While Trump has yanked the clearance from the likes of former President Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, former government officials are unlikely to be proactively read in on high-level security threats, which are typically discussed on a need-to-know basis, making the revocation more of a symbolic gesture, Sandweg said.

The mayor-elect and the president have had sharp words for each other. During his fiery victory night speech, Mamdani called out Trump directly, telling the president to turn the volume up if he was watching the address on television (the president appeared to have tuned in.)

Trump, in turn, has lobbed all manner of threats at Mamdani. In July, he amplified questions about Mamdani’s citizenship and threatened to arrest the 34-year-old if he were to interfere with federal immigration enforcement in New York City. Mamdani was born in Uganda, came to the United States when he was seven and became a U.S. citizen in 2018. A GOP Congress member, Tennessee Rep. Andy Ogles, has even called for the mayor-elect to be deported.

When asked about granting Mamdani a security clearance, the White House press team directed POLITICO to a recent briefing in which Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt was asked about Mamdani’s intention to touch base with the president — though she deferred to Trump.

A spokesperson for DHS said the department does not discuss security clearances. Mamdani’s team declined to comment.

Federal law enforcement officials typically look at things like criminal history and whether someone could be compromised financially — if they had significant debt, for example — when approving clearances. The fact that Mamdani was elected mayor, whose responsibilities include making decisions like shutting down infrastructure in the event of a major public safety breach, Sandweg said, would factor heavily into that accounting.