New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani said he and President Donald Trump had a “productive meeting” on Thursday and that he’s “looking forward to building more housing in New York City.”
The meeting marks the second time the president and the city’s new Democratic socialist mayor met in the White House. It follows an unexpectedly friendly meeting between the two men in December, when Trump outright gushed about meeting his hometown’s new mayor and predicted he’d be “really great” after months of trashing him on the campaign.
Joe Calvello, Mamdani’s press secretary, told reporters that the last time they met, Trump asked him to return with “big ideas” about building in New York.
In his post about the meeting, Mamdani included a photo showing him with Trump holding two printouts of New York Daily News front pages: a real one from 1975 about President Gerald Ford refusing to bail out the city, and a fake one that reads “Trump to City: Let’s Build.” Beneath the Trump headline is text that reads: “Delivers 12,000+ Homes; Most Since 1973.”
Calvello told reporters after the meeting that Mamdani’s team mocked up the newspaper props for Trump and that the figures on the page refer to a real proposal.
The mayor presented Trump with “a possible project in New York City that could deliver one of the biggest federal investments in housing of the past 50 years,” Calvello said. “We proposed a project with an estimated 12,000 housing units. … The president was very enthusiastic about this idea that he pitched him.”
Mamdani’s office did not provide details on the proposal, but there is an existing plan from the city’s Economic Development Corporation that calls for 12,000 units of affordable housing in Queens’ Sunnyside Yards.
New York City has long dealt with a housing shortage and affordability crisis ― two of the major issues Mamdani focused on during his campaign. In the New York City metro area, the governor’s office says, rents have risen 30% and home prices have risen 50% since 2015.
Mamdani added in another social media post that Trump told him after the meeting that Columbia student Elmina Aghayeva, who was snatched by Homeland Security agents earlier that day, would be “released imminently.”
That update follows university President Claire Shipman and New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) saying agents lied to gain access to a building in order to detain Aghayeva.
Calvello noted that Mamdani gave Trump a list of four other students who had been detained in New York City.
