New York’s incoming mayor, Zohran Mamdani, and President Donald Trump plan to meet on Friday at the White House, after months of trading barbs and insults during the city’s recent election.
Mamdani, a 34-year-old Democratic socialist, won New York City’s mayoral race earlier this month, defeating former governor Andrew Cuomo by nine points. While he was little known outside of New York before the election, he has now become a nationally recognised figure.
Trump said in a statement that the “communist mayor” had requested the meeting, which would take place in the Oval Office.
The mayor-elect’s spokesperson said the meeting with Trump was customary for an incoming mayoral administration.
“The Mayor-elect plans to meet with the President in Washington to discuss public safety, economic security and the affordability agenda that over one million New Yorkers voted for just two weeks ago,” spokesperson Dora Pekec said.
Mamdani’s predecessors – Democrats Bill de Blasio and current Mayor Eric Adams – did not have high-profile Oval Office meetings on their own with a president, although they participated in gatherings at the White House alongside other mayors and officials.
The acrimony between the two-term president and rapidly rising political newcomer began building shortly after Mamdani won the Democratic primary in June.
Trump has decried Mamdani as the “communist” future of the Democratic Party and has threatened to withhold billions of federal dollars to the largest US city because of his victory.
In the weeks leading up to Mamdani’s election, Trump – a born-and-raised new Yorker – frequently portrayed the mayor-elect as an extremist who “practically hasn’t worked a day in his life”.
In an unusual last-minute move, the Republican president endorsed Mamdani’s rival, Cuomo, a Democrat who was running as an independent.
In Mamdani’s victory speech on Election Day, he taunted Trump, telling him to “turn the volume up” on his television.
Minutes later, Trump responded on his social media site Truth Social: “…AND SO IT BEGINS!”
Mamdani, a former state assemblyman who campaigned on a platform of affordability in one of the most expensive US cities, shocked many when he won New York City’s Democratic primary in June.
He has vowed to take on Trump, hiring extra lawyers to prepare to file legal challenges and pledging that New York will “remain a city of immigrants” as Trump carries out his immigration crackdown across the country.
By BBC News
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