OCHOPEE, Fla. — As President Donald Trump visited and celebrated a new immigrant detention camp built by Florida’s government to house thousands of migrants in cramped tents and surrounded by alligator-filled swamps — dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz” by its gleeful boosters — he demanded Attorney General Pam Bondi and the Justice Department prosecute CNN and former Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on unclear claims of criminality.

He also threatened New York City Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani with arrest and promised the federal government would look into the 33-year-old state lawmaker’s citizenship as the president’s allies in New York and Tennessee Rep. Andy Ogles have demanded Bondi revoke it and deport him. Mamdani, who is Muslim and was born in Uganda, became a U.S. citizen in 2018 and handedly beat a large field featuring prominent Democrats in the city’s primary last week.

What You Need To Know

  • President Donald Trump demanded Attorney General Pam Bondi and the Justice Department prosecute CNN and former Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on unclear claims of criminality
  • He also threatened New York City Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani with arrest and promised the federal government would look into the 33-year-old state lawmaker’s citizenship
  • “We’ll have to arrest him” if he defies Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations as mayor, Trump said. “We’re going to be watching that very carefully and a lot of people are saying he’s here illegally…. We’re going to look at everything”
  • Trump’s ire at CNN stemmed from the network’s reporting on U.S. intelligence reports surrounding the bombing of Iran last month and from a new report this week on a phone app that allows users to anonymously report sightings of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents

“We’ll have to arrest him” if he defies Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations as mayor, Trump said. “We’re going to be watching that very carefully, and a lot of people are saying he’s here illegally. ... We’re going to look at everything.”

In a statement posted to social media, Mamdani wrote "the President of the United States just threatened to have me arrested, stripped of my citizenship, put in a detention camp and deported."

"Not because I have broken any law but because I will refuse to let ICE terrorize our city," Mamdani wrote. "His statements don't just represent an attack our democracy to every New Yorker who refuses to hide in the shadows: if you speak up, they will come for you.

"We will not accept this intimidation," the Democratic mayoral nominee added.

Trump’s ire at CNN stemmed from the network’s reporting on U.S. intelligence reports surrounding the bombing of Iran last month and from a new report this week on a smartphone app that allows users to anonymously report sightings of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents as the Trump administration has ramped up enforcement with the goal of mass deportations of people living in the country without citizenship. 

“We’re working with the Department of Justice to see if we can prosecute them for that because what they’re doing is actively encouraging people to avoid law enforcement activities, operations,” Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said alongside Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis during their visit to the facility on Tuesday. “And we’re actually going to go after them and prosecute them with the partnership of Pam [Bondi] if we can because what they’re doing, we believe, is illegal.

“And they may be prosecuted also for having given false reports on the attack in Iran,” Trump added. “They were giving totally false reports. It was totally obliterated. And our people have to be celebrated and not come home and say, ‘What do you mean we didn’t hit the targets?’

“So they may be very well prosecuted for that. What they did there, we think, is totally illegal,” the president continued.

The Justice Department did not immediately return a request for comment. A CNN spokesperson said in a statement that the app, dubbed ICEBlock, “is an app that is publicly available to any iPhone user who wants to download it. There is nothing illegal about reporting the existence of this or any other app, nor does such reporting constitute promotion or other endorsement of the app by CNN.”

In a statement, Katherine Jacobsen, the Committee to Protect Journalists' program coordinator in the U.S., Canada and the Caribbean, said: "President Trump and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem should remember that journalists have First Amendment protections, enshrined in the Constitution, and should not face legal action in retaliation for their reporting on ICE raids, Iran strikes or any other news event."

In a Fox News interview on Monday, Bondi said the Justice Department is “looking at” the app’s creator and “he better watch out.”

“We will not be intimidated,” an ICEBlock spokesperson said in a statement to the Daily Beast. “As long as ICE agents have quotas, and this administration ignores Constitutional rights, we will continue fighting back. No human is illegal.”

Last week, Trump repeatedly attacked CNN and other outlets for reports on the bombing of Iran’s nuclear facilities he ordered that cited U.S. intelligence assessments that the damage caused by the bombings was not as extensive as Trump publicly claimed. Trump called for CNN reporter Natasha Bertrand to be fired and “then thrown out ‘like a dog.’”

In response, CNN’s communications team put out a statement saying the network stands "100% behind” Bertrand and her reporting. 

“CNN’s reporting made clear that this was an initial finding that could change with additional intelligence," the statement said. "We have extensively covered President Trump’s own deep skepticism about it. However we do not believe it is reasonable to criticize CNN reporters for accurately reporting the existence of the assessment and accurately characterizing its findings, which are in the public interest.”

As he has for years, Trump has continued to wage war on media outlets that report critically on himself and his administration — the president railed against a Forbes reporter over a 10-day old story about the valuations of his private businesses on Monday. But unlike his first term, he is actively wielding his vast personal wealth, massive political operation and the weapons of the federal government against his adversaries in the media and other critics. 

Later at the Florida immigration detention camp on Tuesday, Trump responded to a media question about why Mayorkas, Biden’s Homeland Security secretary, had not yet been arrested for his handling of border security and promised to “take a look at that one.”

“Because what he did is, it’s beyond incompetent, something had to be going on,” Trump said. “Now, with that being said, he took orders from other people, and he was really doing the orders. Why don’t you take a look at it, Kristi?

“Somebody told Mayorkas to do that, and he followed orders, but that doesn’t necessarily hold him harmless, so take a look at it,” the president instructed Noem, Mayorkas’ successor. “Very good question.”

Mayorkas could not immediately be reached for comment.

“A bunch of liberals, socialists and Marxists are out there lying about what President Trump is doing,” Noem said at the news conference. “President Trump is upholding freedom by what he’s doing. The freedom to live safely in this country and to do things legally and to have justice.”