Mamdani and Trump to meet Friday at the White House: What to expect

New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani is heading to the White House on Friday to meet with President Trump in one of the most eagerly anticipated Oval Office summits in recent memory.

Mamdani, a 34-year-old Democrat affiliated with the Democratic Socialists of America, is New York’s youngest leader in more than a century, and arguably its most progressive. He has been sharply critical of the president, calling himself “Donald Trump’s worst nightmare” and claiming in his Nov. 5 victory speech that “if anyone can show a nation betrayed by Donald Trump how to defeat him, it is the city that gave rise to him.”

Mamdani also referred to Trump, 79, as “a despot” in his remarks.

In turn, the president has called his hometown’s incoming mayor “a 100% Communist lunatic” and alluded to false claims that Mamdani is in the country “illegally” while also threatening to “arrest” him if he ever pushes back against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents.

(Mamdani is here legally; he was born in Uganda, moved to the U.S. at the age of 7 and became a naturalized American citizen in 2018. He is not a communist.)

“He looks TERRIBLE, his voice is grating, he’s not very smart,” Trump added in a Truth Social post shortly after Mamdani declared victory last month. Elsewhere, the president has asserted that he is “a much better looking person” than the mayor-elect.

Despite all their prior back-and-forth, Mamdani and Trump are unlikely to spend Friday’s meeting insulting each other. On Monday, Mamdani told reporters that he had requested the sit-down in order to discuss policy — specifically, the “affordability crisis that is pushing so many [New Yorkers] out of the city.” A Mamdani spokesperson later said that the two leaders would discuss “public safety” and “economic security” as well.

Elsewhere, Mamdani has described such meetings as “customary … given the mutual reliance” between New York and Washington, D.C., calling it a “relationship that will be critical to the success of the city.”

For his part, Trump said on Sunday that “we want to see everything work out well for New York.” And the New York Times reported last month that Trump had privately praised Mamdani “as a talented politician, calling him slick and a good talker,” citing “two people who discussed the president’s comments on condition of anonymity.”

Still, tensions will likely run high on Friday. Right before Election Day, Trump tried to torpedo Mamdani’s campaign by endorsing the independent candidacy of former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a lifelong Democrat. Then Trump threatened — if Mamdani won — to withhold from the city federal money “other than the very minimum as required.” (The law prohibits the president from blocking spending that Congress has authorized, with only narrow exceptions.)

Trump also continued to falsely refer to Mamdani as the “Communist Mayor of New York City” when announcing the meeting on social media earlier this week — making sure to include Mamdani’s West African middle name, “Kwame,” as well.

Whether Trump actually tries to meddle with federal health care, transportation and law enforcement funding for New York remains to be seen. But Mamdani has said he is ready to fight back if necessary (in part by hiring 200 additional lawyers to the city’s law department to counter what his campaign described as “presidential excess”).

“So Donald Trump, since I know you’re watching, I have four words for you: ‘Turn the volume up,’” Mamdani said in his victory speech. “To get to any of us, you will have to get through all of us.”

Lowering the cost of living was the common thread in all of 2025’s marquee Democratic election victories — a result that suggests voters aren’t happy with the president’s economic leadership. A Yahoo/YouGov poll conducted shortly before Election Day showed that 60% of Americans disapprove of how Trump is handling the economy, while just 33% approve. It was the president’s most negative rating to date.

Seeking to stay on top of the issue, Mamdani has proposed a slate of ambitious policies to lower the cost of living in New York: creating a network of government-owned grocery stores that aim to keep prices low rather than make a profit; freezing rent for lower-income tenants; permanently eliminating the fares on public buses; implementing free child care for all children ages 6 weeks to 5 years; raising the minimum wage to $30 by 2030; and increasing taxes on corporations and millionaires to pay for his plans.

Trump is unlikely to suddenly back Mamdani’s agenda after Friday’s meeting; earlier, he claimed on social media that ideas like Mamdani’s “have been tested for over a thousand years, and never once have they been successful.”

But both leaders will head into the Oval Office with a similar goal: to show their supporters that they can actually deliver on affordability. And for Mamdani, that means figuring out when to cooperate with Trump and when to challenge him.

“I will work with the president if he wants to work together to deliver on his campaign promises of cheaper groceries or a lower cost of living,” the mayor-elect told NY1 earlier this year. “If the president looks to come after the people of this city, then I will be there standing up for them every step of the way.”