“When the common American people finally realize and understand that the political industrial complex of both parties is ripping this country apart, that not one elected leader like me is able to stop Washington’s machine from gradually destroying our country, and instead the reality is that they, common Americans, the people, possess the real power over Washington, then I’ll be here by their side to rebuild it.“Until then I’m going back to the people I love, to live life to the fullest as I always have, and look forward to a new path ahead,” Greene added. In a phone conversation with an ABC News reporter, Trump was quoted as saying Greene’s resignation was “great news”. He added that Greene hadn’t given him notice but “it doesn’t matter, you know but I think it’s great. I think she should be happy.”Previously, Trump has called Greene a “traitor” and “wacky” and said he would endorse a challenger against her when she ran for re-election next year. In a social media post last week, Trump speculated that Greene had turned against him because he advised her not to run for Senate and claimed she was “upset that I don’t return her phone calls”. In response, Greene accused Trump of lying and said she believed it was her persistent calls for his administration to release the Epstein files that “sent him over the edge”.Greene did not give House Speaker Mike Johnson advance notice of her resignation, according to NBC News. Her departure in January will narrow Johnson’s already razor-thin majority, leaving him less room to maneuver.Greene explained her decision in a 10-minute social media video posted on X on Friday night.In her resignation statement, she said: “I have fought harder than almost any other elected Republican to elect Donald Trump and Republicans to power … Through it all I have never changed or went back on my campaign promises … America First should mean America First and only Americans First, with no other foreign country ever being attached to America First in our halls of government.”Last week, Greene said she had been contacted by private security firms “with warnings for my safety” after Trump announced he was withdrawing his support for and endorsement of her.In a post on X, Greene said that “a hotbed of threats against me are being fueled and egged on by the most powerful man in the world”, without referring to Trump by name, adding it was “the man I supported and helped get elected”.Greene reiterated these threats in her statement, saying that she has faced “never ending personal attacks, death threats, lawfare, ridiculous slander and lies about me, that most people could never withstand even for a day”.Her resignation comes after months of opinions that go against those of the White House and some of her Republican colleagues. Earlier this month, Trump pushed back against criticism from Greene, saying she had “lost her way” after she accused him of paying too much attention to foreign affairs and not enough to the rising cost of living in the US – points she also addressed in her Friday statement.Greene said she had broken with the US president over several issues, including the issuing of H-1B visas to skilled foreign workers, a ban on AI regulation, “50-year mortgage scams”, involvement in foreign wars, and the release of files related to the crimes of Epstein, the late pedophile Trump socialized with for more than 15 years.“Standing up for American women who were raped at 14, trafficked and used by rich powerful men, should not result in me being called a traitor and threatened by the president of the United States, whom I fought for,” Greene said.Greene has been an outspoken opponent of Israel’s war on Gaza, with US support, calling it “a genocide”.“If I am cast aside by Maga Inc and replaced by Neocons, Big Pharma, Big Tech, Military Industrial War Complex, foreign leaders, and the elite donor class that can’t even relate to real Americans, then many common Americans have been cast aside and replaced as well,” Greene said.Her resignation comes halfway through her third term in the US House of Representatives. In her resignation speech, she did not say what she would do next but hinted at a future in politics, saying: “When the common American people finally realize and understand that the Political Industrial Complex of both parties is ripping this country apart … [and] that they, common Americans, The People, possess the real power over Washington, then I’ll be here by their side to rebuild it.”Political strategist Shermichael Singleton said Greene might be “looking at future plan”.“If I were advising her, hey, you might be able to get through this brief moment in time,” Singleton told CNN. “But perhaps she thought otherwise. Maybe she’s looking at future plans. But this is a big shocker.”Trump won her district in the 2024 presidential race with 68% of the vote; Greene won re-election with 64%. Despite strong support for Trump, voters in Greene’s district seemed to be unaffected by the representative’s scuffle with the president, according to NBC News. More

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      Trump calls Marjorie Taylor Greene resignation ‘great news for the country’

