Trump to meet with New York City mayor-elect Mamdani

US President Donald Trump said he will be meeting with New York City mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani in Washington on Friday, after a contentious several months in which Trump has threatened to cut off federal funding to his own hometown if Mamdani, who is a Democratic Socialist and a Muslim, won the election.

On 4 November, the Uganda-born Mamdani handily beat his chief opponent, former New York governor Andrew Cuomo - a man more than twice his age who comes from a New York political dynasty and enjoys a national profile - with at least 50 percent of the votes.

Trump backed Cuomo despite Cuomo being a Democrat-turned-Independent. The two shared several billionaire donors. 

Trump himself was born in the New York City borough of Queens, and built his real estate empire and his celebrity status in the city. 

"Communist Mayor of New York City, Zohran 'Kwame' Mamdani, has asked for a meeting. We have agreed that this meeting will take place at the Oval Office on Friday, November 21st. Further details to follow!" Trump announced on his TruthSocial account on Wednesday.

At a news conference outside City Hall in Manhattan, Mamdani told reporters on Thursday that he would do whatever it takes to implement the signature pledge he made throughout his campaign - including working with some of his most vehement critics. 

"I will work with anyone to make life more affordable for the more than eight and a half million people who call the city home," he said.

"I have many disagreements with the president, and I believe that we should be relentless and pursue all avenues and all meetings that could make our city affordable for every single New Yorker."

Trump's deployment of federal agents and the National Guard to crack down on crime in major urban centres - and particularly those run by Democrats - will likely be high on the agenda.

Mamdani also seeks to ease concerns that his past statements on trimming the New York Police Department (NYPD), which he now says he will not do, will not compromise public safety. 

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On Wednesday, New York City police commissioner Jessica Tisch, a vocal pro-Israel figure who oversaw the NYPD's crackdown on university students protesting against the genocide in Gaza, and has previously instructed officers not to get in the way of Trump's masked agents who are arresting immigrants on public streets, formally announced she will stay in her role under the Mamdani administration.

"I’ve spoken to Mayor-elect Mamdani several times, and I’m ready to serve with honor as his Police Commissioner," she said in a statement. "That’s because he and I share many of the same public safety goals for New York City: lowering crime, making communities safer, rooting out corruption, and giving our officers the tools, support, and resources they need to carry out their noble work."

The choice to keep Tisch in the role is undoubtedly Mamdani's nod to mainstream Democrats and Republicans who favour strong policing measures. 

Comparisons

Trump's willingness to meet may also signal an effort to capture and build on some of Mamdani's populism, given he was a virtual unknown just one year ago, and has focused on delivering solutions to voters, much like Trump's own presidential campaign. 

Last month, in an interview with the programme 60 Minutes on CBS, Trump was asked about his similarities with Mamdani. 

"Some people have compared him to a left-wing version of you. Charismatic, breaking the old rules. What do you think about that?" CBS correspondent Norah O'Donnell said. 

"Well, I think I'm a much better-looking person than him, right?" Trump countered. 

"If you have a communist running New York, all you're doing is wasting the money you're sending there," he added of the federal funds that get allocated to states by the White House. 

The president has insisted that he believes anyone who calls themselves a socialist is, in fact, a "communist". 

"It speaks volumes that tomorrow we have a communist coming to the White House, because that's who the Democratic Party elected as the mayor of the largest city in the country," White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters on Thursday.

"I think it's very telling, but I also think it speaks to the fact that President Trump is willing to meet with anyone and talk to anyone and to try to do what's right on behalf of the American people, whether they live in blue states or red states or blue cities in a city that's becoming much more left than I think this president ever anticipated in his many years of living in New York." 

The website for the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), of which Mamdani is a member, says it stands for "a system where ordinary people have a real voice in our workplaces, neighborhoods, and society" and to "collectively own the key economic drivers that dominate our lives, such as energy production and transportation". 

Earlier this week, Mamdani indicated to Zeteo's Mehdi Hassan that both Trump's victory and his own have shown that the establishment Democrats who make up what is largely a centrist party are falling into irrelevance - something the president may very well agree on. 

"When Trump won the presidency, there were many articles written [that were] obituaries about the Democratic party's ability to engage with young voters, with young men, with Asian voters. And what we showed, in fact, is that these same constituencies that we had been told were potentially forever leaving the party could, in fact, be the foundations of a campaign at the heart of the party to win it back," Mamdani said. 

"And that's what we saw in this election... so many of the people who've been overlooked at best in our party politics were right there. And I think the key of this was that we spoke to New Yorkers with a sense of respect, as opposed to the condescension that is so endemic." 

The Israel question

But Trump has also been part of that condescension.

“Any Jewish person that votes for Zohran Mamdani, a proven and self professed JEW HATER, is a stupid person!!!” Trump wrote on Truth Social on 4 November, the day of the mayoral election.

“He hates Jewish people and yet he’s got Jewish people supporting him,” Trump also said during a press conference with Argentinian President Javier Milei last month. 

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In a city with more Jews than Jerusalem itself, estimated to be at least one million, many of whom have dual US-Israeli citizenship, Mamdani was able to make inroads with young Jewish voters in particular, who are concerned about affordability.

Two days before the election, Rabbi Moshe Indig, a political leader of the Ahronim faction of the anti-Zionist Satmar Hasidic community, endorsed Mamdani at a public meeting in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. 

Yet no mayor has ever been this outspoken about Israel's violations of international law and the cause of the Palestinian people. 

Throughout his campaign, Mamdani faced repeated attacks from pro-Israel voices over his positions.

He said Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, and has said he would arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu - per the International Criminal Court warrant - if he visited New York. Mamdani later walked back that claim.

Mamdani first became involved in Palestinian activism while studying Africana Studies at Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine. He also worked as an editor for the student newspaper there. 

He founded the college chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine, and with other students attempted to make Bowdoin join a boycott of Israeli academic institutions, without success.

During the first of two mayoral debates, Cuomo, who has long been endorsed by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, demanded that Mamdani recognise Israel as specifically a "Jewish state", and accused him of not denouncing the phrase "globalise the intifada", which, Cuomo said, means "kill all Jews".

Intifada is the Arabic word for uprising, and it has grown in use across pro-Palestine mobilisations calling for an end to the Israeli occupation of Palestine.

Mamdani had never actually used the phrase himself. 

Stephen Miller, the White House assistant chief of staff who is frequently referred to as the architect behind Trump’s immigration policies, alluded to Mamdani in a post on X on 25 June, saying that "NYC is the clearest warning yet of what happens to a society when it fails to control migration."