SOME US media comments calling President Donald J. Trump’s meeting with New York City’s mayor-elect Zohran K. Mamdani a ‘bromance’ may be exaggerated, but who’d have predicted that the Oval Office encounter would turn out to be so amicable that it astounded both the Republican Party rank and file and, possibly, even the top guns of the Democratic Party. The president, who had earlier described Mamdani as a “communist”, an “anti-Semite” and a “lunatic”, changed his tune ahead of the young mayor-elect’s White House visit on Friday, saying he expected the meeting to be “cordial”.
Only a day earlier, his press secretary Karoline Leavitt told a briefing: “It speaks volumes that tomorrow we have a communist coming to the White House, because that’s who the Democrat Party elected as the mayor of the largest city in the country.”
CNN reported that Republican Senator Rick Scott of Florida late on Friday morning called Mamdani a “literal communist” and predicted he was “on his way to the White House to be schooled by President Trump”. The Republicans, CNN said, have spent weeks, even months, suggesting they were preparing to tie Democrats far and wide to Mamdani’s politics. Democrats also seemed to fear this, judging by how reluctant some of them were to endorse him. “This was the GOP’s [Republican Party] first big opportunity to drive that message — to set up this contrast between Trump’s agenda and the purported communism that has infected the national Democratic Party … Trump trampled all over that strategy.”
He must have shocked the Republican Party by rubbishing another one of its major lines of attack that Mamdani is a ‘jihadist’. Trump was asked if he agreed with Republican candidate for New York governor (the vehemently pro-Israel Congresswoman) Elise Stefanik, who made that claim: “No, I don’t”, and attributed her comment to electioneering.
Although Mamdani stood respectfully by the president’s side, he demonstrated that he was no pushover.
The president also complimented the young New Yorker, who was born when Trump was 45, on his win against some ‘pretty tough’ candidates, and said that the mayor-elect would surprise Republicans by his policies. Not just that, he jumped to his charismatic visitor’s defence when the latter was questioned by reporters on some of his mayoral campaign rhetoric, including calling the White House incumbent a ‘fascist’. This clearly was a change of heart and indicated a reversal of the stance Trump had held since Mamdani entered the race.
The obvious question many are asking is why? I asked one New York-based South Asian-origin analyst, who half-jokingly remarked that the mayor-elect seemed to have taken a leaf out of the Pakistan leadership’s playbook by charming him, “killing him with kindnesses”. Continuing on a more serious note, he said that Trump was a narcissist and a bully. Mamdani, who has exceptional emotional intelligence, may have played on both these traits of the president. He may have combined his South Asian charm — reverence for the elderly — with excellent communication skills, to appeal to the 79-year-old’s narcissism, but he also firmly, though politely, made it clear that he was not one to be bullied.
Although Mamdani stood respectfully by the president’s side as the latter sat at his desk while speaking to the media, he quickly demonstrated that he was no pushover when asked if he believed whether the US was complicit in what he had called the genocide in Gaza. Mamdani repeated his stance that Israel committed genocide in Gaza that the US funded. He also proudly reiterated: “I am a Democratic Socialist.”
At the same time, Mamdani stuck or reverted to his main election issue of ‘affordability’ for New Yorkers while answering all questions. Trump, whose approval rating has slumped as inflation is again rising in the US, could do nothing but agree that the cost of living was an issue. He said he also raised and hammered home this point in his presidential election campaign.
When asked if he’d cut federal funding to New York as he had threatened ahead of the mayoral election, Trump downplayed the possibility and said he’d be focusing on helping rather than hurting Mamdani to benefit the “city we both love”. Trump may have moved to Florida in recent years, but will always be seen as a New Yorker and said he’d be cheering for Mamdani and that the mayor-elect wanted to make NYC great again.
Another analyst said the president likes ‘strong’ leaders as he has said publicly many times, whether referring to Pakistan’s army chief or some of those he sees as his allies across the world, including the newly elected Japanese prime minister. “He must place Mamdani in the same category, as the mayor-elect battled the whole of the Republican Party and the Democratic Party establishment to win against immense odds.”
There is no doubt that many political pundits have been in awe of the army of volunteers the young politician assembled for door-to-door campaigning and the superb messaging his media team developed to target new or first-time voters on social media as well as to spread his message to the general public through his interviews and campaign ads on legacy media.
Of course, the one missing element in media analyses of the apparent bonhomie in the Oval Office was the ‘transactional’ nature of the president’s policies and demeanour. He was severe, even rude, to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, because the latter to him was someone ‘needy’.
But Mamdani is not. Perhaps, the fact that Trump, his close friend and special envoy Steve Witkoff, and his son-in-law Jared Kushner (and other cronies) all have real estate interests in NYC running into several billion dollars may also have been a factor.
Whether it is regulating real estate in the city including zoning, fire and safety regulations or the award of building licences, or contracts for social housing projects, the buck stops with City Hall. And the mayor more or less controls City Hall. So, Kushner, Witkoff and other family/friends-business associates, partners, and Trump himself, must have realised the importance of keeping City Hall onside, brushing aside political rhetoric and considerations.
The writer is a former editor of Dawn.
Published in Dawn, November 23rd, 2025
