President Trump said he would feel at ease living in New York City under Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani after their chummy Oval Office meeting Friday.
“Yeah, I would, especially after the meeting. Absolutely,” Trump told reporters when asked, “Would you feel comfortable living in New York City under a Mamdani administration?”
The billionaire president said he and the democratic socialist pol “agree on a lot more than I would have thought.”
“I want him to do a great job, and we’ll help him do a great job,” Trump said.
“I would feel very, very comfortable being in New York, and I think much more so after the meeting.”
Trump, who has redirected the Republican Party with his economic populism, and Mamdani, the country’s leading self-described socialist, both noted that they shared support among voters concerned about rising costs.
Mamdani told the president that one in 10 of the Republican’s voters also cast a ballot for him.
Trump, meanwhile, noted that he had picked up support from disaffected supporters of socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who lost the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination to Hillary Clinton.
“[Mamdani] may have different views, but… we were discussing when Bernie Sanders was out of the race, I picked up a lot of his votes and people had no idea because he was strong on not getting ripped off in trade,” Trump said.
“Bernie Sanders and I agreed on much more than people thought. And when he was put out of the race, I think quite unfairly, if you want to know the truth, many of the Bernie Sanders voters voted for me, and I felt very comfortable, frankly, in seeing that and saying that.”
Trump, who has significant real estate holdings in his hometown, had repeatedly threatened ahead of the meeting to withhold federal funding for New York City to block Mamdani’s policies.
But Trump said he no longer believes that is necessary.
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“I don’t think that’s going to happen,” Trump said.
“We had a meeting today that actually surprised me. He wants to see no crime. He wants to see housing being built. He wants to see rents coming down. All things that I agree with. Now we may disagree on how we get there,” the president went on.
“I expect to be helping him, not hurting him — a big help, because I want New York City to be great… I think this mayor can do some things that are going to be really great.”
