WASHINGTON (Reuters) -After months of trading insults, U.S. President Donald Trump and incoming New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani smiled at each other, swapped compliments and pledged to collaborate on tackling crime and affordability in the nation’s biggest city at an unexpectedly friendly meeting at the White House on Friday.
The political opposites – a Republican billionaire and a young democratic socialist – have clashed over everything from immigration to economic policy. But it was clear the two forged a rapport in their first encounter.
Mamdani, a 34-year-old state lawmaker, stood by Trump’s desk as the 79-year-old president smiled up at him and patted him warmly on the arm, having only recently falsely caricatured Mamdani as an antisemitic communist, among other jibes.
“We agree on a lot more than I would have thought,” Trump said after letting journalists and cameras into the Oval Office at the end of a private meeting with the mayor-elect. “We have one thing in common: We want this city of ours that we love to do very well.”
The meeting in the Oval Office, where Trump has sometimes embarrassed or chastised visiting heads of state, far exceeded Trump’s prediction earlier on Friday that it would be “quite cordial.”
The men, two different generations of New Yorkers, announced nothing new on policy except what seemed to be the launch of an unexpected, politics-shifting professional friendship.
“What I really appreciate about the president is that the meeting that we had focused not on places of disagreement, which there are many, and also focused on the shared purpose that we have in serving New Yorkers,” Mamdani said.
Just 26% of Americans say Trump is doing a good job at managing the cost of living, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll. Meanwhile, Mamdani, promising a freeze on rents and free buses and childcare, was one of a slew of Democratic victors around the country in elections earlier this month. It was among the most deflating nights endured by Republicans this year, and Trump had not been expected to enjoy the reminder through a visit by one of the most prominent Democratic winners.
Yet the president, who found his fame as a New York real estate developer, brightened at Mamdani’s call for more housing in the city he will lead from January 1. Trump was cheered to hear a chunk of New Yorkers who voted for him in last year’s presidential election had gone on to vote for Mamdani.
“When we spoke to those voters who voted for President Trump, we heard them speak of the cost of living,” Mamdani said.
Trump, who says he is paying increasing attention to affordability and inflation, said this made sense to him: “Some of his ideas are the same ideas I have,” Trump explained. “The better he does, the happier I am.”
MAMDANI, TRUMP LAUGH OFF THEIR PAST INSULTS
As Mamdani surged in the polls to victory on November 4, Trump issued threats to strip federal funding from New York City. Mamdani has regularly criticized Trump’s promise to ramp up federal immigration enforcement efforts in a city where four in 10 residents are foreign-born.
In the weeks before they met, Trump had labeled Mamdani a “radical left lunatic,” a communist and a “Jew hater.”
Mamdani has espoused Nordic-style democratic socialism, not communism. While a staunch critic of Israel, he was endorsed by prominent Jewish politicians, is bringing Jewish staff into his new administration, notably New York Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch, and has repeatedly condemned antisemitism.
And yet, less than an hour after first meeting each other in person, Trump was repeatedly coming to Mamdani’s aid to fend off pointed questions from the press. The pair laughed away some of their spicier insults as reporters reminded them of what they had said about each other.
“I’ve been called much worse than a despot,” Trump said with a smile. “So it’s not that insulting, but I think he’ll change his mind after we get to working together.”
Mamdani was asked if he still considered Trump a fascist.
“That’s OK, you can just say ‘yes’,” Trump interjected, swapping grins with Mamdani and patting his arm twice. “It’s easier than explaining it.”
TRUMP DEFENDS MAMDANI AS ‘A VERY RATIONAL PERSON’
Trump also defended the Uganda-born Mamdani, who will be New York City’s first Muslim mayor, from some of the Islamophobic slurs he has faced. One reporter asked Trump if he believed he had “a jihadist” standing by him.
“No, I don’t,” Trump said as Mamdani looked on. “I met with a man who’s a very rational person.”
Some politicians and commentators were discombobulated by the televised friendliness. At least a couple Republicans said they still did not trust Mamdani, Trump’s new approval notwithstanding.
“What the heck just happened?” U.S. Representative Rashida Tlaib, a Democrat from Michigan, wrote on social media, sharing a clip of one of the meeting’s Trump-Mamdani buddy moments.
Trump had repeatedly urged New Yorkers not to vote for Mamdani, warning it would be a disaster for a city that is already portrayed as a crime-ridden hellscape by conservative media, despite being among the safest big cities in the country. After his first term as president, Trump decamped from Manhattan to become a Florida resident.
A reporter asked Trump if he would consider moving back to the city of his birth with Mamdani running it.
“Yeah, I would,” Trump said, “especially after the meeting.”
(Reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt and Gram Slattery in Washington, Jonathan Allen in New York; Additional reporting by Kanishka Singh, Steve Holland, Helen Coster and Bhargav Acharya; Writing by Trevor Hunnicutt and Jonathan Allen; Editing by Paul Thomasch, Colleen Jenkins and Alistair Bell)
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