Mamdani’s
meeting with Trump comes with a power disadvantage
The
president has threatened to yank federal aid and send the National Guard to
patrol the Big Apple.
By Nick
Reisman, Jeff Coltin and Diana Nerozzi
11/21/2025
05:30 AM EST
NEW YORK
— President Donald Trump has all the power in his Oval Office sit down Friday
with New York City mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani. And his advantage over the
incoming mayor is vast.
The
temperamental president has vowed to cut New York’s federal aid and may deploy
the National Guard in response to Mamdani’s win. Trump’s border czar Tom Homan
is again threatening to flood the city’s streets with immigration enforcement
officers and conduct mass deportations. The president’s Congressional allies
have pressed for the Ugandan-born mayor-elect’s citizenship to be revoked.
“The city
or the state cannot do without the federal government and the federal
government holds the money,” said John Catsimatidis, a billionaire oil
executive and grocery store tycoon who speaks frequently with Trump. “Look, the
president is going to do whatever he wants to do. He loves New York, no if’s,
and’s about it. He loves New York, but he doesn’t love that the socialists are
taking over New York.”
The
much-anticipated meeting between the two diametrically opposed leaders will set
the tone for the city’s future for the next four years. It contains a broader
significance for Trump, who has sought to control the political destiny of deep
blue cities while Democrats try to claw back into national power. He’s feuded
with Democratic mayors in Chicago, Washington and Los Angeles — fights that New
York officials desperately want to avoid. For Mamdani, whose far-left candidacy
deeply divided his party, Trump presents a difficult and likely ongoing
dilemma. The mayor-elect can’t afford Trump punishing the city or having his
power clipped over the next four years. But appeasing him — or appearing to cow
to him — will not be well-received by the supporters who propelled him into
City Hall.
Mamdani
is in the hotseat to prove that he can lead a deeply complex city. The first
test is contending with its most powerful native son.
Nervous
Democrats in the city and skeptical business leaders are closely watching the
meeting as an early determination of whether the 34-year-old backbench state
assemblymember can forge a working relationship with the mercurial Trump. They
want to ensure that key construction efforts — like the Gateway tunnel between
New York and New Jersey, the Second Avenue subway line and an overhaul of Penn
Station — will continue with federal support.
Empire
State Republicans have raised their concerns about Mamdani directly to Trump.
Catsimatidis suggested to the president the federal government take over the
city’s finances if the Mamdani administration is fiscally irresponsible. Rep.
Nicole Malliotakis, the sole Republican House lawmaker from New York City,
spoke with the president at Mar-a-Lago last week about the implications of the
democratic socialist leading the city, she said in an interview.
State
officials fear Trump will seize on Mamdani’s past support for slashing police
budgets and send federal troops to the Big Apple, as he has done in other
cities around the country.
The
Republican president has already shown signs of tweaking the mayor-elect. A
Wednesday night Truth Social post announcing the meeting included Mamdani’s
middle name Kwame in quotations. “Communist Mayor of New York City, Zohran
‘Kwame’ Mamdani, has asked for a meeting,” he wrote.
Homan —
whose appearance in Albany earlier this year turned into a viral protest staged
by Mamdani and other Democrats — said Tuesday that the Immigration and Customs
Enforcement agency would ramp up New York City operations. A mass deportation
effort would create a politically fraught moment for Democrats, who have
protested Trump’s aggressive strategy.
Trump may
apply pressure in other ways. Inviting Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
to New York City is one — virtually daring the new mayor to make good on his
promise to issue an arrest warrant for the foreign head of state. If Mamdani
follows through, he’d be entering fraught legal terrain. If he doesn’t, he’d
risk inflaming a not insignificant portion of his base.
The
meeting between Trump and Mamdani is a potential lesson in power politics for
the incoming mayor, who wasn’t a blip on the political radar a year ago and has
never managed a sprawling bureaucracy like New York City’s government, which
employs some 300,000 people. On top of it all, Mamdani will be face-to-face
with the world’s most powerful person, who has vowed to use the weight of the
federal government as a cudgel against the city the mayor-elect is poised to
lead starting Jan. 1.
This is
Mamdani’s first real foray into the national political maelstrom. In the wake
of his upset Democratic primary victory in June, he’s received support from
Democratic luminaries like Sen. Bernie Sanders, former President Barack Obama
and party stalwart Patrick Gaspard, a former U.S. ambassador.
“President
Trump is willing to meet with anyone and talk to anyone and to try to do what’s
right on behalf of the American people, whether they live in blue states or red
states, or blue cities,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said.
Mamdani,
who directly challenged the president in his election night speech, expressed
confidence about the meeting, as he was peppered with questions at a press
availability Thursday.
