- The first meeting between the 79-year-old Rep and the 34-year-old democratic socialist goes well.
- Trump refrains from any unpredictable televised exchanges in the Oval Office.
- The US president had predicted that the meeting would be “completely civil”.
US President Donald Trump warmly welcomed new New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani to the White House on Friday, hailing Mamdani’s election victory in the first in-person meeting of political opponents, who have clashed over everything from immigration to economic policy.
A little-known Democratic socialist and state lawmaker who won New York’s mayoral race earlier this month, Mamdani requested a meeting with Trump to discuss cost of living and public safety issues.
After months of trading barbs and insults in the media, the mayor-elect and the president appeared to put aside their differences and quickly establish rapport in the Oval Office, a setting that Trump has sometimes used to embarrass heads of state.
“We agreed on a lot more than I thought,” Trump said after inviting reporters into the Oval Office following a private meeting. “We have one thing in common: We want our city that we love to function very well.”
Sitting at his desk, Trump smiled at Mamdani, who stood to the president’s right, and congratulated him on his victory in the mayoral election earlier this month: “He really ran an incredible race against some very tough, very smart people.”
“It was a productive meeting focused on a place of shared admiration and love, New York City, and the need to provide affordability to New Yorkers,” Mamdani said.
Trump said he was happy to put partisan differences aside. “The better he does, the happier I am,” Trump said.
As Mamdani rose in the polls toward victory, Trump, a Republican, threatened to withdraw federal funding from the largest city in the United States. The mayor-elect has regularly criticized a range of Trump policies, including his plan to step up federal immigration enforcement efforts in New York, where four in 10 residents are foreign-born.
The 79-year-old president, a former New York resident, called Mamdani, 34, a “radical left nut,” a communist and a “Jew-hater,” without providing evidence to support the claims.
Mamdani espoused Nordic-style democratic socialism, not communism. Although he is a staunch critic of Israel, he has been supported by prominent Jewish politicians, is integrating Jewish staff into his new administration, including New York Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch, and has repeatedly condemned anti-Semitism.
Trump tempered his language Friday shortly before the mayor-elect’s arrival, saying he expected him to be “pretty civil” and congratulating Mamdani on a “successful election.”
“I was hitting him a little hard,” Trump said on the “Brian Kilmeade Show” on Fox News. “I think we’ll get along great. Look, we’re looking for the same thing: We want to make New York strong.”
Earlier, Mamdani posted a smiling selfie on social media, taken in the seat of a plane bound for Washington.
Trump’s Oval Office meetings have been wildly unpredictable, including respectful encounters with opponents and ambushes against guests such as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and South Africa’s Cyril Ramaphosa.
Mamdani, who will be sworn in as mayor on Jan. 1, said at a news conference the day before he left for Washington that he had “many disagreements with the president.”
“I intend to make it clear to President Trump that I will work with him on any program that benefits New Yorkers,” he told reporters outside New York City Hall. “If a program harms New Yorkers, I will be the first to say it too.”
Trump thinks Mamdani was ‘very nice’ in calling him
Mamdani, born in Uganda, will be the first Muslim and South Asian mayor of the city that is home to Wall Street. His energetic, social media-focused campaign has sparked debate over the best path forward for Democrats. Out of power in Washington and divided ideologically, Democrats are primarily united by their opposition to Trump, who is constitutionally barred from seeking another term in 2028.
Mamdani pledged to focus on affordability issues, including the cost of housing, groceries, child care and buses in a city of 8.5 million people. New Yorkers pay nearly double the national average rent.
Inflation is a major problem for Americans, and it’s an issue on which they give Trump low marks. Only 26% of Americans believe Trump is doing a good job managing the cost of living, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll this week.
The U.S. federal government will provide $7.4 billion to New York City in fiscal year 2026, or about 6.4 percent of the city’s total spending, according to a report from the New York State comptroller. It is unclear what legal authority Trump could invoke to deny any congressionally mandated funding.
The two men exchanged barbs again a few hours after Mamdani’s election.
“If anyone can show a nation betrayed by Donald Trump how to defeat him, it’s the city that birthed him,” Mamdani told cheering supporters in his victory speech, which called on Trump to “turn up the volume.”
Trump said he was intrigued by Mamdani’s speech after excerpts were replayed to him during the Fox News interview Friday morning.
“I’m not sure what he means by ‘turn up the volume’. He has to be careful when he tells me that,” Trump said. “He was very kind in calling, as you know, and we are going to have a meeting.”
