Trump and Mamdani to meet in Oval Office on Friday after months of bickering | Zohran Mamdani

Donald Trump has confirmed that a long-awaited meeting with New York Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani will take place this week in Washington, sparking an in-person clash between political opponents who have been at odds with each other for months.

The meeting, which Trump announced on social media would take place Friday in the Oval Office, could potentially represent a sort of detente between the Republican president and the rising Democratic star.

Calling Mamdani by his full name – and putting the mayor-elect’s middle name, Kwame, in quotation marks – Trump posted Wednesday evening that Mamdani had requested the meeting, promising: “More details to follow!”

Stating that it was “usual” for a new New York mayor to meet with the president, Mamdani spokeswoman Dora Pekec said the new mayor planned to speak with Trump about “public safety, economic security and the affordability agenda that more than a million New Yorkers voted for just two weeks ago.”

For months, Trump has criticized Mamdani, falsely calling him a “communist” and predicting the ruin of his hometown if the democratic socialist is elected. He also threatened to deport Mamdani, who was born in Uganda and became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 2018, and to withdraw federal money from the city.

But after the November election — in which Republicans lost heavily in Georgia, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Virginia, as well as New York — Trump spoke more about affordability, which had been a focal point of the Democratic campaign. In a social media post last week, he declared that Republicans were the “Party of Affordability!” » It comes as the president and his Republican colleagues insist the economy has never been stronger.

Trump told reporters Sunday evening that he planned to meet with Mamdani, saying “we will find a solution.” On Monday, Mamdani – who officially takes office in January – said he hoped to meet with Trump, confirming that his team had contacted the White House to arrange a possible meeting.

During his victory speech earlier this month, Mamdani, a 34-year-old who in just a few months went from being an obscure lawmaker representing Queens to elected mayor of the nation’s largest city, said he wanted New York to show the country how to defeat the president.

He also talked about “Trump-proofing New York State” once he takes office in January, while promising to work with anyone, including the president, if it would benefit New Yorkers.