US President Donald Trump and New York Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani during a meeting in the Oval Office yesterday NZT. Photo / Demetrius Freeman, The Washington Post
United States President Donald Trump and New York Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani buried their proverbial hatchets yesterday appearing together in the Oval Office after a meeting each described as the beginning of a warm relationship – despite months of slinging insults and hammering each other’s policies.
The two men with roots in Queens looked into the cameras and spoke about their shared hopes for New York, emphasised common populist ideals and pledged to work closely together, a sense of agreement that ran afoul of nearly everything their respective political bases have come to expect from them.
The President even declared he would finally feel comfortable moving back to New York with the 34-year-old democratic socialist running city hall.
It was as if Trump, seated at the Resolute Desk, hadn’t just called Mamdani a “communist lunatic” and “stupid person”, and Mamdani, now standing over his right shoulder, hadn’t recently referred to the President as a “despot” with a “fascist agenda”.
“I’ve been called much worse than a despot,” Trump explained to a reporter who questioned the recent jab, in one of many questions about their past two disagreements that they shrugged off. “So it’s not that insulting.”
It was a remarkable scene that revealed the Republican President’s recognition of the political potency of Mamdani’s focus on economic policies that benefit the working class.
Trump’s approval rating has tanked in recent weeks to its lowest point this term, according to a Washington Post average of national polls since October, fuelled in part by frustrations over the economy.
He has faced criticism from some in his own base who say Trump has not focused enough on addressing the cost-of-living issues he campaigned on fixing, and has instead spent too much time on foreign policy matters.
Mamdani, whose resounding victory Trump acknowledged, for his part had clearly made efforts to flatter the President, conceding that a growing number of New Yorkers had supported Trump during the 2024 election.
“He said a lot of my voters actually voted for him,” Trump said.
“One in 10,” Mamdani interrupted, seeking to correct the record.
“And I’m okay with that,” Trump added.
Mamdani said that when he spoke to Trump voters on Hillside Avenue in Queens and Fordham Road in the Bronx, they said they supported the President because they wanted to “end forever wars” and address the cost of living, which Mamdani described as a crisis.
“We have to get Con Edison to start lowering their rates,” Trump announced in the Oval Office.
“Absolutely,” Mamdani said, nodding in agreement.
Mamdani, Trump explained, had shared some ideas “that were very interesting”.
“He wants to see houses go up, he wants to see a lot of houses created, a lot of apartments built, etc,” Trump said. “People would be shocked, but I want to see the same thing.”
Trump repeatedly stuck up for Mamdani as the Mayor-elect faced pointed questions from the press corps, at one point urging him not to bother explaining to reporters why he had called Trump a fascist, and at another point defending the climate-conscious politician’s decision to take a plane, rather than a train or bus, to Washington.
“We agree on a lot more than I thought,” Trump said. “I want him to do a great job, and we’ll help him do a great job.”
There were signs earlier in the day that the conversation might not devolve into name-calling and disagreements.
Trump sought to tone down his harsh rhetoric about Mamdani before the meeting, predicting during a Fox News interview that it would “be quite civil”. When the host tried to bait Trump with a comment Mamdani had directed at the President, he acknowledged the smack talk had gone both ways.
“Well, I would say I’m a little hard, too, in all fairness,” Trump said, adding that Mamdani “ran a good race”. Trump endorsed former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo - who was defeated in the Democratic primary and ran in the general as an independent - just before election day.
Mamdani explained this week that an Oval Office meeting between the President and Mayor of the nation’s largest city is customary.
But the stakes are high for New York. Trump throughout the mayoral race threatened to withhold federal funding for the city if Mamdani won – and even said he’d have Mamdani prosecuted if he did not go along with the President’s agenda.
Mamdani is seeking to limit the Trump Administration’s interference in his ability to execute on ambitious campaign promises like free childcare and freezing rent prices.
Both political parties are wrestling with their identities before the Midterms and 2028 presidential election, though strategists on both sides are aware that economic relief remains voters’ top priority.
Mamdani was kept at arm’s length by prominent fellow Democrats nationwide, who believe that socialist ideals will be off-putting for swing voters despite a focus on affordability.
And in spite of Trump and other conservatives warning of the ruinous effects of progressive governance, populist voices in the Republican Party have claimed the GOP isn’t doing enough to keep the working-class voters who joined Trump’s coalition.
