Trump announced he’d agreed to meet the mayor-elect after criticizing him and endorsing his opponent.
President Donald Trump has agreed to meet with New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani for the first time at the White House on Friday, an unexpected sit-down with the Democratic socialist whose election he opposed.
Trump announced the meeting in a social media post late Wednesday.
The president urged his hometown’s voters to back Mamdani’s opponent, former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, and has repeatedly attacked Mamdani in public statements.
“Communist Mayor of New York City, Zohran ‘Kwame’ Mamdani, has asked for a meeting. We have agreed that this meeting will take place at the Oval Office on Friday, November 21st,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
Mamdani spokesperson Dora Pekec said the mayor and president would discuss public safety, economic security and “the affordability agenda that over one million New Yorkers voted for just two weeks ago.”
On Monday, Mamdani told reporters he reached out to the White House to set up a meeting with Trump to discuss affordability, a central tenant of his campaign. In an interview on MS NOW Friday evening, Mamdani said he plans to remind the president of his campaign pledge to lower costs.
“I want to just speak plainly to the president about what it means to actually stand up for New Yorkers, and the way in which New Yorkers are struggling to afford this city,” Mamdani added.
Mamdani still requires a top-level security clearance from the federal government before he takes office, and the president has a history of restricting security clearances of his political opponents.