Trump, Mamdani meet at White House
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New York City mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, a democratic socialist who has signalled a willingness to both challenge U.S. President Donald Trump and work with him on issues that affect New Yorkers, is in Washington, D.C., for a face-to-face meeting at the White House.
The Latest
- U.S. President Donald Trump and New York mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani are taking questions from reporters after meeting for the first time today.
- Trump gave his counterpart some personal praise, while Mamdani described the conversation as “productive.”
- It was a shift in tone after the two leaders openly engaged in a war of words for months in the lead-up to the New York mayoral election.
- Trump has previously threatened to pull New York's federal funding and send the National Guard to the country’s most populous city, home to some 8.5 million people.
- Mamdani requested today’s meeting, saying he wanted to focus on affordability.
Mamdani praises 'productive' meeting
Mark Gollom
Mamdani says he and Trump shared their admiration and love for New York and the need to deliver affordability to New Yorkers.
He said they spoke about issues like groceries, rent, utilities and the different ways people are being pushed out of the city.
“I appreciated the time with the president. I appreciated your conversation,” Mamdani said.
When asked about comments he made about Trump in the past — for example, calling him a despot and running a fascist agenda — Mamdani deflected.
“We are very clear about our positions and our views,” he said. “And what I really appreciate about the president is the meeting that we had focused not on places of disagreement, of which there are many, [but instead] focused on the shared purpose that we have in serving New Yorkers.”
Trump ‘confident’ Mamdani can do a good job
Mike Crawley
Trump is seated at the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office, with Mamdani standing to his right.
“We had discussions on some things, I'm not gonna discuss what they were,” Trump said in response to a question from a reporter.
“I feel very confident that he can do a good job” Trump said of Mamdani. “I think he’s gonna surprise some conservative people.”
Big Apple, high cost of living
Kris Reyes
Hello, I’m CBC’s New York correspondent.
Mamdani’s mayoral campaign was almost entirely focused on delivering affordability to New Yorkers, through democratic socialist policies like rent freezes, government-run grocery stores and free buses.
Unsurprisingly, the topic came up again during the mayor-elect's news conference on Thursday.
"I know that for tens of thousands of New Yorkers, this meeting is between two very different candidates who they voted for for the same reason: they wanted a leader who would take on the cost-of-living crisis that makes it impossible for working people to afford living in this city," Mamdani said.
Affordability was already a buzzword in New York before the mayoral campaign.
The cost of living in New York is 70 per cent higher than the national U.S. average, according to rentcafe.com, while housing is 200 per cent higher.
Why Trump and Republicans may hope Mamdani is the 'saviour' of the Democratic Party
Mark Gollom
Mamdani and his progressive brand of politics have been pegged by some Democrats as the saviour and future of the party.
For example, in a recent column in the Guardian, Democrat and former U.S. secretary of labour Robert Reich referred to Mamdani as the"the brightest light in the Democratic Party" and wrote that "Mamdani and others like him are its future."
That may be exactly what the Republicans want.
In addition to Trump’s comments branding Mamdani a communist, other Republicans have painted the mayor-elect and his agenda as being radical and politically too far left.
They believe his policies are out of step with mainstream American voters, and that a Democratic campaign based on his more-progressive ideas would be doomed to fail on the national stage.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis posted on X before Mamdani’s victory that he would be"the most prominent Democrat in America the day he takes office," if elected.
"Voters across the country will be able to watch his leftist agenda in action and know that his path is the Democrat path nationally," DeSantis wrote.
Who is the New York mayor-elect?
Mark Gollom
Mamdani was born in Kampala, Uganda, and his family moved to New York when he was seven. He became a U.S. citizen in 2018.
The 34-year-old self-described democratic socialist is a relative political rookie, having been first elected to the state assembly in 2020. But he stunned political observers with his Democratic mayoral primary win over former New York governor Andrew Cuomo back in June.
He carried forward his slick, social media-driven campaign into the mayoral race, attracting many young voters with his charismatic demeanour and focus on affordability and lowering the cost of living for New Yorkers.
In the Nov. 4 mayoral election, he won more than 50 per cent of the vote, defeating Cuomo (who ran as an independent) and Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa.
His victory means he will become the city’s first Muslim and Indian American mayor when he formally takes office on Jan. 1.