Trump has repeatedly referred to the Mayor-elect as a “communist”, a description White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt echoed on Friday. Mamdani identifies as a democratic socialist, a wing of the Democratic Party focused on drastically reducing economic inequality.
While Trump had long signalled that he believes Mamdani’s brand of progressive politics will be a turn-off to swing voters during the Midterms, other Republicans – even officials in the White House – have acknowledged that Mamdani’s laser focus on economic issues has resonated with many people.
James Blair, the White House’s deputy chief of staff for legislative, political and public affairs, said in an interview with Politico this month that Mamdani did “so well” because “he relentlessly focused on affordability”.
“People talk about communists, they can say all these things, but the fact is he was talking about the cost of living,” Blair said.
Two months before his killing, top Trump ally and conservative influencer Charlie Kirk told the Post in July that the Republican Party would have to improve its own economic policies to appeal to young voters. He warned about the “Mamdani effect” that could cost conservatives the gains they made with Gen Z during the 2024 election, believing that many young voters would be attracted to pledges like those made by Mamdani to make everyday life more affordable.
Republicans overall have largely focused on framing Mamdani and his policies as an existential threat to the country.
Hours before the Mayor-elect walked into the White House, the House passed a resolution denouncing socialism, with Republicans backing the measure unanimously. Democrats split their vote, though 23 fewer members voted in favour of it compared to 2023, when the chamber took up the same resolution.
“They are grasping at straws,” Representative Becca Balint (D-Vermont) told the Post. “They have nothing. They keep tacking back to the same tired tropes, whether it’s socialism, whether it’s beating up on trans kids, it’s just like the same thing over and over.”
GOP members had hoped Trump’s meeting with Mamdani would show a stark contrast between the two men’s policies.
“I think we need to restate for the people of this country just how dangerous socialism is, how disastrous it has been for the people of the countries in which it has been implemented, and it has its proper place in the ash bin of history,” Representative Ben Cline (R-Virginia) said in an interview before the Oval Office meeting.
Some Republicans privately griped afterwards about Trump’s praise of Mamdani, with one suggesting he had sold out his own party.
Before their meeting, Trump had leaned into “birther” conspiracies in talking about Mamdani, suggesting falsely that the Mayor-elect, who is a naturalised US citizen born in Uganda, is “here illegally”. Mamdani moved to New York as a child.
Those conspiracies resemble Trump’s previous attempted smears against President Barack Obama. Trump this year also suggested arresting Mamdani if he tried to prevent federal immigration agents from conducting raids in New York.
The President, who was raised in Queens and launched his real estate development career in Manhattan, called New York home for most of his life until officially making Palm Beach, Florida, his primary residence in 2019.
At the time, the President announced he made the decision after being “treated very badly” by the political leaders in New York.
Mamdani’s meeting was the latest example of high-profile Democrats walking a tightrope of establishing goodwill with and seeking favourable outcomes from the President in the Oval Office, while proving to their anti-Trump political bases that they stood up to him.
Mamdani’s appeared to go better than most others.
New York Governor Kathy Hochul earlier this year compared her meeting with Trump to the movie Rambo, stating she “didn’t draw first blood”. Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer faced embarrassment from her liberal base after the White House called her in to the Oval Office at the same time that Trump had staged a photo op signing an executive order targeting political enemies.
At one point, she was photographed covering her face with file folders.
And last month, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, both Democrats from New York, were photographed in the Oval Office next to “Trump 2028” caps and the President grinning and pointing, a sight Trump and Republicans mocked after the fact.
The two Democrats were there with Republican congressional leadership in an effort to reach a deal to stop a government shutdown, though the two sides failed to come to a consensus during the meeting. Trump later posted an AI-doctored video of Schumer and Jeffries speaking to press outside the White House.
Before the cameras, Trump built up Mamdani as he sent off the young Mayor-elect.
“By the way, being the mayor of New York City is a big deal. I always said, you know, one of the things I would have loved to be someday is the mayor of New York City,” Trump said.
“I think you’re at really a turning point one way or the other – it could go great or it can go in a different direction. And I think you really have a chance to make it great.”
Trump shook Mamdani’s hand, giving it a playful slap.
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