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      Marjorie Taylor Greene, the Republican Georgia congresswoman who had a dramatic blow-up with Donald Trump despite being his longtime ally, announced on Friday she would be resigning – which the president called “great news”.“Loyalty should be a two-way street,” Greene said in a lengthy resignation statement shared on social media, adding that it was “unfair and wrong” that Trump turned on her for disagreeing with him.Trump, who last week announced he was withdrawing his support of Greene, appeared to celebrate her resignation. “I think it’s great news for the country. It’s great,” he told an ABC News reporter.When asked if Greene had informed him, Trump said: “Nah, it doesn’t matter, you know, but I think it’s great. I think she should be happy.”Greene had said last week she was the subject of “a hotbed of threats” after Trump withdrew his support for and endorsement of her.Greene reiterated those threats in her statement, saying she had faced “never-ending personal attacks, death threats, lawfare, ridiculous slander and lies about me, that most people could never withstand even for a day”.Texas congresswoman Jasmine Crockett, a Democrat, posted on social media: “I’m going to be honest … I didn’t see this coming but the threats that come with being on the opposite side of Trump ARE REAL!”The move sent shockwaves through US politics. The Republican political strategist Shermichael Singleton called it “a big shocker”.“Maybe she’s looking at future plans,” Singleton told CNN.Greene may have an ally in Democratic congressman Ro Khanna, who worked with her to pass the bill to release the files related to the crimes of Jeffrey Epstein.“MTG is likely to be a formidable 2028 candidate,” Khanna told NBC News. “Her stances on Epstein, on regulating AI, and anti-war are more in touch with MAGA voters than JD Vance.”Maga influencer Steve Bannon told the New York Times “the House is not big enough” for Greene’s ambitions or personality. “She had her committee assignments pulled by Pelosi in her first term – and rose to be a national figure. We haven’t seen or heard the last of M.T.G,” he wrote in a text message.Some observers couldn’t help but point out the strange turn of events – a one-time Trump ally resigning hours after an Oval Office meeting in which Trump heaped praise on Zohran Mamdani, the 34-year-old democratic socialist mayor-elect of New York City whom he had called a “100% Communist Lunatic”.“Trump glazed Mamdani so hard Marjorie Taylor Greene resigned from Congress,” Malcolm Kenyatta, a Democratic National Committee vice chair, wrote on X.Salleigh Grubbs, who used to chair the party in Cobb County – which overlaps with Greene’s 14th congressional district in north-west Georgia, said she was “heartbroken”. “MTG put it all on the line time after time. She fought for her district and put America First. What more could anyone have wanted?” she wrote on X.Shawn Harris, a Georgia Democrat running for Congress in Greene’s solidly Republican district, sought to rally supporters in response to the announcement.“As you’ve likely heard, Marjorie Taylor Greene has announced her resignation effective January 5, 2026,” Harris said in a post on social media on Friday. “Get ready Georgia! Teachers, farmers, veterans, EVERYONE, I need your support.”“Her split with Trump made her an even bigger national sensation,” reported the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Georgia’s biggest newspaper, in its coverage of her resignation. More

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      Marjorie Taylor Greene announces resignation; Trump and Mamdani have cordial White House meeting – as it happened

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      This concludes our live coverage of the second Trump administration for the day. Here are the latest developments.

      Donald Trump hosted Zohran Mamdani, New York’s mayor-elect, for an Oval Office meeting and news conference that was surprisingly cordial.

      Republican lawmakers and pro-Trump news outlets were stunned by how thrilled Trump seemed to be by Mamdani, throwing their plans to cast the democratic socialist as the face of the Democratic party into disarray.

      Marjorie Taylor Greene announced that she was resigning from Congress in January rather than fight a primary against a Trump-backed candidate.

      Perhaps no one was more aggrieved by Trump’s embrace of Mamdani than Elise Stefanik, the New York congresswoman who has made vitriolic attacks on Mamdani as a “jihadist” the platform for her run for New York governor against Mamdani supporter Kathy Hochul. When Trump was directly asked if he agreed with Stefanik that Mamdani is a jihadist, he dismissed the charge.

      Trump repeatedly stepped in to defend Mamdani from hostile questioning from outlets like the New York Post and Fox News. When a Fox News correspondent pressed Mamdani about whether he considers Trump to be a “fascist”, the president offered the mayor-elect an unusual life raft. “That’s OK,” Trump said while tapping Mamdani’s arm. “You can just say it, it’s easier than explaining it.”

      When asked by a reporter whether he would live in New York under Mamdani’s leadership, Donald Trump says “absolutely”, after his meeting with the mayor-elect today.

