Mamdani, Trump Meeting Wasn’t Just Smiles

Zohran Mamdani and Donald Trump met in the White House on Friday and demonstrated a new kind of politics that actually stuck to policy. Through good-faith engagement they neutralized some of each other’s concerns on hot button issues from the National Guard and ICE deployments to federal funding for New York.

The major media couldn’t see it, or didn’t want to. They instead reduced the event to a “buddy movie,” “lovefest” or “bromance,” to quote them. Their accounts ignored how extraordinary it was that such polar opposite figures weren’t just cordial but “productive,” as Trump described the meeting, on actual issues millions of Americans care about.

Trump for the first time backed off his threats to send the National Guard into New York or withhold federal funding. Mamdani deflected any name-calling or hostility. The two managed to make New York the center of the event.

”We’ve just had a great meeting, a really good, very productive meeting,” Trump said in the Oval Office after a private discussion with Mamdani. “ We’re gonna be helping him to make everybody’s dream come true — having a strong and very safe New York.”

Mamdani proved a skillful politician, not through smiles or charm but by engaging with Trump on issues of mutual interest.

“We had a meeting today that actually surprised me,” Trump said. “He wants to see no crime.”

In the Oval Office press event following their 25-minute private meeting, they pointed to public safety in particular as an area of shared interest. Mamdani signaled his willingness to cooperate with the federal government, including ICE, on certain serious crimes.

Trump twice identified public safety as an issue they discussed “at great length” and more than any other issue. Per Trump:

“We’re gonna make sure that if there’s horrible people there, we want to get ‘em out. I think he wants to get ‘em out maybe more than I do. So we’ll work together. We discussed it at great length … I think that if we have known murderers and known drug dealers and some very bad people, you know, we want to get ‘em out. We discussed this at great length, maybe more than anything else.”

Mamdani echoed Trump’s account. “We discussed ICE and New York City,” Mamdani said, before alluding to coordination with the Trump administration to go after specific crimes.

“I spoke about how the laws that we have in New York City allow for New York City government to speak to the federal administration for about 170 serious crimes,” Mamdani said. He’s referring to a list of certain major felonies (e.g. murder, sexual assault and other violent crimes) defined in New York law and for which Mamdani suggested he would cooperate with ICE and other federal authorities — a position he held during his campaign.

A nuance to the immigration debate that’s often lost is that the vast majority of Americans (89 percent according to one poll) overwhelmingly support the deportation of violent felons; by contrast, only a minority favor deportation of those who haven’t committed such a crime.

As Mayor, Mamdani has influence over NYPD’s enforcement of the laws. This is a topic he’s has compromised on in his keeping on NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch, as I’ve written. Trump at one point during the meeting complimented Mamdani for having “just retained a great police commissioner … somebody that is a good friend of some of the people in my family — Ivanka — and they say she’s really good, really competent … so that’s a good sign.”

Reached for comment about what was said at the private meeting about cooperation with the federal government, Mamdani’s spokesperson, Dora Pekec, directed me to a remark Mamdani made during a speech on Sunday.

“I shared with the president directly that New Yorkers, we want to follow the laws of our city, and the laws of our city say that in our sanctuary city policies, that government can be in touch with the federal government on around 170 serious crimes,” Mamdani said.

Trump for his part extended his own olive branch. When asked about their differences about his threats of deploying the National Guard to New York, Trump replied: “I think we’re gonna work ‘em out.”

And when asked about his threats of cutting of federal funding to New York, he took a similar tone, saying: “ I don’t think that’s gonna happen. I did say that [it] was subject to which policies are being set.”

Those policies, it would seem, have at least some overlap, not just on crime but the affordability agenda and housing. Donald Trump can evidently sense which way the political winds are blowing and seems happy to associate himself with affordability (so long as he is allowed to say he invented it).

“ He wants to see housing being built, he wants to see rents coming down — all things that I agree with,” Trump said. “We agree on a lot more than I would’ve thought.”

It’s becoming clear to everyone but the major media that Mamdani, however young, can’t be dismissed as a rookie.

“ I think he’s gonna surprise some conservative people, actually, and some very liberal people,” Trump said of Mamdani.

He’s surprised me.

— Edited by William M. Arkin