President Donald Trump and New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani were expected to have a showdown at the White House on Friday in their first face-to-face meeting. Instead, they got along.
“The better he does, the happier I am,” the president said in opening remarks, taking a far kinder tone than the rhetoric that preceded the meeting. “I feel very confident that he’s going to do a very good job.”
Concerns around whether the Trump administration would treat New York City like a punching bag after Mayor Eric Adams leaves office have swirled since Mamdani’s primary victory. But Trump and Mamdani both took a conciliatory tone. They gave each other cover as they answered a steady stream of questions about the barbs they’ve traded, suggesting that the relationship isn’t on shaky ground as many feared.