Mayoral candidate Zellnor Myrie is floating a plan to push back against the Trump administration’s threats of withholding federal funds for New York City, as the president poses an increasingly looming presence over the mayoral race. Myrie, a state senator representing parts of Brooklyn, is propos ing hiring 50 city lawyers to set up a line of defense against Trump’s agenda and is talking about a “nuclear option” of withholding state and local tax payments to the federal government if the president revokes city funds in defiance of court orders. “No amount of capitulation will satisfy Donald Trump and his cronies. Playing nice will get us nowhere—it’s time for New Yorkers to remind this country what we’re made of,” Myrie said. “The City will not comply with any illegal and coercive policy demands from the federal government. If they withhold funds, we will sue in the courts and win. “If they ignore the courts, we will withhold our tax dollars from the federal government, and we will march in the streets. “The President is not a king, and New York City is not his subject.” Myrie’s blueprint comes as the president has threatened to pull funding over the city’s stances on the MTA, schools and migrant services, among others. His campaign was unable to provide a cost for the additional lawyers or a specific funding source, saying just that the money would be carved out of the city’s budget. According to the employment site Glassdoor, a lawyer in the city’s law department earns a median salary of $121,000. Hiring 50 lawyers at that rate could add up to roughly $6 million a year. Myrie, a lawyer, said that Trump’s threats of withholding federal funds as punishment for the city bucking certain directives amounts to coercion under the 10th Amendment, which emphasizes that the federal government only has the powers explicitly granted to it by the Constitution. If Trump does enact funding cuts in defiance of any court orders, Myrie proposed a “nuclear option” of withholding from the feds state and local tax payments from government employees. The candidate said he would work with the state to hold back federal income tax payments to match any funds withheld by the administration, and the campaign says individual employees would not be on the hook with the IRS. Myrie is one of ten candidates vying for the Democratic nomination. He’s polling consistently in the single digits, with a recent poll landing him at 2%. State Sen. Jessica Ramos, who is also running for mayor, and Assemblymember Micah Lasher recently proposed a bill in Albany that would work along the same lines. That bill would establish a framework for the state comptroller, governor and budget director to vote on withholding from the federal government to match whatever they withhold from the state. Myrie said his blueprint dovetails with his plan to build and preserve 1 million homes in the city over the next decade, since that effort would build the city’s tax base. With the city’s status as a major economic engine for the state and country, President Trump’s hometown and a place with progressive policies, the city presents a bright blue target for the presidential administration. The issue of how to resist Trump’s efforts to encroach on the governance of his home city, has become central to the mayoral race. Candidate and City Comptroller Brad Lander has proposed bulking up the city’s general reserve by at least $1 billion to protect from any cuts. And fellow challengers Zohran Mamdani and Adrienne Adams have also been outspoken against many of Trump’s actions in the city. Others have been less eager to attack Trump. Mayor Adams has committed to not publicly criticizing the president, and while former governor Andrew Cuomo’s camp has slammed Adams as an “agent of Trump,” Cuomo himself has rarely denounced the president. ...read more read less