      Samuel Alito, the conservative supreme court justice, paused a lower court order that new congressional maps in Texas, gerrymandered to favor Republicans, are illegal.
      Normal service has resumed on Donald Trump’s social media account, after he spent Friday evening posting photos of himself with Zohran Mamdani, the mayor-elect of New York City, the president returned to type with a screed against the governor of Minnesota, Tim Walz, in which he announced his intention to terminate Temporary Protected Status for Somali refugees in that state.Although Trump cast this as a change “effective immediately”, the president has no legal power to do so.As Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a lawyer with American Immigration Council, explains, there is “no legal means by which he can do this. It’s not a presidential power. TPS by law cannot be terminated early. Somali TPS is not set to expire until March 17, 2026. DHS may make an attempt to do this but it would be immediately struck down.”Trump’s post was likely prompted by claims from rightwing activists featured on Fox News they had uncovered fraud among Somalis in Minnesota. In his post, Trump claimed, without evidence, that “Minnesota … is a hub of fraudulent money laundering activity.”Michigan state police responded on Friday to a bomb threat at the home of Elissa Slotkin, a Democratic senator Donald Trump accused of “SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH!” on his social media platform on Thursday.Slotkin was not home, according to her Senate office.Slotkin, a former CIA analyst who served in Iraq, joined five Democratic lawmakers who served in the military and intelligence community to remind those in active service that they can “refuse illegal orders”. The six lawmakers recorded a social media video that was released on Tuesday, and quickly became the focus of outrage on rightwing news channels.At a White House briefing, Karoline Leavitt, the press secretary, falsely said that the Democrats had encouraged active-duty military and intelligence officer to disobey lawful orders.On Friday, a dozen House Republicans who served in the military recorded a video of their own reminding soldiers that they have a duty to obey lawful orders.Justice Samuel Alito of the US supreme court temporarily blocked a lower court ruling that found Texas’ 2026 congressional redistricting plan likely discriminates on the basis of race.Alito’s order will remain in place until Monday at 5pm while the court considers whether to allow the new map favorable to Republicans to be used in the midterm elections.The court’s conservative majority has blocked similar lower court rulings because they have come too close to elections.Alito handles emergency appeals from Texas.Marjorie Taylor Greene, the Maga Republican congresswoman who was denounced by Donald Trump over her support for the release of the Epstein files, announced on Friday that she is resigning from office, effective in January.Greene explained her decision in a scathing 10-minute social media video in which she defended her record of support for Trump and far-right priorities, like the crackdown on immigration, the defeat of green energy policies and anti-trans initiatives, but said she did not want her district “to have to endure a hurtful and hateful primary” against her by a Trump-backed candidate.She went on to argue that she had broken with Trump over just a few issues, including the issuing of H-1B visas to skilled foreign workers, a ban on AI regulation, “50 year mortgages scams”, involvement in foreign wars and the release of files related to the crimes of Jeffrey Epstein, the late sex offender Trump socialized with for more than 15 years.“Standing up for American women who were raped at 14, trafficked and used by rich powerful men, should not result in me being called a traitor and threatened by the President of the United States, whom I fought for,” Greene said.“Loyalty should be a two way street,” she said. “American First should mean America First and only Americans First, with no other foreign countries ever being attached to America First in our halls of government.” Greene has been an outspoken opponent of Israeli’s war on Gaza, with US support, calling it “a genocide”.“If I am cast aside by MAGA Inc and replaced by Neocons, Big Pharma, Big Tech, Military Industrial War Complex, foreign leaders, and the elite donor class that can’t even relate to real Americans, then many common Americans have been cast aside and replaced as well,” Greene said.She then hinted at a future role in politics, amid widespread speculation that she could be positioning herself to run for the 2028 Republican nomination.“When the common American people finally realize and understand that the Political Industrial Complex of both parties is ripping this country apart” Greene said, and understand that “common Americans, The People, possess the real power over Washington, then I’ll be here by their side to rebuild it.”