Republicans want to turn Mamdani into a bogeyman for the midterms. Trump just made that harder

NEW YORK: Earlier in the month, President Donald Trump warned voters that democratic socialists — extreme, crazed, lunatics, he called them — were threatening to transform America into “a communist country.” This week, a smiling Trump patted on the shoulder one of the nation’s best known democratic socialists, shook his hand, and said he was “off to a start” to being a great mayor of the country’s largest city. Trump’s cozy relationship with New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, which began last y