{"id":492641,"date":"2026-02-27T01:00:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-27T01:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/492641\/"},"modified":"2026-02-27T01:00:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T01:00:08","slug":"mamdani-pitches-trump-on-housing-in-latest-white-house-visit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/492641\/","title":{"rendered":"Mamdani pitches Trump on housing in latest White House visit"},"content":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani presented President Donald Trump<\/a> with a mock newspaper front page<\/a> during a visit to the White House on Thursday to discuss massive new housing investments in the city.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a tactic designed to appeal to Trump, who is keenly aware of his media coverage and, aside from being an avid viewer of cable news, is known to voraciously consume coverage in the local New York City publications. The Republican president and Democratic mayor have maintained a cordial relationship since their first meeting<\/a> last fall.<\/p>\n

Anna Bahr, Mamdani\u2019s communications director, said the mayor\u2019s team created a mock front page and headlines for Trump to look at and demonstrate what kind of reaction new federal housing investments could bring. The mock New York Daily News front page says \u201cTrump to City: Let\u2019s Build\u201d \u2014 a riff on the famous 1975 cover that read \u201cFord to City: Drop Dead,\u201d referring to Gerald Ford\u2019s vow to veto financial assistance to the city.<\/p>\n

The mayor posted the photo of their meeting, featuring the front pages, to his social media page. <\/p>\n

Mamdani\u2019s office declined to elaborate on the mayor\u2019s housing proposal, but Bahr said Trump was \u201cvery enthusiastic\u201d about it. When Trump and Mamdani last met in November<\/a>, the president encouraged Mamdani to return to him with an idea to build big things together in New York City, Bahr said.<\/p>\n

Though Trump repeatedly maligned Mamdani as a \u201ccommunist\u201d as he ran for New York City mayor, the president appeared charmed by him after their one-on-one meeting at the White House in November.<\/p>\n

At the meeting on Thursday \u2013 which was previously unannounced and lasted for about an hour \u2013 Mamdani also brought up the detainment of Ellie Aghayeva, a Columbia University student from Azerbaijan who was arrested earlier Thursday<\/a> by federal immigration agents.<\/p>\n

The agents had accessed a campus residence by claiming they were searching for a \u201cmissing person,\u201d according to Aghayeva\u2019s attorneys and Columbia\u2019s president. As he met with Trump, Mamdani urged Trump to consider releasing her.<\/p>\n

In a phone call not long after their White House meeting, Trump told the mayor that Aghayeva would be released. Mamdani also gave White House chief of staff Susie Wiles a list of four other students targeted by federal authorities and asked for the administration\u2019s help with them. <\/p>\n

The four students are Mahmoud Khalil, Yunseo Chung, Mohsen Mahdawi and Leqaa Kordia, who were all detained for their roles in pro-Palestinian protests. Of the four, only Kordia remains in custody<\/a>, although all cases are proceeding through the courts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani presented President Donald Trump with a mock newspaper front…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":492642,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,225719,3505,12,1301,793,3502,27460,2005,1999,3,111,5854,21,19,22,20,25,24,800,10766],"class_list":{"0":"post-492641","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-anna-bahr","10":"tag-district-of-columbia","11":"tag-donald-trump","12":"tag-ford-motor-co","13":"tag-general-news","14":"tag-gerald-ford","15":"tag-mahmoud-khalil","16":"tag-new-york","17":"tag-new-york-city","18":"tag-news","19":"tag-politics","20":"tag-susie-wiles","21":"tag-united-states","22":"tag-united-states-of-america","23":"tag-unitedstates","24":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","25":"tag-us","26":"tag-usa","27":"tag-washington-news","28":"tag-zohran-mamdani"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/492641","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=492641"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/492641\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/492642"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=492641"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=492641"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=492641"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}