President Donald Trump and New York Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani met at the White House on Friday in a surprisingly cordial exchange that contrasted sharply with the tense rhetoric that has defined their relationship in recent months. The meeting, held in the Oval Office, focused largely on affordability, public safety, and the future of America’s largest city—issues on which the two leaders unexpectedly found significant common ground.
Trump began the session by acknowledging that his expectations had shifted after speaking with Mamdani face-to-face. He told reporters that “We agree on a lot more than I would have thought”, adding that “I want him to do a great job and we’ll help him do a great job.” Earlier in the meeting he expressed confidence in the incoming mayor, saying “I feel very confident he can do a good job, he’s going to surprise some conservative people.”
For his part, Mamdani emphasized his interest in working constructively with the president on the city’s most urgent issues. He said he looks forward to “working together to deliver affordability for New Yorkers” and that he “appreciated” the discussion, which he described as centered on a “shared admiration and love” for New York City. That framing signaled a deliberate attempt to refocus public attention on governance rather than ideological clashes.
The most striking overlap came on the issue of crime. Though the two men come from opposite ends of the political spectrum, both emphasized the necessity of safe streets as a prerequisite for a thriving city. Trump said, “I think we’re going to work [our differences] out,” noting that “If we have known murderers and known drug dealers and some very bad people we want to get them out.” He added that the topic was discussed extensively and that Mamdani “wants to have a safe New York.” Trump concluded bluntly, “If you don’t have safe streets, it’s not going to be a success,” and even suggested Mamdani might be more aggressive on the issue than he is: “I think he wants to get them out maybe more than I do.”
That convergence stands out given Mamdani’s past comments about policing—remarks that have become a central flashpoint in his political rise. During the first mayoral debate last month, when confronted with his prior criticism of the NYPD, Mamdani distanced himself from his earlier positions. “I am not running to defund the police,” he said. “I am running to actually work with the police to deliver public safety.”
Those assurances represented a shift from statements he made in 2020, when he argued that the city needed a “socialist city council to defund the police” and described the NYPD as “wicked & corrupt.” In another post that year he wrote, “We don’t need an investigation to know that the NYPD is racist, anti-queer & a major threat to public safety. What we need is to #DefundTheNYPD.”
Mamdani has since apologized for those statements. In an interview with Fox News last month, he offered a direct message to officers: “Absolutely, I’ll apologize to police officers right here, because this is the apology that I’ve been sharing with many rank-and-file officers.” He said he regretted his earlier rhetoric because “these men and women who serve in the NYPD, they put their lives on the line every single day.”
On the campaign trail, Mamdani proposed a dual-track approach to public safety: collaborating with the police while also creating a Department of Community Safety. During the debate, he explained that “We will ensure that no longer are police officers asked to do the job of both policing and responding to the mental health crisis.” He outlined plans to deploy mental-health workers to the 100 subway stations most affected by homelessness and behavioral-health emergencies. His argument is that removing approximately 200,000 annual mental-health calls from police responsibility would allow response times to fall back to their 2020 levels of around eleven minutes, compared with today’s 16-minute average.
The White House suggested the meeting itself reflected Trump’s willingness to cross ideological divides. Press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Thursday that the president is “willing to meet with anyone, and talk to anyone, and to try to do what’s right on behalf of the American people, whether they live in blue states or red states — or blue cities.” She added pointedly, “It speaks volumes that tomorrow we have a communist coming to the White House, because that’s who the Democrat Party elected as the mayor of the largest city in the country.”
Mamdani has rejected accusations that he is a communist, identifying instead as a Democratic socialist. His political record includes advocating policies such as universal health care, fare-free buses, rent freezes, and even a network of government-owned grocery stores. During his time in the Young Democratic Socialists of America, he urged attendees not to compromise on transformative goals such as “seizing the means of production.”
The mayor-elect defeated Andrew Cuomo and Curtis Sliwa earlier this month, positioning himself as a champion of affordability and economic justice. Despite past criticisms of Trump—whom he called a “despot” on election night—Mamdani has said he is willing to work with anyone on behalf of New Yorkers. Ahead of the meeting, he said he intended to raise issues of “affordability… public safety, and economic security for each and every person that calls the city home.”
The two leaders’ relationship has been rocky. Trump previously labeled Mamdani a communist and threatened to withhold federal funds if he won. But more recently Trump struck a different tone, saying, “We want to see everything work out well for New York.” Friday’s meeting suggests both men may now see value in pragmatism over confrontation as the city enters a new political era.
.webp)
%20(1)%20(1)%20(1).png)
