After months of trading public barbs, the US president and New York City mayor-elect are set to meet in person.
United States President Donald Trump is poised to host New York City mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani for a meeting at the White House, marking an about-face for a duo who have painted themselves as diametrically and ideologically opposed in their political visions for the country.
On his social media platform Truth Social, Trump wrote late on Wednesday that Mamdani will visit the Oval Office on Friday in a post that also falsely called Mamdani a communist and placed his middle name, Kwame, in quotation marks.
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“Further details to follow!” the president added.
Throughout the campaign that culminated in Mamdani’s historic November 4 election victory as the city’s first Muslim mayor, the president zeroed in on Mamdani as a target for public attacks, slamming the democratic socialist as a “communist”, mispronouncing his name and threatening to cut off federal funding to New York if he won.
Trump even endorsed the Democrat Andrew Cuomo over the Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa in the final hours before the vote, telling his followers that Mamdani was a “FAILURE”.
Mamdani, for his part, has regularly linked the Trump administration to authoritarianism and portrayed his own goals as mayor – tackling the affordability crisis and assuaging income inequality – in direct contrast to the president’s lifelong chase of wealth and power.
“If anyone can show a nation betrayed by Donald Trump how to defeat him, it is the same city that gave rise to him,” Mamdani pledged in his election victory speech, referencing Trump’s New York roots. “And if there is any way to terrify a despot, it is by dismantling the very conditions that allowed him to accumulate power.”
Still, since the election earlier this month – which also saw sweeping wins for Democrats in New Jersey and Virginia – Trump has signalled a willingness to defrost relations. In a speech to the American Business Forum in Florida, the president appeared to walk back his funding threat even as he railed against communism.
“We’ll help him, we’ll help him. We want New York to be successful. We’ll help him a little bit, maybe,” he said.
Numerous Republicans and MAGA supporters have launched vitriolic and racist attacks on Mamdani in the build-up to the mayoral election and after Mamdani swept to victory.
Days before the election day, Mamdani gave an emotional speech addressing “racist, baseless attacks” from his opponents. Speaking outside a mosque in the Bronx, Mamdani criticised opponents for bringing “hatred to the forefront”, noting that their Islamophobia not only affected him as the Democratic nominee for mayor but also close to one million Muslims living in New York.
Earlier this week, Mamdani told reporters his team contacted the White House because he had made a “commitment that showed a willingness to meet with anyone and everyone, so long as it is for the benefit” of New Yorkers.
“The president ran a campaign where he spoke about a promise to deliver cheaper groceries, a promise to reduce the cost of living,” Mamdani said. “We are seeing his actions … leading to the exact opposite effect for New Yorkers. I will go to make the case, to the president, and to anyone, frankly, that these are the kinds of things we need to change.”
