President Donald Trump provided reward for New York Metropolis Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani on Friday after the 2 males met for the primary time on the White Home to debate the rising challenge of affordability.
Whereas the Republican president and the Democratic mayor-elect have hurled searing assaults at one another within the latest previous, they repeatedly shrugged off these phrases whereas showing facet by facet within the Oval Workplace.
At one level, when Mamdani was requested for the second time about having referred to as Trump a “fascist,” the president gave him cowl.
“That is OK, you possibly can simply say sure,” Trump mentioned after Mamdani started to reply. “It is simpler than explaining it.”
Trump additionally appeared to backtrack on his prior menace to withhold federal funding for New York Metropolis if Mamdani grew to become its mayor.
“I do not suppose that is going to occur,” Trump mentioned.
As a substitute of rehashing their feud, they talked up their areas of settlement on broad points, particularly specializing in reducing the price of residing.
However additionally they discovered frequent floor on some extra particular issues, resembling getting NYC-based vitality big Con Edison to decrease costs.
“We have gotten gas costs approach down, nevertheless it hasn’t proven up in Con Edison, and we’ll have to speak to them … to start out reducing the charges,” Trump mentioned.
“Completely,” Mamdani added.
U.S. President Donald Trump and New York Metropolis Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani communicate to members of the media as they meet within the Oval Workplace on the White Home in Washington, D.C., U.S., Nov. 21, 2025.
Jonathan Ernst | Reuters
Trump gave extra reward than Mamdani returned, however the two did commerce some compliments.
“I believe you are going to have, hopefully, a very nice mayor,” Trump mentioned. “The higher he does, the happier I’m.”
“I appreciated the assembly with the president,” mentioned Mamdani, who stood whereas Trump sat on the Resolute Desk. “And as he mentioned, it was a productive assembly targeted on a spot of shared admiration and love, which is New York Metropolis and the necessity to ship affordability to New Yorkers.”
The conciliatory tone was model new. Mamdani had laced into the president on the marketing campaign path and in his electoral victory speech, saying, “If anybody can present a nation betrayed by Donald Trump the right way to defeat him, it’s the metropolis that gave rise to him.”
And simply two days earlier, Trump had referred to as Mamdani the “Communist Mayor of New York Metropolis.” The mayor-elect is a self-described democratic socialist who denies being a communist.
The Oval Workplace assembly was requested by Mamdani, the 34-year-old whose gorgeous triumph within the mayoral race over former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has put him on the heart of American politics.
“I’ll work with anybody to make life extra inexpensive for the greater than eight-and-a-half million individuals who name the town dwelling,” Mamdani mentioned Thursday.
Mamdani and different Democrats who gained a bevy of elections this month had targeted relentlessly on affordability — a phrase that Trump has chafed at, whereas insisting that costs are broadly down already.
In the meantime, the president’s approval scores have fallen precipitously in quite a few polls, with respondents persistently pointing to the excessive value of residing as a most important concern.
