JD Vance’s attempts to tout Trump’s achievements in New York went viral on Monday night, as they were fact-checked on X with a brutal community note and made fun of by Mayor Zohran Mamdani.
The vice president shared a post on Monday on the eve of the midterm elections titled “The Trump Admin Delivers for New York,” in which he listed a series of alleged investments and improvements in the city that took place during Trump’s second term.
“We got your back, New York!”, he tweeted.
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Newsweek has contacted both Mamdani and Vance for further comment.
Vance’s Claims Come Under Scrutiny
Among the accomplishments shared by Vance are a “Safer Communities” section, which boasted of a 48% drop in murders and the lowest crime rate in New York and New York City ever recorded. He also cited efforts to curb illegal immigration in the city, and touted the removal of five “worst of the worst” criminal illegal aliens.
The vice president also spoke about the economic gains the city had received under Trump, which included $32 billion in wages protected, an average tax refund of $3,843, and a “historic investment” of over $472 billion into the city by tech companies Micron, Anthropic, and IBM.
But the vice president’s claims were soon challenged by a Community Note shortly after going live, which pointed out that several of the accomplishments touted by Vance were in fact policies implemented by Mamdani, a Democrat, earlier this year, while others used inflated figures to paint a distorted picture of investment.
“Several figures here aren’t federal results or NY-specific,” the note read. “The $472B combines U.S. wide pledges: Micron’s $250B is nationwide (NY site $100B) Anthropic’s $50B covers TX and NY. The 48% murder drop is from NY’s state run GIVE program (28 departments, Jan — May 2026).”
As mentioned in the note, Micron’s investment in a New York site totals $100 billion, with the remainder of the $250 billion distributed to sites throughout the US. The figure is cited in an announcement from the New York Governor’s Office, with Governor Kathy Hochul saying at the time: “Micron’s $100 billion investment in New York marks the start of something transformative in scale and possibility for our state’s economic future.”
Furthermore, the Micron deal was also first announced by the Biden administration back in 2024 as part of the CHIPS and Science Act. As mentioned in the Community Note, Anthropic’s $50 billion investment was also split between Texas and New York.
Vance’s claims of a drop in crime have also widely been credited to Mamdani, who oversaw the city’s biggest drop in murders and shooting incidents in recorded history during his first three months in charge. The 28 police departments signed up to New York’s Gun Involved Violence Elimination (GIVE) program, overseen by Mamdani following his ascension to office, also reported a 7 percent decrease in overall crime.
“The numbers tell a clear, indisputable story: our approach to public safety is working,” Mamdani said in April. “These numbers speak to an NYPD using every lever at its disposal to deliver a safer New York City to all who call it home.”
Mamdani Responds
But while the facts told a certain story, Mamdani himself reacted by making fun of Vance’s claims. Rather than post a lengthy rebuttal, the mayor simply responded to the vice president’s post with a nine-second viral video from prankster Olly Bee, who jokingly refers to himself as the “world’s hardest worker.”
In the clip, Bee, dressed in a high-viz vest, pretends to stop a subway cart and ushers passengers on and off the carriage, before giving a “signal” to the driver to depart. The clip of him taking credit for doing nothing is often paired alongside memes captioned “my contribution to the group project.”
Mamdani offered no further comment on Vance’s post, but the intention of the clip appeared to be widely understood. At the time of writing, the mayor’s post has amassed 28 million views and over 1.2 million likes, dwarfing Vance’s 8,100 likes on the initial post.
Contact Newsweek editors for this story: Robert Greenall and Rebecca Flood