New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani President Donald Trump took questions at the White House on Friday after meeting for the first time to discuss the growing issue of affordability.
Trump and Mamdani, who have hurled searing attacks at each other in the recent past, held their fire as they appeared side by side in the Oval Office.
They talked up their areas of agreement — especially on working to make New York City less expensive — and even traded a few compliments.
“I think you’re going to have, hopefully, a really great mayor,” Trump said. “The better he does, the happier I am.”
“I appreciated the meeting with the president,” said Mamdani, who stood while Trump sat at the Resolute Desk. “And as he said, it was a productive meeting focused on a place of shared admiration and love, which is New York City and the need to deliver affordability to New Yorkers.”
The conciliatory tone was brand new. Just two days earlier, Trump had called Mamdani the “Communist Mayor of New York City.” The mayor-elect is a self-described democratic socialist who denies being a communist.
The Oval Office meeting was requested by Mamdani, the 34-year-old whose stunning triumph in the mayoral race over former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has put him at the center of American politics.
“I will work with anyone to make life more affordable for the more than eight-and-a-half million people who call the city home,” Mamdani said Thursday.
Before the mayoral election, Trump had threatened to withhold federal funding for New York City if Mamdani won.
That threat was not off the table ahead of the meeting. Asked on Thursday if there was any chance Mamdani could convince Trump not to cut NYC off, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said, “We’ll see how the meeting goes tomorrow.”
Meanwhile, the president’s approval ratings have fallen precipitously in numerous polls, with respondents consistently pointing to the high cost of living as a main concern.
Mamdani and other Democrats who won a bevy of elections this month had focused relentlessly on the issue of affordability — a word that Trump has chafed at, while insisting that prices are broadly down already.
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