“Until then, I’m going back to the people I love, to live life to the fullest as I always have, and look forward to a new path ahead. I will be resigning from office with my last day being January 5, 2026,” she concluded.The Georgia congresswoman has recently claimed that she was simply misled by the internet when she embraced the QAnon conspiracy theory and wrote on Facebook in 2018 that wildfires in California had been started by lasers from “space solar generators” controlled by “Rothschild Inc, international investment banking firm”.The armies of lefty America and of Maga were assembled ready to watch their champions do battle. After all, Donald Trump had called Zohran Mamdani a “100% Communist Lunatic” and “total nut job”. The incoming democratic socialist New York mayor in turn had called the Republican US president a “despot” and “fascist”.But anyone expecting to see fists fly and shirts torn in the Oval Office was in for a disappointment. Trump, 79, and 34-year-old Mamdani actually got on rather well. In fact beautifully, bewilderingly, bizarrely well. Instead of Batman v Superman, this was Toy Story besties Woody and Buzz Lightyear.Perhaps the old left v right binaries really are dead. This was a case of game recognising game – of Queens recognising Queens. Trump is now on much better terms with Zohran Mamdani than Marjorie Taylor Greene, his fellow Republican. Mamdani got a warmer reception from Trump than from the leaders of his own party – a world turned upside down.The buddy movie began with Trump sitting behind the Resolute Desk and Mamdani standing to his side, a statuette of George Washington behind him. “We have one thing in common – we want this city of ours that we love to do very well,” the president said, referring to New York.He added: “I think you’re going to have hopefully a really great mayor. The better he does – the happier I am. I will say there’s no difference in party, there’s no difference in anything, and we’re going to be helping him to make everybody’s dream come true, having a strong and very safe New York.”That great thud was the sound of White House reporters’ jaws hitting the floor of the Oval Office. That shredding noise was the sound of Republican strategists destroying their playbook to demonise Mamdani as the Marxist face of the Democrats.Three weeks ago, Donald Trump posted on his social network 20 photographs of his marble makeover of the bathroom in the Lincoln Bedroom. A few days later, his party was heavily defeated in elections as voters complained that he was more focused on redecorating the White House than bringing down the cost of living.Today, after claiming that he is focused on affordability at a friendly meeting with the mayor-elect of New York City, Zohran Mamdani, the president shared photographs of himself, grinning and giving a thumb-up sign, with Mamdani in the White House.Trump’s caption for the first of the photos was a sharp departure from his previous rhetoric about Mamdani being a “communist lunatic”. It was, Trump wrote on his social media platform, “a Great Honor meeting Zohran Mamdani, the new Mayor of New York City!”The highly anticipated Oval Office meeting between Donald Trump and Zohran Mamdani – the mayor-elect of New York City, the US president’s beloved home town – was hardly the combustible tête-à-tête many had predicted. For the moment at least, the two New Yorkers appeared relaxed, smiling and cautiously optimistic about the work they might accomplish together.Neither revived their hot campaign trail rhetoric, in which they cast each other as diametrically opposed political adversaries. Trump had labeled Mamdani a “100% communist lunatic” and urged voters to back his opponent, the former New York governor Andrew Cuomo. In turn, Mamdani assailed Trump as a “despot” and pledged to be the president’s “worst nightmare”.Republicans and pro-Trump media outlets were gravely disappointed by the lack of fireworks at Friday’s Oval Office meeting between New York’s mayor-elect, Zohran Mamdani, and Queens native Donald Trump, who had attacked the democratic socialist as “a 100% Communist lunatic”, before showering him with praise at the meeting Mamdani requested.In the hours before the meeting, the encounter was described by Fox News as Trump’s “showdown with socialism” and equated to a prize fight and billed as “the Battle of the Ages: capitalism versus communism” on pillow salesman Mike Lindell’s TV outlet.As Mamdani made his way to Washington on Friday morning, Rick Scott, a Republican senator from Florida, shared the selfie he posted from his flight with the ominous caption: “Here’s the new face of the Democrat party — a literal communist — on his way to the White House to be schooled by President Trump.”In the end, the meeting went so well for Mamdani that the Democratic Socialists of America mocked the Fox “showdown” graphic in a post that said simply: “Socialism won! Join DSA”.In the immediate aftermath of the meeting, a Fox Business anchor David Asman was stunned, saying: “Just one word – wow.”“Commie Mamdani as the president has [been] referring to his guest in the Oval Office there for the past several months, uh, looked like best friends with president Trump now,” he added.On Friday morning a host on the slavishly pro-Trump outlet Newsmax, Todd Starnes, posted a fantasy of how rough the meeting would be for Mamdani. “SCENARIO: Mamdani enters the Oval Office today only to be greeted by Tom Homan who then personally escorts the Communist back to Uganda.”By Friday afternoon, Starnes was puzzled by the very different reality: “I thought Mamdani was supposed to be a fascist dictator?” he asked. “What the heck is going on at the White House?”As Aaron Fritschner, an aide for Democratic congressman, Don Beyer of Virginia, pointed out: “Republicans spent the whole day in the House making everyone re-vote on the ‘horrors of socialism’ resolution specifically over Mamdani, it’s literally the only thing we did today, and hours later Trump says ‘He has the same ideas I have.’ It’s just beautiful.”The fact that Mamdani seemed to charm Trump into submission baffled even some of his supporters. Rashida Tlaib, the Michigan congresswoman who is a fellow democratic socialist and DSA member, shared video of Trump telling Mamdani it is fine to call him a fascist with the words: “What the heck just happened?”Zohran Mamdani, the mayor-elect of New York City, just posted video of Donald Trump nodding in agreement with him as he told reporters in the Oval Office on Friday that, during his campaign, “what we found, time and again, is that working people were left behind in the politics of our city, and what we’re looking to do is put those people right back at the heart of our politics, so that we don’t have a situation where we’re in the wealthiest city in the history of the world, and yet one in five can’t even afford $2.90 for a Metro card”.Mamdani was responding to a question from a correspondent for the far-right outlet Newsmax who had asked him if he accepted that, because “Democrats have run New York City for a long time … do you see Democrat policy specifically as being a problem?”Mamdani, who ran partly as a critic of the Democratic establishment, began his reply by saying: “Look, I think that there are many things in our city where we have to own the responsibility of it, things that existed long before the president was the president, and those are also part of the message of our campaign, was to take on a broken politics of the past. And I ran against a number of candidates who represented different versions of that past.”At one point during the exchange with reporters in the Oval Office, Zohran Mamdani took a moment to mention that he appreciated seeing a painting of another New York president, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, among the portraits in Donald Trump’s White House.“One thing I also appreciated is in our meeting to appreciate a portrait of FDR, and the incredible work that was done with the New Deal, and also in thinking about what it can look like when the federal government and New York City government work together to deliver affordability, it can be transformative,” Mamdani said.Trump then took credit for selecting the “great portrait of FDR” hanging in the cabinet room he re-decorated. “When the mayor saw that portrait, he said, ‘Sir, do you mind if I have a picture taken by that? It’s an amazing portrait.’”Donald Trump and Zohran Mamdani, the New York City mayor-elect, walked out of their meeting on Friday afternoon with an unlikely alliance, agreeing to work together on housing, food prices and cost-of-living concerns that have defined both their political appeals to working-class voters.“We agreed a lot more than I would have thought,” Trump said in the Oval Office, sometimes jumping in to shield Mamdani from aggressive questioning from the press.The sit-down – which many had anticipated would be contentious, given months of intense rhetoric in which Trump branded Mamdani a “communist lunatic” – instead produced camaraderie, warm words and concrete pledges of cooperation between the Republican president and the self-described democratic socialist who secured a commanding electoral victory earlier at the beginning of November with over 50% of the vote.“I feel very confident that he can do a very good job,” Trump said after the meeting, offering praise for his ideological opposite. “The better he does, the happier I am. I will say there’s no difference in party. There’s no difference in anything, and we’re going to be helping him to make everybody’s dream come true, having a strong and very safe New York.”During their Oval Office exchange with reporters, which was staged in a familiar fashion for this White House, with Donald Trump seated behind his desk and his guest forced to stand, Zohran Mamdani referred to conversations he had, last November, with Queens residents who voted for Trump in the 2024 election.Mamdani even said that he spoke with a pharmacist who told him that Trump’s father, Fred, had been a customer.Some of those conversations, days after the election, were recorded and featured in a social media video posted on Mamdani’s YouTube channel before he launched his mayoral campaign. In the video, voters told Mamdani that Trump’s promise to lower the cost of living was a major factor in their decision. He told them that he planned to run for mayor on a platform of freezing rents, making buses free and making universal child care a reality.Here is that November 2024 video:Several observers of the meeting between Trump and Mamdani pointed out on social media that, by embracing the popular young mayor-elect instead of confronting him, Donald Trump seemed to upend well-laid Republican plans to make the democratic socialist the face of the Democratic party, as strategy to cast Democrats as extremists.John DeLillo, a writer, posted a satirical version of the disconnect on social media with this imaginary dialogue between the House speaker, Mike Johnson, and the president:
      mike johnson: we are going to make zohran mamdani the face of the democratic party
      donald trump: and what a beautiful face it is! look at that smile! we love zohran mamdani, don’t we folks
      A close ally of New York’s mayor-elect, the city comptroller Brad Lander, responded to Donald Trump telling Zohran Mamdani it is fine to call him a fascist by posting on social media: “Pretty sure Zohran just charmed Donald Trump into agreeing that he’s a fascist.”The surprisingly cordial Oval Office meeting between Zohran Mamdani, the democratic socialist mayor-elect of New York City, and Donald Trump, the Queens native who tried and failed to keep him from being elected, just concluded.Despite the best efforts of a slate of correspondents from pro-Trump outlets selected by the White House to ask the pair questions, Trump and Mamdani refused repeated attempts to goad the two men into conflict.Here are some of the key moments:

