WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump gave a warm greeting to incoming New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani at the White House on Friday, praising his electoral victory in the first in-person meeting for the political opposites, who have clashed over everything from immigration to economic policy.<\/p>\n
A democratic socialist and little-known state lawmaker who won New York\u2019s mayoral race earlier this month, Mamdani requested the sit-down with Trump to discuss cost-of-living issues and public safety.<\/p>\n
After months of trading barbs and insults in the media, the mayor-elect and the president appeared to put aside their differences and quickly strike a rapport in the Oval Office, a setting that Trump has sometimes used to embarrass heads of state.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe agreed on a lot more than I thought,\u201d Trump said after inviting journalists into the Oval Office following a private meeting. \u201cWe have one thing in common: we want this city of ours that we love to do very well.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sitting at his desk, Trump smiled up at Mamdani, who stood to the president\u2019s right, and offered his congratulations on winning the mayoral election earlier this month: \u201cHe really ran an incredible race against some very tough people, very smart people.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a productive meeting focused on a place of shared admiration and love, which is New York City, and the need to deliver affordability to New Yorkers,\u201d Mamdani said.<\/p>\n
Trump said he was happy to put aside partisan differences. \u201cThe better he does the happier I am,\u201d Trump said.<\/p>\n
As Mamdani surged in the polls to victory, Trump, a Republican, issued threats to strip federal funding from the biggest US city. The mayor-elect has regularly criticized a range of Trump\u2019s policies, including plans to ramp up federal immigration enforcement efforts in New York City, where four in ten residents are foreign-born.<\/p>\n
The 79-year-old president, a former New York resident, has labeled Mamdani, 34, as a \u201cradical left lunatic,\u201d a communist and \u201cJew hater,\u201d without offering evidence for those assertions.<\/p>\n
Mamdani has espoused Nordic-style democratic socialism, not communism. While a staunch critic of Israel, he was endorsed by prominent Jewish politicians, is bringing in Jewish staff in his new administration, notably New York Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch, and has repeatedly condemned antisemitism.<\/p>\n
Trump tempered his language on Friday shortly before the mayor-elect\u2019s arrival, saying he expected it to be \u201cquite civil\u201d and commending Mamdani for a \u201csuccessful run.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI was hitting him a little hard,\u201d Trump told \u201cThe Brian Kilmeade Show\u201d on Fox News. \u201cI think we\u2019ll get along fine. Look, we\u2019re looking for the same thing: we want to make New York strong.\u201d<\/p>\n
Earlier, Mamdani posted a grinning selfie on social media, taken in the seat of a plane bound for Washington.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump gave a warm greeting to incoming New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani at the White House on Friday, praising his electoral victory in the first in-person meeting for the political opposites, who have clashed over everything from immigration to economic policy. A democratic socialist and little-known state lawmaker who won …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":90012,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-89997","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89997","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=89997"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89997\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":90013,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89997\/revisions\/90013"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/90012"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=89997"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=89997"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=89997"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}