President Donald Trump’s approval ratings may be sliding, but one political super sense is as sharp as ever: picking a fight with an adversary he casts as the entire Democratic Party.
Step forward, New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani.
It took just days for Trump to jump on Mamdani’s refusal to roll back a campaign pledge to arrest Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, for whom the International Criminal Court has issued a warrant, if he showed up in the city.
“Benjamin Netanyahu will not be arrested, in any way, shape, or form, while in the United States of America,” Trump announced on Monday on Truth Social, his preferred venue for igniting new culture war tussles.The president’s response raised the possibility of a clash between federal power and the city he once called home.
But its real significance goes further.
This was also a classic example of Trump’s habit of seizing on an issue or a personality to ignite a wider political controversy. He wasn’t just defending an ally in Netanyahu — and perhaps creating a new sense of obligation with a leader with whom he’s recently had tense relations. Trump was also preparing the ground for his emerging midterm election narrative of a Democratic Pary that’s become too extreme. Still, both Trump and Mamdani might embrace a fight over Netanyahu — which has deeper domestic ramifications than a foreign policy dispute over civilian deaths in the Israeli onslaught in Gaza after Hamas’ October 7, 2023 attacks.
It’s therefore not really important whether Mamdani can arrest Netanyahu. (This is a murky question because the US has not ratified the Rome Statute, which requires member states to arrest those under warrant from the International Criminal Court. And Washington has long allowed even enemy leaders — from places like Iran and Cuba – to visit New York for the United Nations General Assembly.)
Instead, this is one of those occasions when having the fight is more important than winning it.
It’s also a snapshot of how American politics is moving away from historical and near-universal support for Israel and it’s a moment that exemplifies the Democratic Party’s own broader evolution.
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