The self-proclaimed king of New York in exile: An unwelcome mat remains out for ex-President Trump in the city of his birth

NEW YORK — Sorry, Mr. Trump — your name is not on the guest list. Your table will not be ready. And your money really is no good around here.

The post-presidency unwelcome mat remains out for the New York native in his hometown, the hub of the Donald Trump universe for decades before he vanquished Hillary Clinton. Six years after announcing a longshot White House run inside his namesake Midtown skyscraper, The Donald swapped Manhattan for Mar-a-Lago and abandoned his old stomping grounds.

Not that anyone’s complaining too loudly. The Queens-born Trump, the one-time gossip column habitue and tabloid headline maker, remains widely reviled across the city where he was overwhelmingly spurned by his old neighbors last November. Joe Biden of Scranton, Pennsylvania, trounced local guy Trump by 1.6 million votes, collecting 76% of the city’s ballots.

The feeling is apparently mutual: The departed commander in chief has visited his former Trump Tower home exactly once since exiting Washington, spending two days in the city where he’s about as relevant as a reboot of “The Apprentice.”

“He used to think he was the king of New York,” said Barbara Res, a former executive vice president with the Trump Organization. “And now he can’t come here without 10,000 people protesting and hating his guts.”

And so the NYC pariah winters in Florida, with plans to stay in New Jersey this summer. His latest public appearance came way off-Broadway in Greenville, North Carolina, a full 500 miles south of his old digs and the lingering problems back in his hometown: A criminal investigation conducted jointly by Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance Jr. and state Attorney General Letitia James as well as two defamation lawsuits by women accusing Trump of sexual assault.

And there’s the move by City Hall to cut all ties with the developer, including his banishment from ice skating rinks in Central Park and a battle to fire Trump from running a Jack Nicklaus-designed golf course in the Bronx. The breakup followed his alleged role as an inciter of the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol.

Longtime investigative journalist Tom Robbins recalled how Trump was hardly everyone’s cup of tea long before he became just another Sunshine State snowbird.

Yes, he was once a fixture on the city social scene, squiring his rotating roster of wives to myriad events across Manhattan and making headlines.

But there was something about Trump that made him hard to embrace, recalled Robbins.

“He was simply the kind of New Yorker where you could never believe a single word that the guy ever said,” said Robbins. “Every word a lie. A con man. That’s Donald Trump. That’s exactly who he was.”

When Trump returned to Midtown this past March, the ousted one-term president was greeted by a lone Fifth Avenue supporter who received a wave from the head of assorted failed businesses: Trump Airlines, Trump Steaks, Trump University, Trump Vodka.

The ex-chief executive spent just two days inside his old home, a glistening reminder of better times in a city where he’s become an afterthought.

“Arrest Trump,” read a banner held by demonstrators standing outside the skyscraper. When Trump departed, he couldn’t miss the pointed message painted on the street outside and directed at him: “BLACK LIVES MATTER.”

His son Donald Jr. responded with a pithy Instagram message unlikely to win local hearts: “New York Deplorables, @realdonaldtrump is watching.”

Things were quite different inside Trump Tower on June 16, 2015, when Trump descended an escalator inside his sparkly Midtown building to announce an oft-threatened but never before delivered run for the presidency.

“It’s great to be in a wonderful city, New York,” declared Trump. “And it’s an honor to have everybody here.”

His announcement included a staggering 257 references to Donald Trump ... all by Donald Trump. His divisive chatter about Mexican rapists and building the border wall riled residents in the heavily liberal city, and the animosity only grew across his four years in the White House.

“He can’t have enough bodyguards to walk through New York City,” declared Gov. Andrew Cuomo last year. “Forget bodyguards, he better have an army if he thinks he’s going to walk down the streets in New York.”

The wall between Trump, now 74, and the land of his birth now appears as lasting as the fickle developer’s divorces — both front-page news.

Trump’s longtime former attorney and fixer Michael Cohen believes his old boss was forced to build a mental barricade between himself and the city, an obstacle he is loathe to scale.

“He needs the adulation of the crowds like you need oxygen to survive,” offered Cohen. “Now that he is persona non grata in New York City, he relocated to Palm Beach — where he believes he is universally adored.”

Even his surname has become anathema: The one-time Trump SoHo hotel changed its name in 2017 to the Domenick thanks to a boycott that included NBA star LeBron James. And a half-dozen West Side apartment towers that once bore his name voted to remove their Trump signage between 2016-19.

Actress E. Jean Carroll found time recently to troll Trump about her pending defamation lawsuit, a legal action stemming from her alleged rape 1996 rape by the ex-president inside a dressing room at Bergdorf-Goodman’s flagship Fifth Avenue store.

“Trump’s DNA will be easier to get when he’s at Rikers,” she tweeted.

Summer Zervos, a former contestant on “The Apprentice,” is the plaintiff in a similar suit stemming from an alleged sexual assault by Trump in 2007. Trump has denied the allegations, and is fighting both lawsuits.

New York GOP gubernatorial candidate Andrew Giuliani, son of Trump’s lawyer and former mayor Rudy Giuliani, said the ex-president still loves New York — he just doesn’t want to live there.

“(Prosecutors) are building their reputations on investigating Trump,” he said. “So if you’re Donald Trump, why would you want to come back?”

But fellow Queens guy Peter Mehlman, writing in The Atlantic, delivered the bad news that escaped Trump during his time in New York.

“It took the presidency for him to learn,” wrote Mehlman, “that he’d always been a citywide joke.”

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