President Donald Trump listens as New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani speaks in the Oval Office of the White House, on November 21, 2025, in Washington.
| Photo Credit: AP
Months of sniping melted away Friday (November 21, 2025) as New York’s incoming Mayor Zohran Mamdani and U.S. President Donald Trump were all smiles at a White House meeting — promising to set aside their feud and cooperate on the city’s future.
Mr. Mamdani, a 34-year-old political insurgent who rocketed from obscurity to win City Hall earlier this month, had taken on Mr. Trump in a bruising war of words, likening the Republican to “bad landlords… taking advantage of their tenants.”
Washington watchers were bracing for sparks to fly when the self-described Democratic socialist met the Republican leader who has in turn branded the Mayor-elect a “communist” and suggested the Ugandan-born New Yorker should be deported.
But the Oval Office summit was instead the embodiment of civility as a beaming Mr. Trump, 79, praised Mr. Mamdani’s historic election win, said he could do a “great job,” and called him a “man who really wants to see New York be great again.”
“We’re going to be helping him to make everybody’s dream come true: having a strong and very safe New York,” Mr. Trump said.
Mr. Mamdani described the face-to-face as “very productive” and spoke of the leaders’ “shared admiration and love” for America’s financial capital and largest city.
Both men hail from the Queens borough of New York City and both are masters of political theatre — but their styles couldn’t be more different.
The showdown had been seen more as a clash of ideologies, generations and egos than a courtesy call, with Mr. Trump thriving on bombast and grievance as Mr. Mamdani pitches affordability and inclusion.
Oval Office encounters with the brash billionaire often turn into ambush theatre — a lesson absorbed by Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who endured a public dressing-down by Mr. Trump and Vice-President J.D. Vance.
Political analysts had warned that Mr. Mamdani could be walking into a Zelenskyy-like situation. For weeks they had traded barbs, with Mr. Trump threatening to make life difficult for the young political upstart.
Political lightning strike
But Mr. Trump repeatedly offered his support for Mr. Mamdani — even telling reporters it was “OK” for the younger politician to have called him a “despot.”
“I’ve been called much worse than a despot. So it’s not that insulting. Maybe he’ll change his mind after we get to working together,” a conciliatory Mr. Trump said, adding that he hoped Mr. Mamdani would be “a really great Mayor.”
For his part, Mr. Mamdani noted that many New Yorkers had backed Mr. Trump in the 2024 presidential election “because of that focus on cost of living.”
“And I’m looking forward to working together to deliver on that affordability,” he said.
It was all a far cry from the barbs the pair had exchanged in the run-up to the meeting.
Beyond mocking Mr. Mamdani’s South Asian name, the President has dangled cuts to federal funding and even National Guard deployments — a tactic he used against other Democratic cities.
For New Yorkers, that could mean billions of dollars lost and troops on the streets once Mr. Mamdani, set to become the city’s first Muslim Mayor, takes office.
Published – November 22, 2025 02:28 am IST
