Did Trump’s ‘Communist’ Mamdani Just Get Security Clearance
by: Jordan Kessler

Did Trump’s ‘Communist’ Mamdani Just Get Security Clearance?

OPINION

In 1947, if you wanted a federal job, the government checked whether you belonged to any group the Attorney General had labeled “totalitarian, fascist, communist, or subversive.” It’s all there in Harry Truman’s Executive Order 9835. I mention it because, for more than a year, the president of the United States and the mayor of New York City have been describing each other using two of those four words. This week one of them gave the other a security clearance.

Let’s take the words first.

In his 2019 State of the Union address, President Trump said, “Tonight, we renew our resolve that America will never be a socialist country.” The chamber answered with a chant of “USA! USA!” Six years later, the day after Zohran Mamdani’s upset in New York’s Democratic mayoral primary, Trump called him “a 100% Communist Lunatic” on Truth Social, Time reported. Mamdani, for the record, calls himself a democratic socialist, which is a different thing, though perhaps not to everyone at the rally.

Mamdani gave as good as he got. As recently as last year he routinely called Trump a “despot” and a “fascist,” Politico reported. So, by their own descriptions, we have a communist mayor and a fascist president. In 1947, neither one gets the job.

Then they got along

Here’s where it gets awkward for anyone keeping score. In November 2025, the mayor-elect visited the Oval Office. Pressed by a reporter on whether he believed Trump was a fascist, Mamdani started to answer, and Trump cut in: “That’s OK – you can just say yes. That’s easier,” CNN reported. Trump also said, “The better he does, the happier I am.”

They met again at the White House in February. On Sept. 21, Trump visited Gracie Mansion, where the two talked about building up to 12,000 homes at Sunnyside Yards, ABC News reported. City Hall told Gothamist the mayor didn’t bring up his clearance. Nine days later he told reporters in Brooklyn, “I have my security clearance now.”

So the man who promised America would never be socialist now has a self-described socialist in the room for classified threat briefings. And the man who called the president a fascist now holds a clearance from the fascist’s government. I’m not sure either of them has thought this through, and I mean that as a compliment.

Nine months, which is slow, and also about average

Mamdani applied around the time he took office in January. Michael Bloomberg, elected weeks after 9/11, got his clearance within four months, according to a former Bloomberg official quoted by Gothamist. Eric Adams got his within five, a former city official told the same outlet. Bill de Blasio waited more than a year, partly because he applied late. Mamdani’s nine months sit between them, closer to de Blasio than anyone in City Hall would like.

Before anyone builds a conspiracy out of it, consider the rest of the line. In February, the Government Accountability Office told Congress that as of the second quarter of fiscal 2025, agencies were taking an average of 206 days to finish the fastest 90 percent of initial Top Secret clearances, 92 days past the government’s 114-day goal. That’s the fast 90 percent. Two months earlier, GAO reported that more than 60 percent of the data the Office of the Director of National Intelligence used to oversee the clearance process in fiscal 2024 wasn’t reliable. The government knows its clearances are slow. It just can’t say exactly how slow.

Waiting nine months for a clearance is like waiting nine months for the cable guy. It’s annoying, and it’s personal, until you find out the whole block is waiting too.

What the rules actually ask about

Here’s the part I found interesting. The 1947 loyalty program judged ideology by association. Today’s rules don’t use those words at all. The current adjudicative guidelines, known as Security Executive Agent Directive 4 and in effect since 2017, never mention “communist,” “socialist” or “fascist.” I checked. Under “Allegiance to the United States,” they ask about sabotage, espionage, treason, terrorism and sedition, and about ties to people or groups that use or advocate force or other illegal or unconstitutional means to overthrow or influence the government.

So the modern test isn’t what you call yourself, or what the president calls you. It’s what you’ve done. By that standard, a democratic socialist mayor is a background check, not a referendum. Which may be the most reassuring thing either man has accidentally proven.

It also cuts the other way. The same administration that cleared Mamdani has revoked clearances from political opponents, including New York Attorney General Letitia James and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, Gothamist noted. Clearances can be handed out quietly and taken away loudly. Both have now happened to New Yorkers.

The case for taking nine months

The strongest argument for the long wait is a serious one. Last November, eight Republican lawmakers wrote to the Department of Homeland Security urging it to deny Mamdani a clearance. They cited his co-founding of a student chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine, a group whose national organization called Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack “a historic win for the Palestinian resistance,” and his past protests against the NYPD, Gothamist reported.

A mayor who will see classified material about terrorism threats against his own city, and whose cooperation with federal agencies on policing and immigration enforcement is a live political fight, is exactly the person you’d want vetted carefully, not quickly. Meanwhile his chief counsel, who already held a clearance, could attend the briefings, so the city wasn’t flying blind. And there’s no evidence the outcome was political in either direction. Politico found no sign the Gracie Mansion meeting played any part. A slow, thorough, apolitical background check isn’t a scandal. On paper, it’s the system working.

I’ll grant all of that. I’d only add that if a thorough check is the system working, the system has been working on the rest of the country at about the same speed.

The president said America would never be a socialist country. The mayor said the president was a fascist. The FBI, as far as anyone can tell, just checked his references.

Trump called Mamdani a communist; Mamdani called Trump a fascist. In 1947 neither gets cleared. In 2026, one cleared the other, after a nine-month wait.

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