Mamdani Did Trump A Solid By Keeping Their White House Meeting Under Wraps

NEW YORK — New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s second Oval Office meeting with President Donald Trump brought their unusual alliance to new heights, cementing a bond that’s testing each of their bases while requiring the democratic socialist to bend on the tenets of his campaign.

With the president tantalized by the notion of the biggest federal housing investment in five decades, Mamdani’s pitch for a massive Queens real estate project is setting up a scenario where a legacy-defining accomplishment would be yoked to perhaps the most loathed figure in New York City.

“We put forward a proposal to build more housing in a single project than the city has seen since 1973. More housing than you would get combining Hudson Yards and Battery Park City together. And not just housing, but also parks, also child care, also hospitals — an entire new neighborhood,” the mayor said Friday at an unrelated press briefing. “I was heartened by the fact that the President was interested in this proposal.”

Getting the president’s buy-in, though, is already requiring Mamdani to put stress on some of his political pledges.

Case in point: despite promising a new era of transparency, Mamdani attempted Thursday to sneak off to Washington undetected by releasing a suspiciously vacant public schedule. (City Hall only confirmed Mamdani would meet with Trump after he had already arrived in the nation’s capital, flying there wearing a face mask, according to the New York Post.)

As it turns out, that was a favor to Trump. Three people with knowledge of the meeting told POLITICO the White House asked City Hall to keep the sitdown a secret for as long as possible. The meeting had been on the books for at least a couple weeks before it took place, but one of the people said City Hall was following the White House’s “lead” in keeping it off the mayor’s schedule. That’s in sharp contrast to the leadup to the duo’s surprisingly cordial meeting in November, ahead of which the then-mayor-elect spoke openly about the confab and said he was “ready for anything” to happen in it.

The fact that Mamdani played along with the president’s secrecy directive speaks to an increasing deference that is world’s away from the campaign — when Mamdani pledged to be Trump’s "worst nightmare" and shun "collaboration" with him. The mayor argued Friday that such cooperation is in New Yorkers’ best interest.

“I also said on that same campaign trail that I would be willing to work with anyone, no matter disagreements, so long as it was to the benefit of the city that we love,” Mamdani told reporters in Brooklyn when asked about his softening tone toward Trump. “That is what it comes back to, every conversation has to be advancing the agenda of working New Yorkers.”

While Mamdani noted he still airs disagreements with the president, both publicly and privately, he has taken to rarely criticizing Trump as part of his routine discourse and has adopted a policy of keeping his conversations with the president private.

Trump, in turn, has been so enamoured with the New York City mayor that he complimented him during his State of the Union speech, even as he branded him a communist with bad policy ideas.

For Trump, each beaming smile he casts upon the young city executive makes it more difficult for the GOP to use Mamdani during the upcoming primaries as the epitome of Democratic excess.

For Mamdani, the stakes are higher.

Not only is Trump persona non grata within his left-leaning base, he would be a not-so-silent partner on a massive new development project in a city where residents historically have been hostile to new construction.

“Our community deserves a seat at the table long before anyone, especially the mayor, makes headlines in the Oval Office especially for a project they have previously rejected,” said Councilmember Julie Won, a mayoral ally who represents a district deep in Mamdani country.

In fact, the mayor previously represented the area abutting the proposed development site — part of the so-called Commie Corridor that was essential to Mamdani’s victory last year — when he was still in the state Assembly

At Thursday’s unannounced meeting, Mamdani implored Trump to commit $21 billion in federal grants to build 12,000 new affordable apartments on top of a canyon-like rail depot in Queens known as Sunnyside Yard — a price tag that shakes out to $1.75 million per housing unit.

The enormous undertaking has been rattling around the minds of city planners since the ‘60s and was revived in earnest by former Mayor Bill de Blasio in 2020. However, the project has since been stalled due to local pushback along with its complexity and cost.

In the Oval Office, Trump gleefully accepted a mock New York Daily News front page the mayor gifted him that portrayed the president as a master-builder who could make a historic difference in New York by getting involved in the Sunnyside project — an overture that appeared successful.

“The president was interested in the idea, and I look forward to the ensuing conversations about how to build more housing in a city that doesn’t have enough of it,” Mamdani said Friday.

In Thursday’s meeting, Mamdani asked Trump to drop deportation cases against five current and former students in New York City as well.

Shortly after their meeting, Trump called Mamdani to inform him one of the five people detained by ICE would be released from custody.

In a strange political split screen, Trump also met at the White House on Thursday with Bo Dietl, the retired NYPD detective-turned-ardent Mamdani critic — and Dietl’s talk with the president also turned to immigration issues.

“I Thank The President for having me and making the time with his busy schedule. This was an exciting Day. I will be back real soon with an idea to help the ICE situation,” Dietl wrote in a post on X that included photos of him and Trump in the Oval Office.

Dietl didn't return a request for comment Friday, and it's unclear if he crossed paths with Mamdani at the White House.

At Friday’s news conference, Mamdani noted he expects to meet again with Trump. “It’s not the first, it won’t be the last,” he said of their latest sit-down.