President Donald Trump said late Wednesday that the long-awaited meeting with New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani would happen in Washington later this week, setting up an in-person clash between the political polar opposites who for months have antagonized each other from afar.
The sit-down, which Trump said on social media would take place Friday in the Oval Office, could possibly represent a detente of sorts between the Republican president and Democratic rising star, as Trump has since Mamdani’s win moved toward acceptance of Mamdani’s central, winning campaign issue of affordability.
Calling Mamdani by his full name — and putting the mayor-elect’s middle name of Kwame in quotation marks — Trump posted Wednesday night that Mamdani had asked for the meeting, promising “Further details to follow!”
Saying it was “customary” for an incoming New York City mayor to meet with the president, spokesperson Dora Pekec said Mamdani planned to discuss with Trump “public safety, economic security and the affordability agenda that over one million New Yorkers voted for just two weeks ago.”
Trump for months has slammed Mamdani, falsely labeling him as a “communist” and predicting the ruin of his hometown if the democratic socialist was elected. He also threatened to deport Mamdani, who was born in Uganda and became a naturalized American citizen in 2018, and to pull federal money from the city.
But following the November election — in which Republicans lost badly in Georgia, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Virginia — Trump has spoken more about affordability, which had been a focal point across Democrats’ campaigns, including Mamdani’s, even declaring Friday in a social media post that the GOP is the “Party of Affordability!” This comes as the president and his fellow Republicans insist the economy has never been stronger.
Trump told reporters Sunday night that he planned to meet with Mamdani, saying ” we’ll work something out.” On Monday, Mamdani — who officially takes office in January — said that he hoped to meet Trump, confirming that his team had reached out to the White House to set up a possible sit-down.
During his victory speech earlier this month, Mamdani, a 34-year-old who in just a few short months rose from obscure state lawmaker representing Queens to mayor-elect of the nation’s biggest city, said he wanted New York to show the country how to defeat the president.
He’s also talked about “Trump-proofing” New York once he takes office in January while also promising to work with anyone, including the president, if it benefited New Yorkers.
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Associated Press writer Michael R. Sisak in New York City contributed to this report.