On Friday, November 21, 2025, at the White House in Washington, D.C., the surprising face-to-face meeting between Donald Trump and Zohran Mamdani, incoming Mayor-elect of New York City, marked a stark reversal of tone between two political foes. Just weeks ago, Trump publicly labelled Mamdani a “communist lunatic” and threatened to cut off federal funds to the city if Mamdani’s campaign succeeded. Mamdani, a 34-year-old Democratic socialist who won the mayoral election on November 4, 2025, had in turn characterised Trump’s administration as authoritarian, calling him a “despot” during his victory speech.
Inside the Oval Office, however, the tone changed. Trump opened the press segment by saying, “We agree on a lot more than I thought. I want him to do a great job, and we’ll help him do a great job.” He praised Mamdani’s agenda, saying he was impressed by his ideas on housing-construction and affordability: “Some of his ideas are really the same ideas that I have,” Trump said. Mamdani, standing beside him, echoed a focus on affordability and public safety, pointing out that his campaign zeroed in on the cost-of-living pressures facing working-class New Yorkers.
During the joint press interaction, reporters pressed Mamdani about his prior comments that labelled Trump a fascist and asked Trump if he felt comfortable living in New York under Mamdani’s leadership. Trump replied with unexpected candour: “Yeah, I would. I really would. Especially after the meeting.” When a reporter suggested Mamdani should explain why he had used the term “fascist,” Trump leapt to his defence: “That’s alright … I’ve been called much worse than a despot.”
The meeting’s agenda, as outlined by Mamdani’s team and the White House, emphasised three broad themes: public safety, economic security, and affordability. Given that the city depends on federal funding of around US $7.4 billion in the 2026 fiscal year, about 6.4% of its total spending, co-operation between the incoming mayor and the federal government is of high strategic importance.
What makes this moment noteworthy is the dramatic pivot from antagonism to cooperation. During the campaign, Trump had vocally opposed Mamdani’s rise, supporting his rival and using harsh language. Mamdani, in turn, ran on a platform of “Trump-proofing” New York City, promising radical change. Yet now they are standing side-by-side, smiling, signalling perhaps a new chapter.
This meeting may reflect more than mere civility; it signals a calculated political shift. Trump appears to recognise that Mamdani’s victory speaks to a broader voter frustration over affordability and cost-of-living issues, an area where populist energy outgrew the old left-right binaries. By publicly warming to Mamdani, Trump adapts: he honours the winner and, by extension, the voters who backed him. For Mamdani, the photo-op and cooperative tone afford him legitimacy and a broader reach beyond his progressive base.
That said, this détente is fragile. Beneath the handshake lie deep ideological fault-lines: socialism vs. populist nationalism, city vs. federal tensions, past adversarial rhetoric vs. future governance. The question is whether this warm front will translate into sustained collaboration or merely serve as a short-term image reset. If Mamdani truly delivers on housing, affordability, and public-safety promises, Trump may count a win; if not, the smile may fade, and old divisions re-emerge. From the vantage of New Yorkers, the meeting offers cautious hope: the adversaries may now share the same table, but success will be judged at street-level, not in the Oval Office.
