WASHINGTON: 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.–Reuters
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