{"id":202633,"date":"2026-04-19T16:18:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-19T16:18:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/202633\/"},"modified":"2026-04-19T16:18:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-19T16:18:09","slug":"obama-and-mamdani-sing-to-nyc-children-in-first-public-meeting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/202633\/","title":{"rendered":"Obama and Mamdani sing to NYC children in first public meeting"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former President Barack Obama<\/a> offered tacit approval of Mayor Zohran Mamdani<\/a>\u2018s agenda over the weekend as the two men met for the first time at a Bronx child care center.\u00a0<\/p>\n

After having a private conversation, the two men led a sing-along<\/a> with children, performing the \u201cWheels on the Bus\u201d at the Learning Through Play Pre-K Center in the South Bronx and reading the book Alone and Together. The connection between the two men, viewed as two of the Democratic Party\u2019s most influential leaders, comes after the former president called Mamdani and offered to be a sounding board for him, according to the Associated Press<\/a>. They spoke<\/a> on the phone in November, days before Mamdani became the first Democratic socialist to sit in City Hall.<\/p>\n

At one point on Saturday, Obama asked the children if they knew the name of the current president. \u201cMamdani,\u201d some of the kids replied, sparking laughter. Another light-hearted moment played out <\/a>when Obama asked kids if they knew what Mamdani\u2019s first name was and they said \u201cmayor.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is what we need, making an investment in these amazing kids,\u201d Obama told reporters as he and Mamdani left the center. \u201cThank you for the good work, everybody who\u2019s doing this terrific program.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Limited details were available about their high-profile meeting on Saturday, as the pair did not take questions from reporters and the event was not open to the press, sparking some criticism from local Republicans.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Councilwoman Joann Ariola said City Hall\u2019s selective release of information is \u201cright out of the communist dictator playbook,\u201d according to<\/a> the New York Post.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cA mayor should be welcoming coverage by the free press when doing something as big as meeting with a former president,\u201d she said. \u201cInstead, we\u2019re seeing access restricted so that the party\u2019s message is amplified and opposing voices are removed from the conversation.\u00a0<\/p>\n

MAMDANI SAYS HE KEEPS \u2018IN TOUCH\u2019 WITH TRUMP IN SPITE OF DISAGREEMENTS<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a slap in the face to journalists everywhere and sends a clear message: spread Dear Leader\u2019s propaganda, or you don\u2019t get a seat at Mamdani\u2019s table,\u201d Ariola continued. \u201cUnless he believes that walling himself off with a team of zealots and providing limited access to hand-picked reporters for propaganda pieces is fair and open government administration, he\u2019s been about as transparent as London fog.\u201d<\/p>\n

The meeting came shortly after Mamdani marked his 100th day in office. The mayor\u2019s office said <\/a>the two men discussed Mamdani\u2019s \u201cvision for the City\u2014on where New York\u2019s Cutest have the strongest start possible.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former President Barack Obama offered tacit approval of Mayor Zohran Mamdani\u2018s agenda over the weekend as the two…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":202634,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[12674,4207,1442,9,24,56,63,65,64,57331,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-202633","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-city","8":"tag-barack-obama","9":"tag-children","10":"tag-mayors","11":"tag-new-york","12":"tag-new-york-city","13":"tag-ny","14":"tag-nyc","15":"tag-nyc-headlines","16":"tag-nyc-news","17":"tag-presidents","18":"tag-zohran-mamdani"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202633","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=202633"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202633\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/202634"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=202633"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=202633"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=202633"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}