(The Center Square) — New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani and President Donald Trump are expected to hold a high-stakes meeting at the White House on Friday as the democratic socialist prepares to take over the nation’s largest city.
“Communist Mayor of New York City, Zohran “Kwame” Mamdani, has asked for a meeting,” Trump said Wednesday night in a post on social media. “We have agreed that this meeting will take place at the Oval Office on Friday, November 21st.”
Mamdani’s mayoral transition team confirmed the meeting between the two men and highlighted some of the issues they may discuss behind closed doors. During a news conference on Thursday, Mamdani said he planned to discuss the city’s affordability crisis and its public safety concerns.
“As is 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,” Mamdani spokesperson Dora Pekec said in a statement.
The Oval Office summit comes weeks after Mamdani’s victory in the Nov. 4 elections against former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who lost the primary to Mamdani and ran in the general election as an independent. Mamdani will take the reins of New York City on Jan. 1 as the city’s first Muslim mayor and its youngest leader in a generation. Trump backed Cuomo in the race over Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa, who came in a distant third place in the Nov. 4 election.
Mamdani’s rise has sent shockwaves through New York’s political establishment and drawn national attention from Republicans who have criticized the city’s dramatic shift to the left.
He has vowed, if elected, to eliminate fares to ride New York City’s public bus system, make the City University of New York “tuition-free” and freeze rents in municipal housing. He has also called for taxing the state’s top earners and raising New York City’s minimum wage to $30 an hour by 2030.
That has drawn scrutiny from NYC business groups, some of whom have publicly suggested that Mamdani’s proposals will lead to an exodus from the city.
In the months ahead of the election, Trump labeled Mamdani a “communist” and warned of the ruin of his hometown, New York, if the 34-year-old Queens assemblyman and democratic socialist was elected.
He also threatened to deport Mamdani, a naturalized U.S. citizen who was born in Uganda, and to withhold billions of dollars in federal funding from the city. Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan, is gearing up to send more federal authorities — including National Guard troops — into New York City to enforce the administration’s immigration crackdown.
Mamdani has vowed to “Trump proof” New York City as mayor, but said he is also interested in working with the president and other members of his administration to help New Yorkers.
