New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani quietly traveled to Washington D.C. Thursday to meet with President Donald Trump in person for a second time. They discussed housing – a topic the two have previously conversed about in relation to the city’s land use process.
Spokespeople from the mayor’s office did not respond to multiple requests for comment prior to publication. A little after 3 p.m., however, Mamdani tweeted a photo of him and Trump, accompanied with word that he’d had “a productive meeting” with the president this afternoon and that he was “looking forward to building more housing in New York City.”
Prior to his meeting with the president, Mamdani had yet to comment on reports out of Columbia University that federal agents had entered a dorm and detained a student at approximately 6:30 a.m. Thursday. Columbia Acting President Claire Shipman said the agents had “made misrepresentations to gain entry to the building.” A little after his initial tweet about the meeting, Mamdani wrote that he’d just got off the phone with the president who’d informed him that the student would be “released imminently.”
The Republican president and the democratic socialist mayor have established a surprisingly amicable relationship since Mamdani took office two months ago. While the two fired barbs at one another prior to his election – Mamdani vowing to fight against the president’s agenda, Trump calling him names and wrongfully questioning his immigration status – the reality of their relationship has been far more measured. The two met in-person for the first time during an Oval Office press conference in late November.
At Trump’s State of the Union Address Tuesday, he called Mamdani a “nice guy” and said “I speak to him a lot.” Asked about those comments Wednesday, Mamdani said, “We have conversations that are always focused on how to keep the city moving forward.”
While other Democratic New York elected officials have strongly condemned the Republican president, convened press conferences and attended anti-Trump protests, Mamdani has avoided using the president’s name – and he’s reserved most of his criticism for social media posts.
Former Mayor Eric Adams, Mamdani’s predecessor, faced much scrutiny over his relationship with the president – especially because the Trump administration dismissed his federal indictment, which spurred allegations of a quid pro quo. The president doesn’t have the same sort of potential leverage over Mamdani. This has likely so far spared him the same degree of condemnation that Adams garnered for his refusal to criticize Trump.
