WASHINGTON — New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani and President Donald Trump emerged from their first Oval Office meeting Friday with the president abruptly switching gears after months of criticisms to offering warm praise and a promise to aid in addressing the city’s housing crisis, which has contributed to low-income New Yorkers being faced with increasingly high cost-of-living expenses. The unexpectedly warm outreach suggested that there could be a partnership on the affordability issue between two ideological adversaries, as Trump faces increasing pressure over rising prices, Nov. 22, 2025.
In public remarks and campaign rallies this year, Trump had repeatedly labeled the New York City mayor-elect a “communist,” a “radical left lunatic” who hated America, and even a “Jew hater,” while suggesting that if Mamdani won, the federal government might cut funds his way and carry out raids targeting immigrants. Now, the president is referring to his shared goals with Biden and to an overlap in voter concerns, rather than to retribution or prosecution.
On the televised Friday Oval Office appearance, Trump lauded Zohran Mamdani’s housing ideas and said, “the better he does, the happier I am,” tying the mayor-elect’s success to his own. Mamdani, standing next to the Resolute Desk, said their discussion was less about disagreement and more about making New York City more affordable for residents struggling with rent and energy bills.
They also discussed extending the collaboration beyond a single photo op, with both men emphasizing crime and affordability as shared priorities. Trump then defended the Uganda-born, Muslim mayor-elect, against whom he would smite Islamophobic smears from his own supporters, by informing reporters that he had met “a very rational person” and rebuffing a question about whether Mamdani was a “jihadist.”
Trump also homed in on pocketbook issues, taking a page from Mamdani’s playbook by criticizing high rents and spiraling utility bills, and even calling on New York’s power company to lower its rates. The president cast their shared agenda as one of making it easier for families to remain in the city — including some of those very people, such as his own September voters, who wound up supporting Mamdani’s mayoral campaign.
The campaign of Mr. Mamdani focused on bold affordability promises: a rent freeze for over a million stabilized apartments, building 200,000 permanently affordable homes, universal childcare and free buses, paid for in part with higher taxes on the wealthy. Those ideas were already outlined in detail in a Time magazine analysis of his housing plan and played a role in powering his landslide primary victory.
National outlets have cataloged Mamdani’s ascent from organizer in Queens to mayor-elect, casting his brand of left-wing populism as a barometer of whether big cities will embrace aggressive interventions on rent, wages, and childcare. His campaign has been profiled by The Guardian, which called him potentially the most progressive mayor in city history, and a New Yorker column took apart his so-called “Zohranomics” agenda for its potential risks and rewards, for investors as much as tenants.
Those aspirations also made Zohran Mamdani a favored adversary of Trump and his allies long before Friday’s meeting. Earlier this year, the then-candidate pushed back against Trump’s threats to arrest him and question his citizenship, telling The Daily Beast New Yorkers would “never accept this intimidation” after the president floated deporting and stepping up immigration raids in the city.
Trump’s motivation was clear: Even after the primary, he continued to suggest that Mamdani might face criminal charges if he refused to back down in the face of federal raids, and warned that New York City would be defunded by the feds unless voters punished him with a mandate. Even just this month, the president told a crowd of supporters that he would be tough on Mamdani’s administration and would essentially use it as a warning to other progressive mayors.
The two also joked about their earlier name-calling. Trump, who had previously echoed accusations that Mamdani supported a “fascist agenda,” quipped he’d been “called much worse than a despot” when reporters reminded him of the insult and suggested to the mayor-elect that all he needed to say was “yes” when asked if he still thought the president was a fascist.
The pivot, for Trump, also represents a political recalibration. Barely a quarter of Americans approve of the way he is handling the cost of living, a recent Reuters/Ipsos poll showed, as strategists in both parties issue warnings that Mamdani’s relentless focus on affordability could peel off younger, working-class voters who might then support Republicans in future contests.
The talks on Friday yielded no specific policy deals. Both men said they had addressed the costs of housing, groceries, and utilities, and Trump acknowledged he had stepped back — for now — from threats to cut off federal funds unless they could “get along.”
The Oval Office thaw drew mixed reactions. Reuters quoted some Republicans as skeptical of their ability to trust Mamdani, even if he says the president paved his path to office, while progressive groups that supported his candidacy have long argued that deep changes to housing, wages, and public services — not presidential praise — will determine the success of his agenda. For New Yorkers pinched by rent and bills, the question is whether this new partnership delivers.
