‘I’ll stick up for you’: key moments from the cordial Trump-Mamdani meeting

The president hosted the mayor-elect at the White House – and seemed enamoured of his fellow New YorkerThe highly anticipated Oval Office meeting between Donald Trump and Zohran Mamdani – the mayor-elect of New York City, the US president’s beloved home town – was hardly the combustible tête-à-tête many had predicted. For the moment at least, the two New Yorkers appeared relaxed, smiling and cautiously optimistic about the work they might accomplish together.Neither revived the hot campaign rhetoric, casting each other as political adversaries. Trump had labeled Mamdani a “100% Communist Lunatic” and urged voters to back his opponent, the former New York governor Andrew Cuomo. In turn, Mamdani assailed Trump as a “despot” and pledged to be the president’s “worst nightmare”. Continue reading…