Zohran Mamdani confirmed Monday that he’s reached out to the White House — as President Trump said he’s open to an in-person sitdown to “work something out” with the socialist mayor-elect.
Mamdani, who will be sworn in on Jan. 1, told reporters at an unrelated event in the Bronx that his team had been in contact with the Trump administration to arrange a meeting in the hopes of addressing the “affordability crisis.”
“My team reached out to the White House to fulfill a commitment I made to New Yorkers over the course of this campaign, a commitment that showed a willingness to meet with anyone and everyone, so long as it was to the benefit of the eight and a half million people that call the city their home,” Mamdani said.
“I will make clear that even New Yorkers that I had met over the course of this campaign who had voted for the president, and] they told me that what they had voted for was a lower cost of living.”
He added that he planned to address the “affordability crisis,” as well as SNAP benefits and ICE enforcement, with Trump.
The president opened the door for the two to meet in DC after months of deriding Mamdani as “my little communist” and predicting the ruin of his native New York City if the democratic socialist was elected mayor.
Trump, as Mamdani’s election victory loomed, also threatened to pull government funding from the city and explore the possibility of a federal takeover.
But on Sunday, before flying back to Washington after a weekend at his Mar-a-Lago resort, Trump acknowledged the possibility of a sitdown.
“The mayor of New York, I will say, would like to meet with us,” the president said. “We’ll work something out,” Trump added. “But he would like to come to Washington.”
Gov. Kathy Hochul remarked Monday that the potential political cease-fire was a “very good thing.”
“The president at the heart of it is a New Yorker,” the gov said, adding, “and that is something that I’ve been able to use as the foundation of my conversations.”