“Being a
New Yorker means that you’re prepared for all situations, all kind of comments,
all kind of commentary,” he said. “At the end of it, the focus has to be,
what’s the case that you’re making? Why are you there?”
Mamdani
repeatedly said he wanted to talk to Trump about making the city more
affordable — and even pivoted to the cost of living when asked if he’d push the
president to keep ICE agents out of the city. His campaign’s core affordability
message, he said, was “based on a value of protecting each and every New
Yorker. That means protecting them from price gouging in their lives. It also
means protecting them from ICE agents.”
The
president, despite his public antagonism of the mayor-elect, is also open to a
conversation, according to a White House official who was granted anonymity to
describe Trump’s thinking.
“I think
he’s going into it with a ‘I’m willing to talk to anyone, let’s see what this
communist has to say,’” the official said. “I know he doesn’t expect to agree
with what Mamdani says, but I think the president, again, Mamdani said he
wanted to meet with him, and voila, here we are.”
Trump and
Mamdani represent two immensely different versions of the same city.
The
president, a magnate steeped in Gotham’s sharp-elbowed real estate world, grew
his family’s business empire in the 1980s, a gilded era known for wealthy
excess, expansive construction projects and a near-limitless appetite for
success. New York in that time, too, was marked by deep poverty, crime and the
crack epidemic.
Mamdani,
elected with a coalition that includes the city’s growing South Asian
population, is part of New York’s transplant community. A democratic socialist
born into a well-to-do family, the city’s next mayor harnessed the swelling
discontent of younger New Yorkers who have found it difficult to live in a
costly city.
Yet both
men can claim electoral victories that were powered by focusing on the cost of
living. Their campaigns were deeply fluent in social media argot, using an
authenticity that grew the ranks of their ardent supporters.
“They
both cut their teeth in Queens and New York City,” said David Carlucci, a New
York consultant and former state senator. “There’s a lot of common language
that they can speak both understanding their political agenda. It’s so
transparent, it’s so obvious that neither of them can have their bases believe
they can work together or have a working relationship.”
Trump
meddled repeatedly in the mayoral race this year — all in service of preventing
a Mamdani victory. It also underscored a deep interest in who will lead his
native city.
Trump
dismissed Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa as a lightweight and referred to
Mamdani as “my liddle communist.” The commentary was preceded by an
unprecedented incursion by the president into the city’s political affairs.
In his
first 100 days, Trump moved to end a controversial Manhattan toll program. His
Department of Justice dropped a corruption case against Mayor Eric Adams, a
moderate Democrat who cozied up to the president. Trump’s team dangled jobs in
front of Adams in a bid to get him to drop his reelection campaign and aid the
chances of former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who lost the Democratic primary and his
independent general election bid to Mamdani.
During
the federal government shutdown, the Trump administration also yanked federal
aid for the Gateway Tunnel and Second Avenue subway in an effort to pressure
Democratic leaders Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer to cut a deal.
All of
those actions were demonstrations of Trump’s power in a city that electorally
rejected him three times.
“We’re
not going to fund a socialist-communist agenda,” said Malliotakis, who
represents Staten Island, the city’s most conservative borough. “We’re not
going to allow this mayor to use federal funding to takeover supermarkets or
legalize prostitution or seize the means of production or buy private property
to turn them into communes. It’s making sure we protect taxpayers and make sure
citizens get what they need.”
Mamdani
wants the meeting to focus on affordability — the buzzy issue he campaigned on
and which Trump rode to success last year, but is currently struggling with.
Both men espouse economically populist ideas from polar ends of the political
spectrum.
“I have
many disagreements with the president, and I believe that we should be
relentless and pursue all avenues and all meetings that can make our city
affordable for every single New Yorker,” Mamdani told reporters Thursday. “I
intend to make it clear to President Trump that I will work with him on any
agenda that benefits New Yorkers. If an agenda hurts New Yorkers, I will also
be the first to say so.”
Business
leaders and prominent Democrats like Gov. Kathy Hochul believe Trump will keep
his most aggressive impulses at bay given the president’s financial interests
in the city. New York City’s Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch agreed to stay
on in Mamdani’s administration — a development cheered by private sector
leaders. There’s optimism that Trump wants New York to prosper. Whether that
success is ultimately tied to Mamdani’s political fate is not clear.
“I’m
convinced that the president is not going to stop projects because he likes
development, he knows New York and he’s got a lot of friends here who are going
to be part of these massive projects,” said Carlo Scissura, president of the
New York Building Congress, a construction trade group. “That won’t stop the
president from reminding the mayor-elect what his priorities are and what he
wants done.”
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