Add this to the list of Donald Trump's accomplishments: Helping elect a socialist mayor of New York City. That's the assessment from many politicians and operatives in the president's hometown after a chaotic week of White House intervention, between Trump talking repeatedly about the candidates and his aides discussing an ambassadorship or other jobs with Mayor Eric Adams to get him to leave the race. Trump allies want to consolidate support for Andrew Cuomo against Zohran Mamdani, the state assemblyman and democratic socialist whom Trump has labeled a "communist." Adams is still in the race. Cuomo's opponents are tying the former governor closer to Trump in a city where Democrats vastly outnumber Republicans. And Mamdani and his aides are savoring what they see as another bit of good luck. Support has picked up for the Democratic nominee, as have endorsements and media attention. Mamdani, joined by independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, had to have a collection of campaign aides and union members use a red, white and blue rope to form a perimeter around him as he marched up Fifth Avenue on Saturday morning for New York's Labor Day parade, which is held the Saturday after Labor Day. They even marched by Trump Tower, where they cheered and applauded the perennial protesters across the street, though they did not stop to engage. "The specialty of Donald Trump and his puppets is lots of noise and very few results, but what we've seen over the past few weeks is just how fixated the president is on doing everything in his power to stop our campaign from getting to City Hall," Mamdani told CNN after his energetic town hall at Brooklyn College with Sanders on Saturday night. "And he's doing that because he knows that while we share the same diagnosis of a cost-of-living crisis in this city and across this country, unlike him and his movement, we will actually do something about it." Adams marched in the same parade as Mamdani without any campaign staff with him. He wore a white collared shirt embroidered with "Eric Adams" in script in the front and "MAYOR" in big letters on the back, along with a blue cap that read "MAYOR ADAMS." Some around Cuomo believe that Adams will soon drop out even after the mayor summoned reporters on Friday to label Cuomo a "snake" with a history of undercutting Black politicians. He turned zen when asked by CNN on Saturday what New York voters should make of him and the talk he might not finish the race, then turned that zen into an attack. "It's life. Life is twists and turns," Adams said. "It's unfortunate that those who are running have not had those twists and turns; they haven't had hard times." Mamdani and Cuomo, he said, are just privileged scions who only recently decided they wanted to be mayor, unlike his lifelong pursuit of the job he's being pushed by some to abandon. "I mean, what have we become?" Adams said indignantly. "That's what New Yorkers must ask: Who am I running against? That's what we need to focus on." The White House did not respond to questions about the president's efforts. But John Catsimatidis, the billionaire friend of Trump whose calls to the president about the race instigated his involvement, said, "I'm not worried." He said those repelled by Trump's involvement have "derangement" since the president is just calling attention to the threat they believe Mamdani poses. A key deadline is Thursday, when the city board of elections will certify November's ballot. "Let things sort themselves out the next few days," Catsimatidis said. Saturday night, Catsimatidis hosted Adams at his birthday party. He said he told Adams again at the party to take the Trump administration's job offer. An hour after Adams was on the same parade route, Cuomo stood on his own a few blocks away, taking in the scene of each city union delegation marching by. He had just a few volunteers and staff at the parade, with nowhere near the attention Mamdani was drawing. Cuomo ran over to chat with the driver of a bright blue 1970s-era Dodge Charger, a vintage model of his own preferred car. He took some selfies. He kissed a few old labor leaders on the cheek. "Make a deal," one union official said, peeling out of his delegation to run over to Cuomo. "Save us from Mamdani. Do whatever you have to do. I'm counting on you to save us from Mamdani." Some of these union members, Cuomo knew, had drifted toward Trump. Others were holding up their own handmade signs for Mamdani. When a Cuomo volunteer was rebuffed trying to hand a Cuomo sign to one group — "Mamdani," a person in the group said back — it enraged Chris Erikson, the business manager for Local Union No. 3, IBEW electrical workers, which had officially backed the former governor that morning after first endorsing him in the primary. "The socialist sh*t!" he called out. "Don't buy that sh*t!" There's still time for Cuomo, Erikson told CNN. Union members and every other New Yorker should read the Democratic Socialists of America platform, he said, and be scared. As for Adams, Erikson said, "the ambassadorship to Saudi Arabia would be hard to pass up for a guy like him." Since Mamdani defeated him in June's Democratic primary, Cuomo has become more active on social media, frequently posting with meme-inspired language that