Trouble In Paradise? Trump’s Free-bus Broadside Muddles Mamdani Bromance

NEW YORK — The Trump administration move to undercut Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s plan for free buses does more than threaten a marquee campaign proposal: It underscores how fragile the détente between the White House and the nation’s largest city is.

The Department of Transportation’swarning, first reported by POLITICO, marked the clearest sign yet that Mamdani’s unusual rapport with President Donald Trump has its limits. That bond — cultivated through private calls, texts and asurprisingly cordial Oval Office meeting — has helped the 34-year-old democratic socialist mayor skirt some of the administration’s most punitive tactics, including mass immigration raids.

But the free-bus threat lays bare how quickly the tenor of their relationship could shift, and serves as a reminder of the many opportunities a jilted Trump would have to exact revenge on New York.

“We could get hit with a lot. What about the Second Avenue Subway? What about other transit hubs and airports? And then what about healthcare and homelessness money? And funds for education and hospitals? The list goes on,” said Carlo Scissura, head of the New York Building Congress, a contractor advocacy group that has long supported an infrastructure project beneath the Hudson River held up by Trump. “It’s really a horrible place to be, particularly when we should not be playing politics with these things.”

Federal funding is an essential ingredient in the revenue stew powering more than $100 billion worth of New York City salaries and services in any given year. Skimping on it presents one of the most tangible threats to the Mamdani administration.

Much of that federal cash trickles down through the state, which was on track to receive $91 billion of it this budget cycle, primarily to reimburse local governments like New York City for health care costs — funding that would wreak havoc on Mamdani’s finances if interrupted.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which is run by the state and operates subway and bus service in the city, gets significant federal support for capital investments. But the city receives money directly from the federal government as well. According to a report from the Citizens Budget Commission, a nonprofit that advocates for conservative budgeting, the city is set to receive around $7 billion directly from federal streams for education, child care and shelter costs.

When taken together, the threat of reduced aid from Washington would make it more difficult for Mamdani to deliver standard city services — not to mention achieve his costly campaign promises.

On Tuesday, POLITICO reported the federal Department of Transportation had developed a proposal that, with few exceptions, would halt transit funding to any major city offering free bus service — a clear dig at the young mayor.

The notion of free buses has already been panned as too expensive by New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, a fellow Democrat. The idea that Washington would also starve the transit authority of cash gives her one more reason to say no, even as the Trump proposal incensed Congressional Democrats.

“The federal government has no business micromanaging or commandeering local transit policy,” Rep. Ritchie Torres said. “The Trump Administration should be focused on lowering costs, rather than creating them.”

City Hall, however, is sticking to their message.

“The mayor remains deeply committed to building a fast and free bus system that New Yorkers can rely on, and have a public transit that lets them get to work on time, visit friends and family, and actually enjoy the city they call home,” spokesperson Dora Pekec said in a statement.

Privately, the mayor’s team downplayed the significance of the DOT proposal.

A person close to the mayor, who was granted anonymity to discuss internal thinking, argued it was not clear the initiative came from the White House and insisted it has not interfered with the lines of communication between the two officials.

The White House did not respond to a request for comment.

The Trump administration's new transit prescription is part of a suite of pressure points the president could jab at with deleterious effect to the city.

He has already meddled in the nation’s largest public works project, a $16 billion pair of train tunnels that connect New York City with New Jersey suburbs. And while Trump’s objections to the Gateway Tunnel project go back years, the project’s demise would impose an enormous cost on the city along with the Northeast writ large. When Trump froze federal cash to the project this fall, Mamdani held a campaign event in October to call him out.

“Do you want to serve New Yorkers?” he asked. “Or do you want to punish them?”

The largest share of federal money coming into the city ultimately goes to its Department of Education. And the Trump administration is exploring how to punish cities that support transgender student athletes.

The city’s Department of Health receives around $600 million in grants from the federal government. In March, the White House rescinded a sixth of that, money which would have gone to studying infectious diseases.

Trump has expressed interest in streamlining housing development in New York City, but its public housing stock is heavily reliant on federal funding, which, if curtailed, risks throwing beleaguered properties into further disrepair. This year’s federal appropriations bill cut the city housing authority’s budget by roughly 15 percent, which translates into more than $500 million, according to the budget commission.

Other threats to New York City could come from unexpected places.

City Council Speaker Julie Menin said on Tuesday she fears national Republicans will revive a previous push led by Trump to ask U.S. Census respondents if they’re citizens — a move that would likely lead to undercounting the state’s population, the metric used to determine federal aid and representation.

“We're talking about billions and billions of dollars on the line for our schools, for Head Start, for SNAP, for public safety, for bridges, for roads, for tunnels, almost anything that you might care about in the city,” she said. “The Census matters also for congressional representation, for the balance of power in the Electoral College — all of it matters.”

Looming over the city still is the threat of increased immigration enforcement, though such an incursion so far appears tempered by Mamdani’s relationship with Trump and his decision to retain NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch. The blowback to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Minneapolis — and the administration’s subsequent drawback — may also make the Trump administration reluctant to mount a full-blown surge in New York.

On Friday, however, the Department of Homeland Security issued a statement accusing Mamdani of undermining the agency’s work in New York, where officials said more than 7,000 undocumented individuals are currently in local custody, though the status of those cases was unclear.

On a more basic level, any reductions in federal services like unemployment insurance, park operations, mental health care and road and bridge projects could have profound effects on New Yorkers’ lives, according to the budget commission, which has studied the intersection of city and state finances extensively.

The city appears relatively safe for the time being. The federal appropriations bill has locked in funding through the fall for New York at levels commensurate with past years. So any attempt to claw back that cash will be met with legal challenges — though that hasn’t stopped Trump from threats like his vow to defund “sanctuary cities,” an ultimatum he has not followed through on.

And the implications of the free bus proposal on the Trump-Mamdani bromance are still unclear.

The provision would need to be folded into a complex federal transportation bill that Congress may not even vote on this year. And one expert wondered whether Trump himself was even aware of it.

“We’re just so far removed from this becoming a reality,” said Danny Pearlstein, a spokesperson for the Riders Alliance, a New York City transit advocacy group that supports Mamdani. “At best, this is one step above the edgelord meme factory at every federal department.”