During an extraordinarily cordial meeting at the White House Friday, President Trump showered NYC Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani with compliments and vowed to be “a big help” to his incoming administration — sparking perhaps the most improbable bromance in American politics.
The sympatico tone was a shocking turnaround for Trump, who has for months smeared Mamdani as “a communist” and threatened to slash federal funding for New York, flood the city with ICE agents and take other punitive steps in response to the incoming mayor’s election. Trump has even toyed with the idea of deporting Mamdani, a naturalized U.S. citizen born in Uganda.
But speaking to reporters in the Oval Office on Friday afternoon after a more than hour-long sitdown with Mamdani, Trump did not reiterate his deportation musings, said he’s no longer looking to make good on the funding threat and admitted he was “actually surprised” by how “rational” the soon-to-be mayor is and how much they agree on.
The city receives nearly $8 billion in federal funding every year for a variety of programs. Trump’s reversal on that front gives Mamdani a big sigh of relief as he prepares to take office Jan. 1 with hopes of enacting an ambitious affordability agenda.
“We’re going to be helping him to make everybody’s dream come true, having a strong and very safe New York,” the Queens-born president, seated behind the Resolute Desk, told reporters as Mamdani stood next to him following what marked their first-ever face-to-face confab.
“I’ll be cheering for him,” Trump also said.
Both men told reporters their discussion revolved mostly around the issue of making New York City more affordable, which Mamdani placed at the heart of his mayoral campaign.
“Some of his ideas really are the same ideas that I have,” Trump remarked.
“I feel very confident that he can do a very good job,” Trump continued before shaking Mamdani’s hand and telling reporters he’d be “very, very comfortable” with the idea of living in the city under the mayor’s new administration.
Andrew Harnik/Getty Images
President Donald Trump meets with New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani in the Oval Office on Friday. (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
Mamdani, a democratic socialist who has accused Trump of holding fascist leanings, returned the favor by suggesting he and the Republican commander-in-chief could recreate what President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia did in implementing “New Deal” reforms in the city in the 1930s.
“Thinking about what it can look like when the federal government and New York City government work together to deliver on affordability, it can be transformative,” said Mamdani.
In an especially remarkable moment, Trump interrupted Mamdani after a reporter asked the mayor-elect if he still considers the president “a fascist.”
“That’s okay, you can just say yes,” Trump butted in as Mamdani began answering the question. “It’s easier than explaining it,” Trump added with a chuckle while patting Mamdani on the arm.
“Okay, alright … yes,” Mamdani then told the reporter while flashing a smile.
City Comptroller Brad Lander, a progressive Democrat and close ally to Mamdani, remarked in a real-time post on X: “Pretty sure Zohran just charmed Donald Trump into agreeing that he’s a fascist.”
Trump played similarly nice when asked if he’s offended by the fact that Mamdani has labeled him a “despot.”
“I’ve been called much worse than a despot,” he said, “so it’s not that insulting.”
The closest Trump got to knocking Mamdani came when he was asked if still considers him “a communist.”
“He’s got views that are a little out there,” he said without elaborating before adding: “He’s going to change also … I change a lot, I changed a lot from when I first came into office.”
Even on the issue of immigration enforcement, Trump staked out agreement, even though Mamdani has repeatedly condemned the president’s “mass deportation” efforts in New York and argued ICE has become a “rogue” agency under his leadership.
On top of threats of federal funding cuts, Trump has for months said he will deploy thousands of ICE agents or even U.S. troops to the city once Mamdani takes office to “clean up” the five boroughs. But he didn’t repeat that threat Friday and said he and Mamdani agree on a need to deport immigrants who commit serious crimes — with the mayor-elect noting the city can under local sanctuary laws cooperate with ICE on deportation cases involving individuals convicted of about 170 different offenses.
“We’re going to work together, we’re going to make sure that if they’re horrible people there, we want to get them out, I think he wants to get them out, maybe more than I do,” Trump said.
On yet another lightning rod issue — the war in Gaza — Trump did not object as Mamdani said Israel is committing a “genocide” against Palestinians funded by “our government.” Previously, Trump has accused Mamdani, the first Muslim elected New York City mayor, of fostering antisemitism by criticizing Israel.
It remained to be seen Friday night how a more genial footing between Trump and Mamdani might play with their respective bases of support.
Trump’s hard-right supporters have pushed for arresting or otherwise punishing Mamdani over what they see as his “radical” left-wing agenda. In being chummy with Mamdani, Trump could thereby stand to upset some of those supporters. Meantime, Mamdani can run the risk of being seen as soft on Trump by his supporters, who voted for the mayor-elect, in part, because of his commitment to fighting the president.
According to a Mamdani transition team official, their meeting was also attended by his incoming chief of staff Elle Bisgaard-Church, who is, like the mayor-elect, a dues-paying member of the Democratic Socialists of America.
On affordability, their meeting focused on how to drive down the cost of groceries and build more housing, both men said. They also talked about public safety, and Trump praised Mamdani for retaining NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch at the helm of the police department, calling her a “great” pick who’s a “a good friend of some of the people in my family.”
“He wants to see no crime, he wants to see housing being built, he wants to see rents coming down — all things that I agree with,” said Trump.
The strange political bedfellows didn’t get into a lot of particulars about how exactly Trump’s administration will help advance Mamdani’s agenda, which centers on promises to expand subsidized childcare in the city, freeze the rent for stabilized tenants, make public buses free and launch municipal government-run grocery stores.
They did delve into some specifics on the issue of utility costs, with Trump agreeing with Mamdani that Con Edison, New York’s main power supplier, should lower their electricity rates.
“We’ve gotten fuel prices way down, but it hasn’t shown up in Con Edison, and we’re going to have to talk to them. We’re sending them fuel at a much lower price than it was a year ago, which is true, we have to get Con Edison to start lowering the rates,” Trump said.
That prompted Mamdani to chime in.
“Absolutely,” he said.
