{"id":177806,"date":"2026-04-28T01:59:28","date_gmt":"2026-04-28T01:59:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/177806\/"},"modified":"2026-04-28T01:59:28","modified_gmt":"2026-04-28T01:59:28","slug":"obama-meets-mamdani-in-new-york-city-before-reading-to-preschoolers-22","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/177806\/","title":{"rendered":"Obama meets Mamdani in New York City before reading to preschoolers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>            <img decoding=\"async\" class=\"image w-100\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/1777341565_368_.jpeg\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Former President Barack Obama, left, and Mayor Zohran Mamdani read a book to children at Learning Through Play Pre-K in New York, on Saturday, April 18, 2026. (AP Photo\/Angelina Katsanis)<\/p>\n<p>                <img decoding=\"async\" class=\"image\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/1777341565_541_.jpeg\" loading=\"lazy\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"article__body\">Former President <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/obama-advisers-oral-history-trump-birther-election-22bd340572d82a58e4bddc5cd395e585\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Barack Obama<\/a> met with New York Mayor <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/zohran-mamdani-nyc-mayor-100-days-4588280d3f2cc5b369ff0ddcf3dbf29e\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Zohran Mamdani<\/a> for the first time on Saturday at a child care center where they read to preschoolers and led a singalong.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article__body\">The meeting comes as Mamdani, a democratic socialist, is also trying to build a working relationship with Republican President Donald Trump. The meeting comes just over a week after Mamdani marked his <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/zohran-mamdani-nyc-mayor-100-days-5411518e2a474dc390d6095b436f8616\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">100th day in office<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article__body\">Obama and Mamdani did not take questions after reading the book \u201cAlone and Together\u201d to the children and leading a singalong of \u201cThe Wheels on the Bus.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"article__body\">The former two-term president and standard-bearer for the Democratic Party has offered to be a <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/uganda-zohran-mamdani-mayor-election-new-york-d41260eeef2438498a3aa04118fbd2df\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">sounding board<\/a> for Mamdani, 34, whose star power, youth and progressive agenda has made him stand out in Democratic politics.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article__body\">Mamdani <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/nyc-zohran-mamdani-cuomo-mayor-primary-vote-c398b33fe7304287596d64582d326988\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">took office<\/a> in January after a campaign centered on making New York City a more affordable place to live, centering his agenda on refocusing the vast power of government toward helping the city\u2019s struggling working class.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article__body\">Mamdani&#8217;s meeting with Obama comes after he has already <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/donald-trump-zohran-mamdani-new-york-housing-3835daca395dbe46c2f3da2433ec24f4\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">met twice with Trump<\/a> at the White House in November and February to discuss issues affecting New York City.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article__body\">Despite those friendly meetings, their relationship has shown signs of strain recently, with Trump posting on Truth Social Thursday that Mamdani was \u201cDESTROYING New York\u201d with his taxing policies and threatened to pull federal funding for the city.<\/p>\n<p>            <img decoding=\"async\" class=\"image w-100\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/1777341566_318_.jpeg\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Former President Barack Obama and Mayor Zohran Mamdani sing &#8220;Wheels on the Bus&#8221; to children at Learning Through Play Pre-K in New York, Saturday, April 18, 2026. (AP Photo\/Angelina Katsanis)<\/p>\n<p>                <img decoding=\"async\" class=\"image\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/1777341567_435_.jpeg\" loading=\"lazy\"\/><\/p>\n<p>            <img decoding=\"async\" class=\"image w-100\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/1777341567_848_.jpeg\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Former President Barack Obama and Mayor Zohran Mamdani sing &#8220;Wheels on the Bus&#8221; to children at Learning Through Play Pre-K in the Bronx in New York, Saturday, April 18, 2026. (AP Photo\/Angelina Katsanis)<\/p>\n<p>                <img decoding=\"async\" class=\"image\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/1777341568_153_.jpeg\" loading=\"lazy\"\/><\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t Copy article link\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former President Barack Obama, left, and Mayor Zohran Mamdani read a book to children at Learning Through Play&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":175700,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[128,130,129],"class_list":["post-177806","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-reading","tag-reading-city","tag-reading-city-headlines","tag-reading-city-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177806","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=177806"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177806\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/175700"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=177806"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=177806"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=177806"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}