• “We want New York to be successful,” says Trump.
• Trump says, “Let’s see how Mamdani does in New York.”
• Says US loses “sovereignty” after New Yorkers elect Mamdani.
  

MIAMI: US President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that “we want New York to be successful” and he might offer US assistance to Zohran Mamdani, the democratic socialist who was elected as New York City’s mayor.

“We’ll help him, a little bit maybe,” Trump said at a speech in Miami a day after the election.

In a speech in Miami a day after Mamdani´s convincing victory, Trump said: “Let’s see how Mamdani does in New York.”

He further said that the US had lost “sovereignty” after New Yorkers elected leftist Mamdani as their next mayor.

“We’ll take care of it,” Trump said without explaining what he meant, while claiming the country’s largest city would become communist.

Trump added that the Florida city “will soon be the refuge for those fleeing communism in New York.”

“The decision facing all Americans could not be more clear: We have a choice between communism and common sense,” he said, also casting the choice as between an “economic nightmare” and an “economic miracle.”

The speech marked the first anniversary of Trump’s election victory against Democrat Kamala Harris.

“We rescued our economy, regained our liberty, and together we saved our country on that magnificent night 365 days ago,” Trump told his audience of supporters.

Mamdani’s mayoral race win came despite fierce attacks on his policies and Muslim heritage from business elites, conservative media commentators and Trump himself.

“If anyone can show a nation betrayed by Trump how to defeat him, it is the city that gave rise to him,” Mamdani said in a victory speech late Tuesday.

Mamdani’s win, as well as the Democratic Party’s other victories in the governor’s races in Virginia and New Jersey, suggested a shift in political mood as the country looks toward next year´s midterm elections, when control of Congress will be up for grabs.

In another significant win for Democrats, voters in California approved a proposition to redraw electoral districts in a bid to neutralise gerrymandering efforts ordered by Trump in other states.

Trump refused to take any blame for Tuesday’s results.

In a post on his Truth Social network, he cited anonymous “pollsters” suggesting the Republican defeats were due to the government shutdown and the fact that his own name wasn’t on the ballots.

The 34-year-old democratic socialist made history by becoming the first Muslim mayor of the largest US city, defeating Democratic former Governor Andrew Cuomo.

Earlier, Trump acknowledged that Democrats’ sweeping electoral gains signalled mounting trouble for Republicans, calling the results “not good” and linking the setbacks to the record-long federal government shutdown, now stretching into its sixth week.

Addressing GOP senators at a White House breakfast, Trump reflected on the outcome, saying it had not been a positive night for anyone.

The US president said: “We had an interesting evening, and we learned a lot, and we’re going to talk about that.”

He attributed the Republican setbacks partly to the prolonged government shutdown, citing pollsters who found it “a big factor, negative for the Republicans”. Trump added that some analysts viewed his absence from the ballot as the biggest factor.

Trump accused Democrats of being prepared to destroy the country as the government shutdown became the longest in history on Wednesday, eclipsing the 35-day record set during the Republican leader’s first term.

Mamdani to Trump: ‘Turn the volume up’

Mamdani wasted no time calling out President Trump, formally kicking off the battle that will likely define relations between the 34-year-old mayor and the president whose celebrity is tied to the city.

“Donald Trump, since I know you’re watching, I have four words for you: turn the volume up!” Mamdani, a Democrat, said during a Tuesday night speech to a raucous crowd of supporters shortly after being declared the victor.

“If anyone can show a nation betrayed by Donald Trump how to defeat him, it is the city that gave rise to him,” Mamdani told supporters. “And if there is any way to terrify a despot, it is by dismantling the very conditions that allowed him to accumulate power. This is not only how we stop Trump, it’s how we stop the next one.”

• Putin orders officials to draft Russian response.
• Armed forces chief says Russia must act quickly.
• Moscow hasn’t conducted a nuclear test since 1991.
  

MOSCOW: Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered his top officials on Wednesday to draft proposals for a possible test of nuclear weapons, something Moscow has not done since the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union.

The order – responding to President Donald Trump’s announcement last week that the US would resume testing – was a further signal that the two countries with the world’s largest nuclear arsenals are rapidly nearing a step that could sharply escalate geopolitical tensions.

“I am instructing the Foreign Ministry, the Defence Ministry… the special services and relevant civilian agencies to do everything possible to collect additional information on the issue, analyse it at the Security Council and make agreed proposals on the possible start of work on the preparation of nuclear weapons tests,” Putin said in televised remarks.

