Mamdani shrugs off Trump attack that he will ‘ruin’ NYC, defends tax on luxury second homes

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

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. 

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

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. 

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. 

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 “DESTROYING New York,” blasted what he called “TAX, TAX, TAX Policies,” and argued that “People are fleeing.”

Later, asked by the Judge Street Journal whether the two men had had a falling out, Trump said, “No, not at all. He’s going to ruin the city, however. His policies are no good.”

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.

He said he was more interested in “what New Yorkers have to say about our policies,” added that “93% approve of the pied-à-terre tax,” and argued that the measure would fund “essential city services like free childcare, cleaner streets and safer neighborhoods.”

“The President and I both want the city to succeed,” Mamdani said. “This is how you do it.” He also framed the dispute less as a personal rupture than a familiar ideological split, saying Trump’s opposition appeared to be about policy, not some newly broken relationship. 

He also said he and Trump have “many deep policy differences,” including over ICE, which Mamdani called “a cruel and inhumane agency.” 

“The thing that we have in common is that we are both New Yorkers,” Mamdani said, adding that he tries to steer those conversations back to what will help the city. 

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. “I will always be myself wherever I go,” he said, pairing a continued defense of taxing the wealthy with praise for the pied-à-terre tax as a step forward. 

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. 

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.

Earlier Friday morning, Mamdani sharpened his contrast with the President in an interview on NPR’s Newsmakers. Asked whether, after meeting with Trump and speaking with him multiple times, he still considers the president “a fascist,” Mamdani answered: “Yes.” 

Asked whether he says that directly to Trump, he answered the same way: “Yes.” 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.