President of the United States Donald Trump he said to expect that Zohran Mamdani he would be an ”extraordinary mayor” for New York. After a meeting in the Oval Office that the tycoon described as ”fantastic” and ”very productive, very positive”, the American president said he and Mamdani had ”a commonality that we want our city, which we love, to prosper”.
The American president, who is from New York, said he “congratulated him and we talked about some very general topics, like housing and food prices. Oil prices fell significantly.”
Trump he also offered a gesture of goodwill against the incoming mayor, saying he might surprise conservatives. “I think you’re going to get, hopefully, a really great mayor,” he said. “The better he does, the happier I am. I don’t think there are any party differences,” he added, noting that “I think he’s going to surprise some conservatives, and even some very progressive ones.”
Trump later said he thought the mayor could do “really great” things: ”I want to help him, not hurt him. I want to give him a lot of help, because I want New York City to be a great city. I think this mayor can do great things.”
Trump added that he would “absolutely” feel comfortable returning to his hometown of New York under a Mamdani administration. “We agreed more than I thought… “I want him to do his job well and we will help him do that,” he added.
“I’ve been told worse things than ‘despot’, it’s not that offensive. “Perhaps, I think he will change his mind when we start working together,” Trump said later, interrupting Mamdani, who was responding to a reporter’s question about whether he called Trump again an ousted man or a fascist.
“What I really appreciated about the president was that our meeting did not focus on points of contention” but rather on the shared goal of serving New Yorkers, Mamdani said, underscoring a commitment to easing what he called a “cost of living crisis.”
Trump He later added that he and the mayor-elect would resolve their differences regarding ICE agents in cities. “I think we’ll find a solution,” Trump said. The American president has sent agents from Ice and other federal agencies to several cities, including Chicago and Charlotte, as part of a crackdown on immigration. Additionally, when Trump took federal control of Washington’s police force and mobilized National Guard troops, he floated the idea that New York was his next destination.
Mamdani criticized ICE, telling CNN that he would not allow the New York Police Department to cooperate in immigration enforcement. Trump said that in the meeting Mamdani talked about how he “wanted a safe New York.” “So we’re going to work together. We’re going to make sure that if there are bad people there, we’re going to get them out,” Trump added. “I think he probably wants them gone more than I do.”
Mamdani: “Productive Meeting”
Meanwhile, New York’s mayor-elect said he had a “productive meeting” with the president of the United States, which focused on New Yorkers’ concerns about the cost of living. “I appreciated the meeting with the President, because he thought it was a productive meeting centered around a place we admire and love, New York City,” Mamdani began.
Mamdani stressed “the need to ensure affordability for New Yorkers, the 8.5 million people who call this city home, and who struggle to make ends meet in the most expensive city in the United States.” The Mayor of New York explained that “we talked about rent, groceries, utilities. We talked about the different ways people are deported“.
Mamdani stressed that he “enjoyed the time spent with the President, I enjoyed the conversation, and I look forward to working together to bring this convenience to New Yorkers.”
