Mamdani Still Thinks Trump’s A Fascist. But He Says They Both Love New York.

NEW YORK — New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani says he has a productive working relationship with President Donald Trump — though he still thinks the commander-in-chief is a fascist.

“The president and I disagree on many things in public and in private,” Mamdani said during a sitdown interview with POLITICO to reflect on his first 100 days in office. “We do, however, agree on one thing, which is a love for New York City. And that love, it is one that allows for our relationship to be a productive one, and allows for the city to know that it will not simply be affected by threats.”

“As the president said,” Mamdani added, “the better this city does, the happier he is.”

That positive treatment of their unlikely relationship prompted an obvious follow-up question: Has the relationship blossomed even though the democratic socialist mayor considers the president a fascist?

“Yes,” Mamdani deadpanned in response.

The 34-year-old city executive shocked the world in November, a month before taking office, when he traveled to Washington for a surprisingly chummy meeting with Trump — the same leader Mamdani had taunted as a mayoral candidate last year.

In an Oval Office sitdown, as POLITICO has previously reported, the president grew especially animated when Mamdani broached the idea of reforming some of the city’s byzantine zoning rules that stretch out the timeline — and by extension increase the cost — of real estate developments.

But also at that meeting, Mamdani — standing next to Trump in front of the cameras after their private chat — said “yes” when a reporter asked if he considered the president a fascist.

“That’s ok,” Trump said before Mamdani answered the question in the affirmative. “You can just say yes. That’s easier, it’s easier than explaining.”

The president asked Mamdani to come back next time with some big ideas. And so in February, the mayor returned to pitch Trump on an idea kicking around since the 1960s: building over a massive rail yard in Queens and plopping more than 10,000 units of housing on top, a feat that would be the biggest development in New York City since the 1970s.

During an interview Thursday night with NY1, Mamdani hinted at a future meeting on his own home turf.

“I've met with the president at the White House,” the mayor said during the interview. "I’m sure at some point the president will come to New York City and that we will meet here."

What prompted Mamdani to launch a charm offensive in the first place?

“When it comes to the president, we prepare for every possible kind of meeting,” he told POLITICO. “That first meeting and the second meeting were ones that we were honest, about our disagreements and also clear about a shared love of the city and the very different ways in which the city needs the help of those who are elected at every single level.”

Mamdani also worked in references to past presidential partnerships.

“One of the things that I told the president in our first meeting was my admiration for Fiorello La Guardia and FDR and how so much of what La Guardia was able to accomplish was as a result of his relationship with the federal government, and how the city, in being able to match the scale of the crisis in front of it, would also be in partnership with the federal government,” he said.