      Mamdani said that his meeting with the president was “productive” and “focused on the place of shared admiration and love – which is New York City and the need to deliver affordability to New Yorkers”.

      Trump repeatedly stepped in to defend Mamdani from hostile questioning from outlets like the New York Post and Fox News, When Fox News correspondent Jacqui Heinrich pressed Mamdani about whether he considers Trump to be a “fascist”, the president offered the mayor-elect an unusual life raft. “That’s OK,” Trump said while tapping Mamdani’s arm. “You can just say it, it’s easier than explaining it.”

      When the same Fox correspondent tried to frame Mamdani as a hypocrite for flying to the meeting from New York instead of taking a train, which is better for the environment, Trump said “I’ll stick up for you” and pointed out that it is much faster to fly and the mayor-elect is busy.

      When asked by a reporter whether he would live in New York under Mamdani’s leadership, Trump said “absolutely”. “We agree on a lot more than I would have thought,” Trump said. “I want him to do a great job, and we’ll help them do a great job.”

      For his part, Mamdani was relentlessly focused on the issue of making New York a more fair and affordable place to live, refusing to be knocked off course even by questions from the Pizzagate conspiracist Jack Posobiec who falsely accused Mamdani of planning to tax white New Yorkers more than New Yorkers of color.

      Trump wished Mamdani success in running the city he called home: “I think he wants to make it greater than ever before, and if he can, we’ll be out there cheering.”

      Trump stressed that he admired Mamdani’s political campaign and distanced himself from how own previously vitriolic denunciations of the democratic socialist as a communist. “I think he’s different, and that can be in a very positive way”, Trump said. “He has a chance to do something really great for New York … we’re going to be helping him”.

      Asked by a reporter if he agrees with his Republican ally Elise Stefanik’s characterization of Mamdani as a “jihadist”, Trump dismisses that as campaign rhetoric and says: “I met with a man who’s a very rational person”.

      Trump tried hard to attach himself to Mamdani’s focus on affordability. “I congratulated him, and we talked about some things in very strong common like housing and getting housing built, and food and prices,” Trump said. While the president has insisted for months that prices have gone down during his administration, a false claim that is contradicted by government data, his sagging poll numbers make it plain that the public is not buying this big lie. Having previously said that he didn’t want to hear the word “affordability” again, casting is as “a Democratic hoax”, Trump spent much of the appearance with Mamdani stressing that this is one of their shared concerns.
      Asked by a reporter if he agrees with his Republican ally Elise Stefanik’s characterization of Mamdani as a “jihadist”, Trump dismisses that as campaign rhetoric and says: “No, I don’t… I met with a man who’s a very rational person”.Throughout this spray with the media, after his meeting with Zohran Mamdani, Trump has been exceptionally cordial.He’s extolled how the mayor-elect “came out of nowhere” and praised his campaign and staff. Trump also defended Mamdani from adversarial lines of questioning, including being pressed by Fox News about why the mayor-elect flew to DC, and whether he believes the president to be a “fascist”. Trump even wished Mamdani success in running the city he called home: “I think he wants to make it greater than ever before, and if he can, we’ll be out there cheering.” More