Immigration, housing, NYPD dominate hour of talks
President Donald Trump and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani met for one hour at Gracie Mansion on Monday in their third sit-down. The two discussed the New York Police Department, housing construction in the city, and immigration enforcement while seated on the mansion lawn, then took questions together from reporters and shook hands before the president departed.
“I want him to be a great mayor,” Trump said on the mansion lawn. “He’s certainly got great potential.” Mamdani said he had invited Trump, who is in New York for the United Nations General Assembly, after the president had expressed in previous meetings that he had fond memories of visiting Gracie Mansion.
The cordial setting did not keep Mamdani from raising a key issue of disagreement: immigration enforcement. He said he was happy to speak to Trump even when they weren’t on the same page. “The president and I have both been very frank about the many disagreements that we have and immigration is one of those places,” Mamdani said. “We’ve both spoken about very different approaches, very different beliefs.”
Trump traveled to New York to address global leaders as wars on two continents continue to push energy prices higher at home, handing Democrats an opening to attack Republicans on affordability ahead of the midterms.
Mamdani, a Democratic socialist who has been a fierce critic of Israel’s treatment of Palestinians, toned down his rhetoric in the run-up to the General Assembly, where Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is expected to speak Thursday. The mayor previously called for Netanyahu to be arrested for alleged war crimes in Gaza but has avoided commenting directly on Israel in recent weeks and said he would not participate in planned protests around Netanyahu’s visit.
Jewish leaders said over the summer that Mamdani’s anti-Israel rhetoric made members of their community less safe in their own city amid a rise in antisemitic hate crimes. Mamdani has said he is mayor for all New Yorkers, including Jewish residents, and that his administration is working to root out antisemitism.
When not played out in front of the cameras, the relationship is not always so chipper. The two have taken shots at one another at times, with the Republican president having repeatedly criticized the mayor ahead of the midterms, continuing to call him a “communist” and, on social media, accusing the mayor of “destroying New York.” House Speaker Mike Johnson (R., La.) has raised a similar alarm, describing Democratic candidates ahead of the midterms as “little mini-Mamdanis.” Differences on immigration, the Iran War and Israel have also strained the relationship.
Last week, Mamdani announced he is leading a coalition of cities suing the Trump administration over a new federal rule that he said unfairly targets immigrants who receive public benefits. A White House spokeswoman said the lawsuit was brought by “extreme Democrats fighting for immigrants at the expense of American citizens.”
At Monday’s press conference, Trump recalled his November meeting with Mamdani, saying the then-newly elected mayor was hesitant about moving into Gracie Mansion. “I said, ‘Well, are you gonna move?’ Because you were maybe having some doubts about moving in, because it is a little bit on the luxurious side,” Trump recalled. “And I said, ‘When you’re the mayor, you have to live there.’”
Mamdani visited Trump at the White House weeks after winning office last November. At the time, Trump praised the newly elected mayor and predicted he would do a “very good job.” The two have said they occasionally speak by phone. The pair met again in February in Washington, where the mayor pitched the president on a sweeping federally backed housing project in Trump’s home borough of Queens. As part of a charm offensive, he presented the president with a mocked-up newspaper front page bearing the headline “Trump to City: Let’s Build.” During the visit, Mamdani also secured the release of a Columbia University student detained by federal immigration officials.