Trump and Mamdani to meet in Oval Office on Friday after months of bickering | Zohran Mamdani
Donald Trump has confirmed that a long-awaited meeting with New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani will take place in Washington this week, setting up a face-to-face clash between political opponents who have been enemies for months.
The sit-down meeting, which Trump has said on social media will take place in the Oval Office on Friday, could possibly represent a détente of sorts between the Republican president and the Democratic rising star.
Trump, who called Mamdani by his full name and put quotes around the mayor-elect’s middle name, Kwame, posted Wednesday night that Mamdani had requested the meeting, promising: “More details to come!”
Mamdani spokeswoman Dora Pekec, who said it was “customary” for a new New York mayor to meet with the president, said the new mayor plans to meet with Trump about “public safety, economic security and the affordability agenda that more than a million New Yorkers voted for just two weeks ago.”
Trump criticized Mamdani for months, falsely labeling him a “communist” and predicting the destruction of his hometown if the democratic socialist was elected. He also threatened to deport Mamdani, who was born in Uganda and became an American citizen in 2018, and to withdraw federal money from the city.
But after the November election, in which Republicans lost badly in Georgia, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Virginia, as well as New York, Trump talked more about affordability, which has been a focus of Democratic campaigns. In a social media post last week, Republicans called the “Affordable Price Party!” He declared that he was. This comes as the President and his fellow Republicans insist the economy has never been stronger.
Trump told reporters Sunday night that he planned to meet with Mamdani, saying “we’ll figure something out.” Mamdani, who will officially take office in January, said he hoped to meet with Trump on Monday and confirmed his team had reached out to the White House to arrange a possible meeting.
Mamdani, 34, who rose from an unknown state lawmaker representing Queens to the elected mayor of the nation’s largest city in just a few short months, said in his victory speech earlier this month that he wanted New York to show the country how to defeat the president.
He also talked about “protecting” New York from Trump when he took office in January and also promised to work with anyone, including the president, if it would benefit New Yorkers.
