Name: Trump meets with Mamdani at White House
Uploaded: 2025-11-21T23:46:19.146Z
Duration: 3 min 38 s
Description: President Donald Trump hosted New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani at the White House on Friday. CBS News political reporter Zak Hudak has the details.

President Donald Trump hosted New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani at the White House on Friday. CBS News political reporter Zak Hudak has the details.

Washington

President Trump and New York City Mayor-elect Zoran Mamdani met in the Oval Office for a discussion centered on making New York City more affordable for its residents. Both leaders expressed mutual respect and a willingness to collaborate, despite President Trump having previously urged voters not to support Mamdani in the mayoral election.

The meeting, described as productive, addressed issues such as rent, groceries, and utilities, with both parties emphasizing the importance of affordability for New Yorkers. Political analysts noted the surprising civility of the meeting and highlighted the shared populist appeal of both Trump and Mamdani, while also acknowledging ongoing political tensions ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.

Trump meets with Mamdani at White House

You're watching CBS News 24-7 and quite an extraordinary meeting in the Oval Office between President Trump and New York City Mayor-elect Zoran Mamdani. They were both very complimentary, as you heard, very civil. And this comes just weeks after the president urged voters not to vote for him in New York City's mayoral election. The president expressed hope for Mamdani's tenure as mayor. Listen. I feel very confident that he can do a very good job. I think he's going to be, I think he is going to surprise some conservative people, actually. And some very liberal people, he won't surprise them because they already like him. Mamdani as well. Also very complimentary of Trump about their meeting this afternoon. I appreciated the meeting with the president and as he said, it was a productive meeting focused on a place of shared admiration and love, which is New York City and the need to deliver affordability to New Yorkers. Eight and a half million people who call our city their home, who are struggling to afford life in the most expensive city in the United States of America. We spoke about rent, we spoke about groceries, we spoke about utilities, we spoke about the different ways in which people are being pushed out and I appreciated the time with the president. I appreciated the conversation. I look forward to working together to deliver that affordability for New Yorkers. CBS News political reporter Zach Kodak joining us live now. Zach, a lot of eyes on this conversation, on this meeting. You know, quite a different tone before this election. The president really now giving his stamp of approval for Mamdani. The two of them having a conversation, if you will, as opposed to prior to the election. Your thoughts and take on this? Well, Jules, I think it was somewhat of a surprise to all of us to see how well they were getting along. But I think at the heart of that is what they said they talked about before they let the cameras in, which is making New York affordable for New Yorkers. And I think really what that illustrates is the fine line between the far right campaign that President Trump ran and the far left democratic socialist campaign that Mamdani ran. We saw this even in the past with a lot of similarities between President Trump's campaigns and Bernie Sanders's campaigns. I think the reality here is that while they are on different ends of the political spectrum, they are both populists and they both realize that what Americans care about most right now, and we continue to see this in the polling that we keep doing, is affordability and bringing prices down for Americans and helping everyday Americans. I think the other thing that played a factor in the two of them getting along so well is they are both extremely charismatic politicians. I think both of them, a lot of their political strength comes from their ability to captivate a crowd. And I think they recognize that in one another and they recognize that there are ways that they could actually help one another. Now, there are some difficulties here. We know that House Republicans, for the most part, are gearing up to run in 2026 in the midterms, largely against Mamdani. They plan to paint their opponents as connected to this democratic socialist who is the mayor or going to be the mayor of the largest city in the country. That does create, obviously, a tension between the way that President Trump is talking about them. We saw one of the questions from the press was about Elise Stefanik being very harsh on Mamdani, calling him a jihadist. And President Trump sort of batted that down and said he seems like a very reasonable guy, but she's out campaigning and sometimes you say things when you're campaigning. So I think this wasn't quite what anyone expected, but there are explanations for it. And it seems that there is a bit of a budding bromance between these two.

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