By Trevor Hunnicutt
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -President Donald Trump will meet with incoming New York mayor Zohran Mamdani on Friday, the first in-person talks between political opposites who have clashed over everything from immigration to economic policy.
A democratic socialist and little-known state lawmaker who won New York’s mayoral race earlier this month, Mamdani requested the sit-down with Trump to discuss cost-of-living issues and public safety.
The Republican president has threatened to strip federal funding from the biggest U.S. city, while the mayor-elect has regularly criticized a range of Trump’s policies, including plans to ramp up federal immigration enforcement efforts in New York, where four in ten residents are foreign-born.
The 79-year-old president, a former New York resident, has labeled Mamdani, 34, as a “radical left lunatic,” a communist and “Jew hater,” without offering evidence for those assertions.
Trump’s Oval Office meetings have been wildly unpredictable, including respectful encounters with opponents and ambushes of guests, such as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and South Africa’s Cyril Ramaphosa.
Mamdani, who will be sworn in as mayor on January 1, said at a press conference on Thursday: “Being a New Yorker means that you’re prepared for all situations.”
MAMDANI’S SUCCESS GENERATED DEBATE AMONG TRUMP’S OPPONENTS
Uganda-born Mamdani is the first Muslim and first South Asian mayor in the city that is home to Wall Street. His energetic, social media-savvy campaign provoked debate about the best path for Democrats. Out of power in Washington and divided ideologically, Democrats are mainly unified by their opposition to Trump, who is constitutionally prohibited from seeking another term in 2028.
Mamdani vowed to focus on affordability issues, including the cost of housing, groceries, childcare and buses in a city of 8.5 million. New Yorkers pay nearly double the average rent nationwide.
Inflation has been a major issue for Americans, and it’s one on which they give Trump low marks. Just 26% of Americans say Trump is doing a good job at managing the cost of living, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll this week.
The U.S. federal government is providing $7.4 billion to New York City in fiscal year 2026, or about 6.4% of the city’s total spending, according to a New York State Comptroller report. It was not clear what legal authority Trump could claim for withdrawing any funds.
The two leaders traded barbs after the election.
“If anyone can show a nation betrayed by Donald Trump how to defeat him, it is the city that gave rise to him,” Mamdani told supporters in his victory speech, which called for Trump to “turn the volume up.”
Trump later told Fox News: “He has to be a little bit respectful of Washington, because if he is not, he doesn’t have a chance of succeeding.” He added: “I don’t want to make him succeed. I want to make the city succeed.”
(Reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt; Additional reporting by Helen Coster; Editing by Paul Thomasch and Alistair Bell)
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