{"id":359587,"date":"2026-09-29T07:24:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-29T07:24:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/359587\/"},"modified":"2026-09-29T07:24:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-29T07:24:09","slug":"mayor-zohran-mamdani-refuses-jimmy-kimmels-request-to-text-trump-a-selfie-of-them","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/359587\/","title":{"rendered":"Mayor Zohran Mamdani Refuses Jimmy Kimmel’s Request to Text Trump a Selfie of Them"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\t\u201cJimmy Kimmel Live\u201d<\/a> is back in Brooklyn<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe late-night show has returned to the New York City borough for a week of shows at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. It\u2019s Kimmel\u2019s eighth time filming \u201cLive\u201d in Brooklyn, the place he was born and spent his early years, and the comic is welcoming a number of heavy-hitting guests to his couch, from Howard Stern and Billy Crystal to Paul McCartney and Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-VT). He said the show received over 150,000 ticket requests, and kicked off his Brooklyn week with guests Pete Davidson<\/a> and Mayor Zohran Mamdani<\/a>, as well as a musical performance by TV on the Radio, celebrating the 20th anniversary of their celebrated album \u201cReturn to Cookie Mountain.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWhile there weren\u2019t any stories involving an Oscar-winning actor exposing himself to Kimmel in a bathroom<\/a>, the host was heckled by Matt Damon<\/a> in a Boston Red Sox cap \u2014 on the eve of the Yankees\/Red Sox AL Wild Card Series \u2014 who was joined by Kimmel\u2019s mother and sister, and Jon Hamm<\/a>, cosplaying as an angry New York City construction worker. After his sit-down interview with Davidson, who was promoting his Netflix video podcast \u201cThe Pete Davidson Show\u201d and upcoming film \u201cHow to Rob a Bank,\u201d Kimmel welcomed Mayor Mamdani to the stage. He prefaced his arrival with a montage of clips of Fox News talking heads predicting that New York City would become \u201cterrifying\u201d under Mamdani and crime would go \u201cthrough the roof.\u201d That proved to be wrong, as murders and shootings in the city hit record lows in Mamdani\u2019s first seven months.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cAnother thing that is very unexpected is this relationship that you have with President Trump, which seems to be a very friendly relationship,\u201d Kimmel said, adding, \u201cDid you guys hit it off immediately or is it something that you really went into thinking, \u2018OK, I need to have a relationship with the president of the United States, and I think the best way to do it is to charm him.\u2019 How did you do that, and can you help me?\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tMamdani laughed. \u201cSorry brother,\u201d he replied. \u201cThe president and I have many disagreements. One thing we do agree on is this city, how much we love this city, so from that first meeting in November of last year, I was just thinking of how we can make this meeting not about us, but about New Yorkers. How can we spend that time talking about the things that can make life in the city a little bit easier.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tKimmel then threw to a video clip of Mamdani standing next to Trump at Gracie Mansion as the president gave a rambling speech, with the camera pressing in on Mamdani as he stood there stone-faced. \u201cI mean, it is remarkable,\u201d offered Kimmel. \u201cI watch that, and I go, \u2018OK, this is not a guy I\u2019d want to play poker with.\u2019\u201d Mamdani said that while Trump is speaking, he\u2019s only focused on getting federal approval for his proposed Sunnyside Yard project, a development in Queens that would feature an estimated 12,000 new homes and create approximately 30,000 jobs.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cYou text with the president, I\u2019ve read?\u201d Kimmel pressed further.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cFrom time to time we\u2019re in communication, and it\u2019s about Sunnyside Yard, and it\u2019s about how we can deliver for the city,\u201d replied Mamdani. \u201cOne of the other things the president mentioned that we spoke about, that I care very deeply about, is Haitian New Yorkers. They\u2019ve had their Protected Status ended, and I really believe we need to do whatever we can so they have stability. They\u2019re part of the fabric of this city.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tKimmel then asked if they could text Trump \u201ca selfie of us right now,\u201d only to have Mamdani shut him down: \u201cJimmy, I love you, but I love housing more.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cJimmy Kimmel Live\u201d is back in Brooklyn. The late-night show has returned to the New York City borough…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":359588,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[98,153,5520,5521,133773,46540,9,24,55,54,56,9374,82],"class_list":["post-359587","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-brooklyn","tag-donald-trump","tag-jimmy-kimmel","tag-jimmy-kimmel-live","tag-jon-hamm","tag-matt-damon","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-city-headlines","tag-new-york-city-news","tag-ny","tag-pete-davidson","tag-zohran-mamdani"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/359587","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=359587"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/359587\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/359588"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=359587"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=359587"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=359587"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}