Inside Trump and Mamdani’s 2-hour phone call after the New York City ICE shooting
By Gloria Pazmino, Priscilla Alvarez, CNN
(CNN) — The friendly relationship between President Donald Trump and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani hit one of its toughest tests yet Thursday after a series of calls over a shooting involving immigration agents in the Bronx.
Mamdani, who keeps an open line of communication with Trump, has argued that maintaining a working relationship with the president is a matter of pragmatism. Despite their stark ideological and political differences, Mamdani has suggested that direct engagement gives him a better chance of securing results for New Yorkers.
On Thursday, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents shot and wounded a man driving his car while his 5-year-old child was in the back seat during a targeted enforcement operation in the Bronx.
The incident set up an opportunity for the mayor: Pressure Trump on an issue central to Democrats and a large swath of New Yorkers, try to get the victim released from federal custody and use the outcome to prove why his unlikely relationship with Trump is beneficial.
In the end, the victim — a 28-year-old undocumented immigrant — remained in federal custody.
Mamdani held multiple calls with the White House on Thursday night in what turned into an hourslong attempt to negotiate that the victim, Oscar Belgal, be released from custody. The Department of Homeland Security said Belgal has ties to the Trinitarios gang, a prior criminal conviction for grand larceny and prior arrests for assault, robbery, drug possession and weapons possession.
As the hours passed, protesters descended on the neighborhood, getting into skirmishes with police.
A person familiar with the talks described them as cordial in nature but said the two sides were extremely far apart in terms of what should happen next. A White House official confirmed the president had a lengthy conversation with Mamdani.
Mamdani has maintained that his diplomatic approach to Trump has benefited New Yorkers, but Thursday’s shooting could strain his relationship with Trump and test just how much the mayor can actually leverage from it.
At one point during the talks, Trump, Mamdani and Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin tried to hash out a compromise that would allow the injured driver to be released from federal custody.
Mullin and Trump were willing. But only if Belgal was transferred to the custody of the New York Police Department. The Dominican national suffered a superficial neck wound when officers opened fire as they approached his vehicle.
Mullin said that during the call, Trump suggested to Mamdani the NYPD had enough reason to hold him given his criminal record, but the mayor refused.
“He was wanting us to release this individual back onto the streets,” Mullin told reporters Friday. “If NYPD wants to take the charges and pursue the charges, we’ll be happy to release him into the custody of NYPD. I shared that with the mayor. The mayor once again said we will not be detaining him.”
Mullin also said he spoke with New York Gov. Kathy Hochul.
Belgal was the subject of a DHS investigation into the shooting of a Customs and Border Protection agent and was part of a gang “known for theft using weapons,” according to Marcos Charles, ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations executive associate director, who added that he had previously evaded federal immigration agents in September.
Mamdani offered to have the NYPD take the lead on an investigation into the incident, he told Trump and Mullin. The NYPD would take over as long as federal agents left the area of the incident that evening.
Trump pressed Mamdani to let the NYPD arrest Belgal, but Mamdani would not budge.
A source familiar with the conversations told CNN there was no legal reason to hold Belgal without a warrant.
“There was no warrant out for his arrest, no legal basis for the NYPD to take him into custody,” the person said.
Negotiations broke down after that.
“The mayor was being cordial, but unrealistic,” Mullin said Friday on Fox News.
Aides to the mayor argue his relationship with the president has yielded significant results. Although ICE has ramped up enforcement, the agency has not carried out large-scale operations like those in Michigan or Minnesota.
Mamdani arrived near the scene of the incident for a late-night press conference, during which he accused ICE of being “rotten to its core.”
“Today’s shooting is only further devastating confirmation of what we have long known: that ICE operates with impunity, that they sow chaos and terror across our country, that they have killed far more of our neighbors than they could ever have claimed to save,” Mamdani said.
In a press conference Friday morning, Mullin tied Mamdani and New York City’s sanctuary policies, which set limits on cooperation with federal immigration enforcement, to the incident.
ICE operations in New York have been ongoing for months. An immigration enforcement operation that took place from late July to late August yielded more than 2,100 arrests, according to DHS. Mullin traveled to New York to announce the results of the operation, known as Operation Rotten Apple, and applauded ICE agents, while again criticizing Mamdani and Hochul.
“Over the course of this operation, we arrested murderers, rapists, pedophiles, drug traffickers and violent assailants. And we did it with no help from Mayor Mamdani and Governor Hochul. The Trump administration is committed to protecting the American people in every city and every state, and we won’t let sanctuary politicians stand in our way,” he said.
Federal data reveals that arrests in the state increased over the summer. In May, ICE took 922 people into custody in New York. That jumped to 1,190 people in June and to 1,552 in July, according to the Deportation Data Project.
CNN’s Kaitlan Collins and Alayna Treene contributed to this report.
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