New York City's mayor-elect is already picking fights he can't win.
Zohran Mamdani doubled down on his pledge to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if he sets foot in New York, claiming the city will follow "international law" instead of U.S. law.
And Byron Donalds gave Mamdani a civics lesson that left Democrats speechless.
Donalds Reminds Mamdani He's Not a World Leader
Donalds appeared on Fox Business's Kudlow and didn't hold back when host Larry Kudlow asked about Mamdani's latest stunt.
"Mamdani, I think, came out the other day and said that New York City is going to follow international law. Who the hell is he? He does not have the authority to do that," Donalds told Kudlow.¹
That's the question every American should be asking right now.
Mamdani ran for mayor promising to arrest Netanyahu based on an International Criminal Court warrant. The problem?
The United States isn't even a member of the ICC. The court has zero jurisdiction here. None.
Donalds spelled out exactly what Mamdani will be swearing to uphold when he takes office.
"When he gets sworn in as the next mayor of New York, he's still in that oath going to pledge allegiance to the Constitution to protect the laws of the city of New York and of the United States. That's part of the oath," Donalds explained.¹
https://twitter.com/ByronDonalds/status/1991318387981709364?s=20
Not international law. Not the ICC. The Constitution.
But Mamdani doesn't care about any of that. He's already said he plans to "exhaust every legal option" to honor ICC warrants against Netanyahu and Vladimir Putin.²
Here's the thing Mamdani doesn't seem to understand: there are no legal options.
The Constitution gives the federal government sole authority over foreign relations.
Mayors don't get to run their own State Department.
They don't get to decide which international courts have jurisdiction in their cities.
That's not how America works.
This Is What Happens When Radicals Get Elected
Donalds didn't just call out Mamdani's constitutional ignorance.
He exposed exactly what kind of person New York voters just put in charge of the nation's largest city.
"This is what happens when you elect a radical who's never had a job, who's never done anything constructive in his life except be in the New York Assembly and go on TikTok," Donalds said.¹
The congressman is right.
Mamdani is a 33-year-old democratic socialist whose entire career has been built on far-left activism.
He founded a Students for Justice in Palestine chapter at Bowdoin College. He's refused to condemn Hamas. He won't say Israel has a right to exist as a Jewish state.³
And now he's promising to turn New York City into some kind of rogue jurisdiction that ignores federal law whenever it conflicts with his radical ideology.
"Now you got a guy who's saying that New York City won't follow the laws of the United States. It will follow international law. That is insanity," Donalds continued.¹
That's exactly what it is. Insanity.
Mamdani isn't just wrong on the law.
He's dangerously delusional about what power he actually has.
A mayor commands his city's police force, but that authority is bound by state and federal law.
He can't create new international obligations out of thin air.
House Republican Leadership Chairwoman Elise Stefanik introduced the "Sovereign Enforcement Integrity Act" specifically to block any local attempts to enforce ICC warrants.⁴
That's how seriously Congress is taking this threat.
And President Trump has already made clear he won't tolerate this kind of defiance.
Back in February, Trump signed an executive order sanctioning the ICC.⁵
He's warned he would withhold federal funding from New York if Mamdani follows through.
Democrats Are Losing Voters Over This Radicalism
Donalds sees the bigger picture here. Mamdani isn't some outlier.
He's the logical endpoint of where the Democrat Party has been heading for years.
"They're getting a lot louder. I'm not sure about larger because I think you have Democrat-registered voters in our country who love America, and they're looking at this on the radical side of their party and saying, 'This is crazy. I didn't sign up for this,'" Donalds observed.¹
https://twitter.com/ThomasSowell/status/1985730002222981506?s=20
He's right about that too.
Regular Democrats didn't sign up for mayors who pledge allegiance to the ICC over the Constitution.
They didn't sign up for elected officials who refuse to condemn terrorist organizations.
They didn't sign up for $30 minimum wages and city-operated food markets.
But that's what Mamdani ran on.
And New York City elected him anyway.
This should terrify every American who cares about the rule of law.
If a mayor can decide to follow "international law" instead of U.S. law whenever it suits his political agenda, then the Constitution means nothing.
Any city could become a sanctuary for any foreign fugitive based on whatever international body the mayor decides to recognize.
Mamdani already has a transition official who had to apologize for antisemitic social media posts, including using "Jew" as a slur and praising Iran's former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.⁶
That's the kind of administration he's building.
The Trump administration won't let this stand. Donalds made the prediction clear.
"Unfortunately, this is going to come to a conflict, politically and legally, and Zohran Mamdani is going to lose," he said.¹
That conflict is already brewing. Netanyahu has been invited to visit New York on January 1, the day Mamdani takes office.⁷
If Mamdani actually tries to arrest a foreign head of state against the explicit wishes of the federal government, he'll find out very quickly that being mayor of New York doesn't make him king of his own country.
¹ Mariane Angela, "'That Is Insanity': Byron Donalds Has To Remind Mamdani Why He Can't Force NYC To Follow International Law," Daily Caller, November 19, 2025.
² "NEW: Mamdani Suggests He Will Disobey U.S. Legal System: 'City Of International Law,'" Trending Politics News, November 18, 2025.
³ "What NYC Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani has actually said about Jews, Israel and antisemitism," The Forward, July 2, 2025.
⁴ "Local Threats, Global Warrants: Mamdani, the ICC, and Constitutional Boundaries," International and Comparative Law Review, 2025.
⁵ "Imposing Sanctions on the International Criminal Court," The White House, February 6, 2025.
⁶ "Mamdani Transition Official Apologizes for Antisemitic Posts," Israel Hayom, November 17, 2025.
⁷ "Can Zohran Mamdani legally arrest Netanyahu when he takes office on January 1 in New York?" BusinessToday, November 12, 2025.
