New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani met with President Donald Trump at the White House on Thursday for their second sit-down since Mamdani was elected in November.
“I had a productive meeting with President Trump this afternoon,” Mamdani wrote on X. “I’m looking forward to building more housing in New York City.”
The post included a photo of Mamdani with Trump in the Oval Office, where Trump holds up two copies of the New York Daily News. One is a 1975 issue of the paper with President Gerald Ford and the headline "Ford to City: Drop Dead"; the other is a re-created copy of that issue with the headline "Trump to City: Let's Build."
Joe Calvello, Mamdani’s press secretary, said Mamdani set up a meeting with Trump ahead of Tuesday's State of the Union address to discuss plans to build new housing in the city. Mamdani attended the meeting with his chief of staff, Elle Bisgaard-Church, Calvello said.
“Last time the president and the mayor met, the president asked him to come back with big ideas to build big things together in New York City,” Calvello said. “So the mayor took him up on this offer and returned to D.C. today with a pitch about a possible project in New York City that could deliver one of the biggest federal investments in housing of the past 50 years.”
“The mayor proposed a project with an estimated 12,000 units, and yes, our team did mock up front pages of newspapers and gave them to the president today at the meeting,” said Calvello, who said he did not have additional details to share about the project at this time. “The president was very enthusiastic about this idea.”
Calvello said Mamdani also raised the arrest of Columbia University student Elmina Aghayeva, whom the Department of Homeland Security detained at her campus residence after DHS agents made what the school’s acting president called “misrepresentations to gain entry to the building.” Mamdani said in a post Thursday afternoon that Trump called him after their meeting to say that Aghayeva would be released "imminently"; she was released a short while later.
Mamdani "also handed a list of four additional students who had been detained in New York City to the president, and his chief of staff asked him to consider dismissing their cases," Calvello said.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the meeting.
Republicans have publicly bashed Mamdani, trying to frame him as a radical Democrat who would hurt New York City. At the same time, Trump and Mamdani had a friendlier-than-expected meeting at the White House in November, just days after Mamdani was elected mayor.
At the time, Trump called Mamdani "a very rational person" and said he believed Mamdani was "focused on New York City."
"We agree on a lot more than I would have thought," Trump said in November. "I want him to do a great job, and we’ll help him do a great job."
Since that meeting, the extent of Trump's and Mamdani's relationship is unclear. Asked by a reporter Wednesday how often he speaks with Trump, Mamdani said he would keep those conversations "private." When the conversations do take place, he said, they center on bettering New York City.
Trump brought up Mamdani during his State of the Union address, calling him a "communist" but also referring to him as "a nice guy."
"I think he's a nice guy, actually," Trump said. "I speak to him a lot. Bad policy, but nice guy."
In recent weeks, Trump has railed against a project to build another tunnel connecting New York and New Jersey underneath the Hudson River. He has emphasized that he did not want the federal government to be responsible for cost overruns, but Democratic New York Gov. Kathy Hochul announced last week that the multibillion-dollar project would resume after the Trump administration released $127 million in frozen funds.
