Mayor Zohran Mamdani and former President Barack Obama visited an early childhood education center in the South Bronx on Saturday.<\/p>\n
As the two leaders entered the pre-K classroom, a group of 19 students dressed in blue and plaid school uniforms let out squeals upon seeing Mamdani. Their teachers, who knew the mayor was coming but not his special guest, gasped at the sight of the 44th president of the United States.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy name\u2019s Barack,\u201d the president said, introducing himself to the children. As the two men took seats in front of the kids, the children started shouting out their own names, and with one boy shouting out, \u201cI know who you are, you are Mamdani.\u201d<\/p>\n
During the event, which was first reported by Politico<\/a>, Mamdani and Obama read to the students and joined them in a rousing rendition of the \u201cWheels of the Bus.\u201d Before meeting with the children, they discussed Mamdani’s affordability-focused vision for the city \u2014 including universal child care<\/a>, according to the mayor<\/a>.<\/p>\n Obama and Mamdani did not take questions.<\/p>\n This marks their first face-to-face meeting and comes months after Obama called<\/a> Mamdani just before Election Day in November. The former president praised Mamdani’s campaign and offered to be a sounding board if he won the election. During the Bronx event, there was also a clear chemistry between Mamdani and Obama, who interacted with the children and teased each other with ease.<\/p>\n The meeting also comes as Mamdani navigates his relationship with the current Republican president. Relations between the mayor and President Donald Trump had been surprisingly friendly<\/a> since Mamdani\u2019s election. But on Thursday, Trump accused<\/a> Mamdani of “destroying New York” after news of a proposal for a pied-a-terre tax<\/a> on the ultra-rich.<\/p>\n Mamdani and Obama read the book \u201cAlone and Together,\u201d written by \u00c9milie Chazerand and illustrated by Amandine Piu. The story focuses on the power of community and how people are stronger when they work together, a message that seemed picked especially for Obama, a one-time community organizer, and Mamdani, a democratic socialist, who traded lines page by page as they read.<\/p>\n After reading, it was time for a sing-along.<\/p>\n \u201c\u200aI’m gonna ask my friend, the president, to also join me in this,\u201d Mamdani said before singing.<\/p>\n \u201cWho\u2019s the president?\u201d Obama asked the kids, most of whom were not alive when he was in office. \u201cI am!\u201d one shouted. \u201cHe is, Mamdani,\u201d another said, triggering an eruption of tiny giggles from the children.<\/p>\n As he departed the classroom, Obama shook hands with all the teachers and staff in the room, and stopped to greet the young son of one of the reporters covering the event.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is what we need,\u201d Obama said while leaving the classroom, \u201cmaking an investment in these amazing kids.\u201d<\/p>\n Obama\u2019s appearance in the Bronx was a tightly kept secret. Neither the teachers at the school nor the parents of the children, who were in a separate room, knew he would be there with the mayor.<\/p>\n After Mamdani and Obama left the children\u2019s classroom, they went to greet the parents. Another set of screams could be heard across the hall.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mayor Zohran Mamdani and former President Barack Obama visited an early childhood education center in the South Bronx…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":202167,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[128,9,24,63,129,131,130],"class_list":{"0":"post-202166","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-the-bronx","8":"tag-bronx","9":"tag-new-york","10":"tag-new-york-city","11":"tag-nyc","12":"tag-the-bronx","13":"tag-the-bronx-headlines","14":"tag-the-bronx-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202166","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=202166"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202166\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/202167"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=202166"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=202166"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=202166"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}