differs from his usual style. He has also been making more public appearances around the city — something he often claimed to do during the primary campaign but rarely actually did. He spent the weekend repeating he didn't want the White House's help. "This is very simple: The Republicans want Mayor Mamdani at the end of the day. ... Why? If Zohran Mamdani wins, they will pick him up and carry him around the country and kill Democrats with him. They will use him in the midterm elections. They will use him to run against the governor of New York. He is the perfect stooge for President Trump," Cuomo told reporters. "There is no doubt about it. Everything else is baloney." Cuomo denies he's involved with what Trump is doing. He says he's not dropping out. For all their entangled personal and political history, Cuomo says he "would never go working with Trump officials." He walked about half the route, peeling off before they passed Trump Tower. "The punditry and the polls, you take that all with a grain of salt: Who are they talking to? But these are New Yorkers, right? Unfiltered," Cuomo told CNN after he finished marching, now turning around how burnt he felt after being ahead in every primary poll before he lost in June. "Thousands of people walk by, right? And you see the response. That's the poll that counts." Cuomo told CNN he is not bothering with any of his own conversations to try to game the race. But he has mused about it at fundraisers and in one-on-one meetings. Over breakfast on Friday, he asked the Rev. Al Sharpton that "if it comes down to him and Mamdani, would I at least keep an open mind?" Sharpton recalled in an interview. Sharpton's answer: "We'll see." (A Cuomo spokesman called the conversation "positive and productive.") Sharpton said he won't call on Adams to quit. He said he suspects that Trump's attention tracks back to real estate interests that the president, his son-in-law Jared Kushner and adviser Steve Witkoff have in the city. Kushner and Witkoff both joined Trump to watch the US Open in Queens on Sunday, an appearance at which Trump drew a mix of boos and cheers. At his town hall Saturday evening with Sanders, Mamdani said he expected the president to soon send in National Guard troops to New York City, as Trump has done in Washington and been threatening to do more broadly. The only way to fight back is partnership among elected officials, Mamdani argued, and Trump's interventions would now leave other Democratic leaders even less likely to want to work with Cuomo as mayor. One of the people New York's mayor would have to work with is the state attorney general, Letitia James. She was a bitter Cuomo antagonist long before she backed Mamdani. "Since the president of the United States would like to see Andrew Cuomo as the mayor of the city of New York, one has to question his loyalty," James told CNN. Even Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa, who has also refused Trump's help or any talk of job offers, criticized the president's intervention. "If anything, when you deal with such a polarizing figure in New York City —appealing in other places, but not in New York City — for Democrats, you're hitting the third rail," Sliwa told CNN. "By Trump trying to determine the outcome, which he can't, he's forcing those that stayed away from Zohran to come to him." Sliwa said if Trump really wants to blunt Mamdani's appeal, he should end the war in Gaza. Mamdani is a strident critic of Israel and refers to its conduct of the war as a "genocide," lining up with younger Democrats who are far more skeptical of Israel than older members of their party. Mamdani's campaign says Trump's interest in Cuomo — and Cuomo's own approach — helps them drive their message about the former governor not diving into the specifics. "We spent nine months telling everyone this is what Andrew Cuomo is. That was obviously convincing to enough people, but not everyone," charged top Mamdani adviser Morris Katz. "Then Andrew Cuomo decided to spend the week telling everyone that we in fact were right: This is what he is." Mamdani's failure to secure the support of most of New York's top Democrats — including Gov. Kathy Hochul, Sens. Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand, and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries — was already causing deep tension and accusations on the ground that those leaders are too scared of upsetting big donors than backing the socialist who is the Democratic nominee. Sanders, an independent who tends to back Democrats, made a point of scolding the holdouts onstage in Brooklyn. Cuomo told CNN he's not trying to win top Democrats over himself. But that they're holding out on Mamdani, he said, "tells you something. He is a socialist. He's a socialist who won the Democratic primary. I'm a Democrat who's on an independent line." Trump has shifted that too. "I think Democratic leaders are misreading how harmful it is for them to stay on the sidelines in this race," said Lincoln Restler, a city councilman from Brooklyn. Queens Borough President Donovan Richards says he sees it differently. Trump has only reassured him in supporting Mamdani, Richards said, and will bring in more backers. "People are living in fear. This is not a Trump town," Richards said. — CNN
