Trump and Mamdani find common ground

The Guardian -  Donald Trump and Zohran Mamdani, the New York City mayor-elect, walked out of their meeting on Friday afternoon with an unlikely alliance, agreeing to work together on housing, food prices and cost-of-living concerns that have defined both their political appeals to working-class voters.

“We agreed a lot more than I would have thought,” Trump said in the Oval Office, sometimes jumping in to shield Mamdani from aggressive questioning from the press.

The sit-down – which many had anticipated would be contentious, given months of intense rhetoric in which Trump branded Mamdani a “communist lunatic” – instead produced camaraderie, warm words and concrete pledges of cooperation between the Republican president and the self-described democratic socialist who secured a commanding electoral victory earlier at the beginning of November with over 50% of the vote.

“I feel very confident that he can do a very good job,” Trump said after the meeting, offering praise for his ideological opposite. “The better he does, the happier I am. I will say there’s no difference in party. There’s no difference in anything, and we’re going to be helping him to make everybody’s dream come true, having a strong and very safe New York.”

The president congratulated Mamdani on his mayoral victory, describing it as “an incredible race against smart people” – and the two politicians shook hands.

Trump added that he had already seen signs the young politician might surprise both conservative and liberal observers alike.
'You think President Trump is a fascist?': Donald Trump meets Zohran Mamdani – video

For Mamdani, the meeting represented vindication of his strategy to focus the discussion on economic issues rather than ideological divides. He described the meeting as “productive” and “focused on a place of shared admiration and love, which is New York City”.

“We spoke about rent, we spoke about groceries, we spoke about utilities, we spoke about the different ways in which people are being pushed out,” Mamdani told reporters after emerging from the Oval Office.

Trump added: “We had some interesting conversation, and some of his ideas really are the same ideas that I have.” He pointed to their agreement on lowering crime and building housing.