Trump welcomes Mamdani to the White House: ‘I feel very confident that he can do a good job’

They both come from the same neighborhood, Queens, but they inhabit planets separated by light-years. Or maybe not so much. In one of the most successful videos of the campaign that took him to the New York City mayor’s office, Zohran Kwame Mamdani went to certain areas of the city where Donald Trump improved his numbers in the 2024 election to ask people why they had voted for the Republican candidate in the presidential election. The reasons they gave him—which can be summarized in one, the intolerable cost of living—are not far removed from those that will lead Mamdani to become, starting in January, the first Muslim and socialist mayor of the most populous city in the United States.

The two worlds—that of the real estate mogul and that of the politician who won by proposing a rent freeze for 2.5 million people living in rent-controlled apartments—collided this Friday in Washington, on the occasion of Mamdani’s first visit to the White House. “I expect to be helping him, not hurting him — a big help,” Trump said after a meeting that seemed to have gone well, judging by how they treated each other in front of the press. “I feel very confident that he can do a good job. I think he is going to surprise some conservative people actually.”

It was a meeting requested by the mayor-elect after months of attacks from Trump, who insists on calling him a “communist” (he is not), and after the cry of resistance launched by Mamdani on the night of his election victory, during a speech in which he appealed directly to the President of the United States.

“Donald Trump, I know you’re watching. I have only four words for you: Turn up the volume!” Mamdani exclaimed. “New York will remain a city of immigrants, a city built by immigrants, powered by immigrants, and as of tonight, led by an immigrant,” continued the young politician, who was born in Kampala, Uganda. “To get to any one of us, you’ll have to get through all of us,” he warned Trump, in what could be interpreted as a reference to the raids against undocumented immigrants that have spread throughout the country.

The day before, Trump had posted a message on social media expressing his support for former Governor Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat who had to reinvent himself as an independent after his resounding and unexpected defeat in the June primaries. The president hinted at the time that he would pressure the mayor-elect by withdrawing federal funding from the city or by sending in the National Guard, as he has done before with left-leaning cities like Los Angeles and New York.

Less drama

Despite these tense precedents, Mamdani’s team sought to downplay the situation ahead of Friday’s meeting. “As is customary for an incoming city administration, the mayor-elect plans to meet with the president in Washington to discuss public safety, economic stability, and the affordable housing agenda that more than one million New Yorkers approved just two weeks ago,” Mamdani spokeswoman Dora Pekec said in a statement Thursday.

Knowing Trump’s weakness for other people’s charisma, something Mamdani has proven he possesses in abundance, they anticipated a face-off that wouldn’t be as tense as months of back-and-forth statements had suggested. In the hours leading up to the debate, Trump predicted in a radio interview that they would “get along” and that they both want the same thing: “a strong New York.”

“Clearly, Trump feels threatened by Mamdani,” explained Gustavo Gordillo, co-chair of the New York faction of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), under whose banner the candidate launched his mayoral bid, in a telephone interview on Friday. “He knows of Mamdani’s talent and abilities and understands that he has a very broad base; with more than 1 million votes, he achieved the highest percentage in a mayoral election in over 50 years. Trump is a New Yorker, so he knows the city and is well aware that what he has achieved is not easy.”

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