Russia-US relations have deteriorated sharply in the past few weeks as Trump, frustrated with a lack of progress towards ending the war in Ukraine, has cancelled a planned summit with Putin and imposed sanctions on Russia for the first time since returning to the White House in January.

Putin issued his instruction at a meeting of his Security Council, where parliamentary speaker Vyacheslav Volodin departed from the official agenda of transport safety to ask how Moscow would respond to Trump’s plans to carry out US nuclear testing for the first time in 33 years.

The question, though meant to appear spontaneous, triggered a series of clearly prepared interventions.

Top officials urge swift Russian response to US decision 

Defence Minister Andrei Belousov told Putin that recent US remarks and actions meant it was “advisable to prepare for full-scale nuclear tests” immediately.

Russia’s Arctic testing site at Novaya Zemlya could host such tests at short notice, Belousov added.

General Valery Gerasimov, head of the General Staff, told Putin: “If we do not take appropriate measures now, time and opportunities for a timely response to the actions of the United States will be lost, since the time required to prepare for nuclear tests, depending on their type, ranges from several months to several years.”

No country apart from North Korea – most recently in 2017 – has carried out explosive tests of nuclear weapons in the 21st century. Security analysts say a resumption of testing by any of the world’s nuclear powers would be destabilising, as it would likely trigger a similar response by the others.

“Action-reaction cycle at its best. No one needs this, but we might get there regardless,” Andrey Baklitskiy, senior researcher at the U.N. Institute for Disarmament Research, posted on X.

Russia and the US are by far the biggest nuclear powers by numbers of warheads, followed by China, France, Britain, India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea, according to the Federation of American Scientists.

No deadline set for drafting proposals on nuclear testing 

State news agency TASS quoted Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov as saying Putin had set no specific deadline for officials to draft the requested proposals.

“In order to come to a conclusion about the advisability of beginning preparations for such tests, it will take exactly as much time as it takes for us to fully understand the intentions of the United States of America,” Peskov said.

Trump has yet to clarify whether the resumption he ordered last week referred to nuclear-explosive testing or to flight testing of nuclear-capable missiles.

Russia last month tested its new Burevestnik cruise missile, which is nuclear-powered and designed to carry a nuclear warhead. It also held nuclear launch drills and tested a nuclear-powered Poseidon super-torpedo.

Testing delivery systems for nuclear weapons does not involve a nuclear explosion. Such blasts were regularly staged by the nuclear powers for decades during the Cold War, with devastating environmental consequences that campaigners fear could be unleashed once again if explosive tests resume.

Who would have thought that a boy from Uganda would become the New York mayor one day? Zohran Mamdani — a 34-year-old democratic socialist — shocked everyone and became the first Muslim and South Asian mayor of the biggest city in the United States.

Mamdani was virtually unknown before his upset victory to secure the Democratic nomination over former governor Andrew Cuomo, whom he trounced again on Tuesday.

Unlike his opponents, Mamdani focused on reducing living costs for ordinary New Yorkers, building support through his informal personal style and social-media-friendly clips of him walking the streets chatting with voters.

The son of a filmmaker mother and a scholar father, he arrived in New York at the age of seven. He attended the Bronx High School of Science and later earned a degree in Africana Studies from Bowdoin College, where he co-founded the campus chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine.

The mock-election

He was only twelve when he won his first election. Yes, his first — a mock mayoral election at Bank Street School for Children.

The mock election was meant for eighth-graders. Mamdani, who was in seventh grade at that time, asked the school to participate as a third-party. And when the results were announced, Mamdani wiped out the field.

Footballer and rapper

Mamdani’s childhood was a blend of train rides, football fandom, rapping, and political debates.

Before entering politics, he worked as a housing counsellor, helping low-income homeowners in Queens fight eviction.

The love life

Mamdani and his wife, 27-year-old Syrian-American animator and illustrator Rama Duwaji, met on the dating app Hinge in 2021, whom he credits with helping him “to better use social media”.

The improbable campaign

Inspired by Bernie Sanders to become a socialist, Mamdani began his mayoral campaign with a fresh perspective.

Along with in-person campaigning, he used social media platforms to build support through his informal personal style and friendly clips of him walking the streets chatting with voters.

The vote

On Election Day, Mamdani stood outside a polling station in Queens — the same borough whose tenants he once defended — and cast the vote that could make him the first Muslim mayor of New York City.

And finally, Mamdani, capping a meteoric rise from a little-known state lawmaker to one of the country’s most visible Democratic figures, won the New York City mayoral race.