Trump, Mamdani White House meeting more cordial than past Oval Office gatherings with president's political foes

Once upon a time — just in the past months — President Donald Trump called Zohran Mamdani "down and dirty," "my little communist mayor," an antisemite, and "a radical left lunatic" who "looks TERRIBLE." Trump threatened to arrest and deport him and withhold federal funding from New York City and seize control if Mamdani were elected.

Mamdani, 34 and now the mayor-elect, had described himself as Trump’s "worst nightmare" and threatened to "fight him every step up the way," branding the president a fascist, a "despot" who is waging "a war on working people" and "an attack on our democracy."

But on Friday, in a remarkable first meeting between the two at the White House, the men lavished praise on each other, vowed to work to make society more affordable, and Trump even jokingly shrugged off Mamdani’s earlier invective.

When Mamdani was asked whether he stands by his remarks about Trump as a fascist, Trump interrupted before Mamdani could utter more than a few words.

"That’s OK. You could just say yes," Trump said.

"OK," Mamdani said. "Alright."

"It’s easier than explaining. I don’t mind." He added at another point: "I've been called much worse than a despot."

The meeting — long anticipated as the first test of relative upstart Mamdani’s political acumen — was a striking contrast between notable past meetings in the Oval Office involving Trump and his political foes.

Those did not go well.

This fall, in the run-up to the government shut down, Trump was presiding over a meeting with congressional leadership when red "Trump 2028” hats materialized on the president’s desk, infuriating House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries, who was in attendance.

Trump had also trolled Jeffries and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer by posting a vulgar deepfake video of the men in sombreros.

In February, a shouting match erupted in that same office as Trump berated Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the Ukrainian president, who was essentially kicked out of the White House, underscoring the difficult relationship between the U.S. and Ukraine under Trump.

"You don’t have the cards right now. With us, you start having cards," Trump said.

"I’m not playing cards," Zelensky said.

And in 2018, a negotiation meeting with Schumer, Nancy Pelosi and Trump devolved into what The Guardian called "a custard pie fight from a Laurel and Hardy comedy," with Schumer calling Trump a liar and Trump saying he’d be "proud" to shut down the government.

What happened on Friday, at least in the first meeting, was the opposite of what Mamdani foe Andrew Cuomo, who Trump endorsed for mayor, had predicted for the relationship. 

"He thinks he’s a kid, and he’s going to knock him on his tuchus," Cuomo said last month. Trump versus Mamdani, Cuomo said, would be like a "hot knife through butter."

Cuomo spokesman Rich Azzopardi didn’t respond to a text seeking comment.

Political consultant Chris Coffey, CEO of Tusk Strategies and a onetime informal adviser to Cuomo’s mayoral bid, described the Trump-Mamdani meeting as a "love fest."

That approach benefits both men, Coffey said, noting that Democrats did well in the 2025 elections, not just with Mamdani but in New Jersey, Virginia and Pennsylvania. The government shutdown and the imminent Epstein files’ release also are potential "reasons why the president is looking to appear magnanimous, bipartisan, whatever the right word is."

"The president may want to appear that he’s trying to work with the mayor-elect," Coffey said, "and the mayor-elect certainly wants to go and talk about his affordability agenda and advocate for New York. He needs Washington, D.C."

Presidential transition expert and professor Heath Brown of John Jay College, City University of New York, noted what happened in 2021 during Eric Adams' transition when he was in Washington, D.C. at the White House.

"Today’s press conference is a remarkable contrast with the last transition in NYC when mayor-elect Eric Adams left a White House event without meeting with President Biden."