Zohran Mamdani appears to have charmed Donald Trump.
Following a meeting with the New York City mayor-elect in the Oval Office on Friday afternoon, the president had nothing but nice things to say about the man whose politics couldn’t be more different than his.
“I think you’re going to have, hopefully, a really great mayor,” Trump told reporters as Mamdani stood beside him. “He’s going to surprise some conservative people, actually.”
It marked a striking reversal in Trump’s rhetoric toward the Democratic socialist state assemblyman. In recent months, the president had derided Mamdani as a “communist,” urged New Yorkers to support his chief opponent, former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, and had even threatened to cut off federal funding to the city if Mamdani were elected mayor.
On Friday, all of that seemed to be buried.
Mamdani sounded a conciliatory note, pointing out that he and Trump shared many voters and that both had run campaigns based on addressing affordability concerns.
“We spoke about rent, we spoke about groceries, we spoke about utilities,” Mamdani said. “We spoke about the different ways in which people are being pushed out.”
Trump described Mamdani as “rational,” said that he “really wants to see New York be great again,” and said he and the mayor-elect shared many of the same goals. Most significantly, Trump pledged to work with Mamdani, saying he expects “to be helping him, not hurting him.”
At one point, Trump — who was born and raised in New York City — even said that he would feel comfortable living in the city with Mamdani as mayor.
“Absolutely,” Trump said. “I want him to do a great job, and we’ll help him do a great job.”
The two men seemed to find one particular point of agreement: the rates charged by Con Edison, the main energy provider in the New York City area.
“We’ve gotten fuel prices way down, but it hasn’t shown up in Con Edison,” Trump said. “We have to get Con Edison to start lowering their rates.”
“Absolutely,” Mamdani added.
In some ways, the mutual respect isn’t completely unexpected. Both men have shown an ability to garner and hold attention in the modern media environment, which Trump acknowledged at one point when speaking to reporters.
“The press has eaten this thing up,” Trump said. “You know, outside, you have hundreds of people waiting.”
“He’s different than, you know, your average candidate,” Trump added. “He came out of nowhere.”
The president even sought to smooth things over when a reporter asked Mamdani if he considers the president to be a fascist. As Mamdani began to answer, a smiling Trump interjected.
“That’s okay, you can just say yes,” he said. “It’s easier than explaining it. I don’t mind.”
