New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani has declined to explain when he discovered that his administration has no legal authority to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, despite having repeatedly promised during his campaign to detain the Israeli leader if he visited the city. The revelation undercuts a signature pledge from his mayoral run and raises questions about whether the promise was ever legally credible, feeding into wider Republican criticism of Mamdani's stances on Israel and foreign policy.

Pressed on whether the abandoned arrest threat amounted to "political theater," Mamdani said his administration had reviewed the applicable law but avoided directly addressing the timing of when he learned the city lacked jurisdiction to act on an International Criminal Court warrant. He instead called on federal authorities to join the ICC in pursuing accountability for Netanyahu, whom he has referred to as a "war criminal," and said protests in New York City would be respected. The comments have drawn sharp reactions from critics, including a survivor of a Hamas terror attack, and have exposed divisions among House Democrats over the arrest proposal.