President Trump and Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani will meet in the Oval Office on Friday, the president says. It will be the first time that Mr. Trump has met with his hometown’s mayor-elect. Mr. Mamdani has said consistently that he has wanted to meet with the president, so long as they could find a way to best serve New Yorkers in tandem. Mr. Trump has already started threatening to withhold federal funds from the city where he was born, raised, and grew his family business for the better part of eight decades. “Communist Mayor of New York City, Zohran ‘Kwame’ Mamdani, has asked for a meeting. We have agreed that this meeting will take place at the Oval Office on Friday, November 21st. Further details to follow!” the president wrote on Truth Social Wednesday night. Returning to Washington, D. C., from Florida on Sunday night, Mr. Trump told reporters on the tarmac that he was willing to meet with Mr. Mamdani so that they could figure out a way to make things “work” for New York City. “The mayor of New York, I will say, would like to meet with us and we’ll work something out,” the president said. “We want to see everything work out well for New York.” During an interview with MSNOW’s Chris Hayes on Wednesday night, Mr. Mamdani confirmed that the meeting was taking place. “I want to just speak plainly to the president about what it means to actually stand up for New Yorkers,” Mr. Mamdani said, adding that he wants to discuss the cost of living with Mr. Trump. “These are the stakes for New Yorkers and their ability to keep calling this city their home,” the mayor-elected said. Mr. Trump weighed in on the city’s mayoral race just hours before election day earlier this month, telling voters to support Governor Andrew Cuomo a longtime foe of Mr. Trump’s. The president went so far as to threaten the city’s federal funds if Mr. Mamdani was elected. “If Communist Candidate Zohran Mamdani wins the Election for Mayor of New York City, it is highly unlikely that I will be contributing Federal Funds, other than the very minimum as required, to my beloved first home, because of the fact that, as a Communist, this once great City has ZERO chance of success, or even survival!” the president wrote one day before the mayoral election. Mr. Trump has already tried to tie up New York’s federal funds in the past as a form of retribution for Democrats’ lack of acquiescence. At the beginning of the government shutdown in October, the Office of Management and Budget put tens of billions of dollars for infrastructure projects in the city on hold as a way to pressure Senator Chuck Schumer and Congressman Hakeem Jeffries. The major point of tension that could emerge most rapidly between Messrs. Trump and Mamdani once the latter is inaugurated in January will be the issue of immigration. Mr. Mamdani says he will not allow local cooperation with federal deportation or detention efforts, much to Mr. Trump’s chagrin.
https://www.nysun.com/article/trump-set-to-meet-with-communist-mayor-of-new-york-city