New York Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani said Monday that he reached out to the White House to arrange a meeting with President Donald Trump, signaling a cooling of tensions between the two leaders after months of harsh rhetoric.
“My team reached out to the White House to fulfill a commitment I made to New Yorkers over the course of this campaign,” Mamdani told reporters at a food pantry in the Bronx, adding that the proposed meeting was part of a pledge to voters to “address the affordability crisis that is pushing so many of them out of the city.”
“We are seeing his actions and that of his administration in Washington leading to the exact opposite effect for New Yorkers, and I will go to make the case to the president and to anyone, frankly, that these are the kinds of things we need to change if we want to make it easier for New Yorkers and for Americans to afford the day-to-day necessities of their life,” Mamdani said.
Mamdani told NBC New York in an interview last week that would be “reaching out to the White House as we prepare to actually take office because this is a relationship that will be critical to the success of the city.”
Trump told reporters Sunday that Mamdani “would like to meet with us, and we’ll work something out.”
“He would like to come to Washington and meet,” Trump said. “We want to see everything work out well for New York.”
The White House didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment Monday night on the specifics of a meeting.
Trump, who endorsed former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who ran for mayor as an independent, has repeatedly referred to Mamdani, a self-described democratic socialist, as a “communist.”
During his mayoral campaign, Mamdani presented himself as a candidate who would put up the strongest opposition to Trump and focused his platform on lowering rising costs for New Yorkers, including costs for child care, housing, groceries and transportation.
An NBC News national poll released this month found that roughly two-thirds of registered voters think Trump hasn’t fulfilled campaign promises tied to the economy and costs of living.
Trump has largely dismissed those concerns by voters. Asked in a Fox News interview last week about people who are anxious about the economy, Trump said, “I don’t know what they are saying.”
He then added: “I think polls are fake. We have the greatest economy we’ve ever had.”
Trump continued to tout the economy while mentioning costs in remarks at an event for McDonald’s franchise owners Monday night, saying his administration would “pioneer new heights of prosperity.”
“We’re looking at affordability. We’re going to bring it down for everybody, because not everybody understands the fact that a great stock market is great for everybody,” he said.
