Mayor Zohran Mamdani is back in New York City on Friday, a day after a quick jaunt to the White House for a previously undisclosed meeting with President Donald Trump in Washington, D.C.
Mamdani is scheduled to announce the opening of a cultural and educational center in Brooklyn around 11:30 a.m. Friday. His administration says he’ll take questions after.
The mayor will likely face queries about the furtiveness of that meeting with Trump, the housing development they discussed, and at least one topic stoking tension in the city: The detention of a Columbia University by federal immigration officers. He may also be asked about the snowball fight again, with an arrest made.
The mayor’s press secretary said Mamdani had set up the meeting before Trump’s State of the Union address on Tuesday, looking to discuss plans to build new housing in NYC. The president used that annual national address in part to poke fun at Mamdani, but also to say they talk often and that he’s a “nice guy.”
Mamdani also talked to the president about the detention of Columbia University student Elmina Aghayeva by DHS agents Thursday morning inside her university housing. In the afternoon after the meeting, Mamdani said Trump had called him to let him know Aghayeva would be released.
The detention of Aghayeva has stoked controversy across the city. Columbia’s acting president has said DHS agents misrepresented themselves as police searching for a missing child to gain access to the building.
NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani and President Donald Trump pose for photo in Oval Office on Thursday, Feb. 26.
A DHS official refuted any allegations the agents were misleading in order to gain access to the residential building. A previous statement from a DHS official said the agents “did not and would not identify themselves as NYPD.” The school says there’s video of them showing the photo of the child to people in the hallway.
The mayor also brought up the cases of four other Columbia students who had been detained as well.
The White House didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.