The president’s Oval Office meeting with New York’s incoming leader is not open to the press.
Trump, 79, frequently invites reporters into the Oval Office for a front-seat view as he sits down with U.S. and world leaders, but, according to his schedule, the media was barred from his first meeting with Mamdani, the Democratic socialist 45 years his junior.
Their first face-to-face comes after Trump lobbed a series of nasty attacks on the political upstart who mounted an underdog campaign and went on to win the race to lead the largest city in the U.S.
Trump has blasted Mamdani as a “communist lunatic” and “not very smart.” He falsely accused him of being in the country illegally, threatened to arrest him, and warned that he would cut off money to New York if he won.
Trump is a (self-proclaimed) billionaire; of course he’s not going to object to more exploitation of the working class. It’s a whole different conversation when it’s something that will hurt the owner class.
Hes also been harping on affordability and his approval rating has cratered. If he was gonna strong man this meeting I think there’s no shot he doesn’t want to do that in front of a camera. Im not telling you he’s going in good faith, but I know he likes the popularity Mamdani generated and will seek to find out how to do that himself. His ego has always been his weakness. If he was smart enough to just shut up, I bet almost none of his felonies would have stuck. Again Im not claiming this is a likely scenario but I do believe there’s more to it than a screaming match.
Edit: A friend just sent me this, and said he wished Schmer or Jefferies said anything this nice about Mamdani.
https://bsky.app/profile/atrupar.com/post/3m666j5jjpe2d