Gavin Newsom warns Zohran Mamdani about friendly ties with Trump: ‘I know how this love story ends’
WASHINGTON, DC: California Gov Gavin Newsom offered a pointed warning to New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani this week, cautioning that any friendly political relationship with President Donald Trump could end badly.
The remark, delivered with a laugh, came during a conversation with a liberal influencer, Jack Cocchiarella, who joked that Trump appeared to have “a crush” on both politicians.
Gavin Newsom chuckles at Zohran Mamdani and Trump’s ‘love story’
Newsom’s comments reflect growing debate among Democrats over how to deal with Trump’s second administration.
The California governor was promoting his new memoir at an event when he recalled Trump once giving him a tour of Air Force One, including its bedroom.
Jack Cocchiarella, who was interviewing him on stage, quipped to Newsom that Trump “has got a crush” on “you and Zohran.”
Newsom chuckled. “I’ve got to talk to Zohran,” he said. “I know how this love story ends, Zohran.”
Gavin Newsom’s opinion on Trump and Zohran Mamdani
His comments on stage in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, were short and casual, but they showed how Newsom feels about dealing with Trump.
The governor said many times after Trump won a second term that he would approach the president with "an open hand, not a closed fist."
The two famously hugged after deadly wildfires in Los Angeles early last year.
That Trump didn’t invite Newsom to greet him and he showed anyway is hilarious.
— Candidly Tiff (@tify330) January 25, 2025
Trump is a social bully who folded like a cheap suit when he saw Gav in person.
“You’re a great guy, Gavin,” he told the governor on the tarmac.pic.twitter.com/mncE81I4Up
But Newsom has since become much more aggressive and said that the president only respects displays of strength after the Trump administration sent a wave of lawsuits, immigration raids, and funding cuts to California.
That point of view is different from what Mamdani has been doing lately.
The democratic socialist mayor of New York has met with Trump at the White House several times, and people have noticed when the two political rivals have been unexpectedly friendly with each other.
As part of his campaign to get federal support for housing construction in New York City, Mamdani even gave Trump fake newspaper front pages with the president's name on them at one meeting.
“I think,” Trump said of Mamdani in November after an especially bromantic Oval Office meeting, “this mayor is going to be doing some things that are really great.”
The dynamic has surprised political observers, given the sharp rhetoric exchanged during the election campaign, when the president had labeled Mamdani a radical socialist while the mayor criticized Trump’s policies.
Now, as both men emerge as prominent voices within the Democratic Party, their contrasting approaches to Trump illustrate a wider strategic divide over whether cooperation or confrontation is the better path forward.
