{"id":276032,"date":"2025-11-21T20:29:07","date_gmt":"2025-11-21T20:29:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/276032\/"},"modified":"2025-11-21T20:29:07","modified_gmt":"2025-11-21T20:29:07","slug":"trump-and-mamdani-to-have-first-face-to-face-meeting-at-the-white-house-donald-trump","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/276032\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump and Mamdani to have first face-to-face meeting at the White House | Donald Trump"},"content":{"rendered":"

Donald Trump<\/a> and Zohran Mamdani<\/a>, the New York City<\/a> mayor-elect, are scheduled to meet at the White House this afternoon in an encounter between two ideologically opposed leaders with conflicting visions for the nation\u2019s largest city.<\/p>\n

The meeting marks the first face-to-face discussion between the combative Republican president and the defiant democratic socialist who secured a commanding electoral victory last month with over 50% of the vote. The meeting comes after months of back and forth, with Trump only recently having called Mamdani a \u201ccommunist lunatic\u201d while the incoming mayor has pledged to \u201cTrump-proof\u201d New York<\/a> City and accused the administration of pursuing policies designed to punish the metropolis.<\/p>\n

Ahead of the meeting on Friday, Trump went on Fox Radio and to say Mamdani ran \u201ca good race\u201d and that he thinks \u201cwe\u2019ll get along fine.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are looking for the same thing, we want to make New York strong and, you know, there\u2019s such a different philosophy,\u201d Trump said.<\/p>\n

For Mamdani, a leftwing state assemblymember until his shock primary victory, the sit-down presents an early test of his ability to negotiate with a president who controls vast federal resources that the city depends upon. Mamdani\u2019s team made the first move<\/a> in reaching out for a meeting, all while Trump earlier threatened to withhold federal funding from New York if Mamdani took office, though he has since suggested a more conciliatory posture, telling Fox News<\/a>: \u201cI\u2019m so torn, because I would like to see the new mayor do well, because I love New York.\u201d<\/p>\n

The administration has deployed multiple pressure tactics ahead of the meeting. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials have signaled plans <\/a>to escalate operations in New York City, while a number of rightwing congressional Republicans suggested investigating whether Mamdani\u2019s citizenship is valid, despite his naturalization in 2018 after immigrating from Uganda as a child.<\/p>\n

Mamdani\u2019s team spent Thursday preparing for the encounter through calls with Kathy Hochul, New York\u2019s governor, Chuck Schumer, the Senate minority leader, Hakeem Jeffries, the House minority leader, and the civil rights leader Al Sharpton to strategize the approach. He also spoke with<\/a> Robert Wolf, the former chief executive of UBS Americas and a known ally of Barack Obama.<\/p>\n

When asked on Thursday whether he feared receiving hostile treatment similar to the contentious Oval Office meeting between Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Ukraine\u2019s president, earlier this year \u2013 where Trump accused Zelenskyy of \u201cgambling with world war III\u201d \u2013 Mamdani brushed aside concerns. \u201cI\u2019ll stand up for New Yorkers every single day,\u201d he replied.<\/p>\n

skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n

Sign up to This Week in Trumpland<\/p>\n

A deep dive into the policies, controversies and oddities surrounding the Trump administration<\/p>\n

Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com<\/a> to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy<\/a>. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/p>\n

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on who else will be present for the meeting.<\/p>\n

The incoming mayor has framed the meeting as an opportunity to advance his central campaign platform: making New York more affordable. His promises include free public buses, government-run grocery stores, rent freezes for more than 1m stabilized units, and the city\u2019s first universal childcare program.<\/p>\n

\u201cI view this meeting as an opportunity for me to make my case,\u201d Mamdani said on Thursday. \u201cIt behooves me to ensure that I leave no stone unturned in looking to make this city more affordable.\u201d<\/p>\n

Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, similarly said Trump\u2019s willingness to meet was evidence of his openness to dialogue across political divides.<\/p>\n

\u201cPresident Trump is willing to meet with anyone and talk to anyone and to try to do what\u2019s right on behalf of the American people, whether they live in blue states or red states, or blue cities,\u201d Leavitt said.<\/p>\n

But the underlying tensions are not subtle. Trump got directly involved in the mayoral election, dismissing the candidate from his own party, Curtis Sliwa, as a lightweight and instead endorsing Andrew Cuomo, the Independent, formerly Democratic governor, while branding Mamdani a \u201clittle communist\u201d. The Trump administration<\/a> also yanked federal aid for critical infrastructure projects \u2013 including the Gateway Tunnel between New York and New Jersey and the Second Avenue subway line \u2013 during budget negotiations.<\/p>\n

Among New York voters, Trump garnered only 27% approval compared with 70% disapproval in CNN\u2019s exit polling<\/a> from the mayoral election. However, 10% of Trump\u2019s 2024 voters also cast ballots for Mamdani, suggesting there is indeed overlap in their populist economic messaging, despite their vast ideological differences.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Donald Trump and Zohran Mamdani, the New York City mayor-elect, are scheduled to meet at the White House…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":276033,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":{"0":"post-276032","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276032","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=276032"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276032\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/276033"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=276032"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=276032"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=276032"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}