Will President Trump and New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani Work Together
Zohran Mamdani will face rising budget and funding deficits when he takes over as New York City mayor
November 24, 2025
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The media expected controversial statements by US President Donald Trump and New York City mayoral-elect Zohran Mamdani, following their meeting at the White House on Friday. As reporters at the press conference stated, Trump had called Mamdani a “communist” while Mamdani said Trump is a “fascist.”
Instead, Trump, a Republican, and Mamdani, a Democrat, praised each other. The better Mamdani “does, the happier I am,” Trump said. “I will say, there’s no difference in party … and we’re going to be helping him to make everybody’s dream come true.”
Mamdani said when he spoke to New Yorkers who voted for Trump in the 2024 Presidential election, “we heard them speak about cost of living…and that’s where I am really looking forward to delivering for New Yorkers in partnership with the president.” They said they will work together to build more affordable housing units in the city, provide cheaper food and groceries, lower electricity bills as well reduce crime.
Mamdani ignored Trump blaming previous President and Democrat Joe Biden for inflation and other problems, which typically would be challenged by Mamdani’s fellow Democrats. Similarly, Trump avoided reporters’ questions on Mamdani’s statements, such as that he would bar Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from visiting New York.
Apparently, both Trump and Mamdani had reasons to be friendly to each other. Perhaps, by being surprisingly statesman-like in his meeting with Mamdani, Trump sought to shift the US media’s focus away from Jeffrey Epstein, a pedophile sex offender who committed suicide in prison in 2019. Last week, Trump signed a bill to release the government’s files on Epstein, after reportedly trying to block it since he took office in January.
Yet, the mainstream media in the US continued to cover the issue of the Epstein files. On the day of the Trump Mamdani meeting, the media prominently reported on Marjorie Taylor Greene’s resignation from the US House of Representatives. In a statement posted on X/Twitter, which has gotten more than sixteen million views, Greene said, “Standing up for American women who were raped at 14, trafficked and used by rich powerful men, should not result in me being called a traitor and threatened by the President of the United States, whom I fought for.” Greene and three other Republicans joined the Democrats in the House in signing a petition which led to passage of the bill to release the Epstein files.
Trump’s approval rating as President is at an all-time low, around 40%. Also, his Republican Party performed poorly in the elections held on November 4, including in the crucial states of Pennsylvania and Georgia. In the New York mayoral race, Trump backed Andrew Cuomo who lost to Mamdani. Cuomo secured roughly 200,000 votes less than Mamdani’s one million votes
By saying he will work with Mamdani, Trump may be trying to widen the divisions between left-wing leaders like Mamdani and moderates in the Democratic Party. In the Democratic mayoral primary race, Mamdani defeated several moderate and established leaders. They included Cuomo, the former Democratic governor of New York State and son of the late Mario Cuomo, also a previous Democratic governor of the state. Chuck Schumer, leader of the Democrats in the US Senate who resides in New York City, did not support Mamdani in the mayoral race.
At the press conference, Mamdani reiterated that he was a Democratic Socialist. Trump said he adopted the policies of tariffs and bringing back American jobs from Bernie Sanders, a US Senator from Vermont, who is also a Democratic Socialist and a mentor to Mamdani.
Trump complimented Mamdani for convincing Jessica Tisch to stay on as the head of the New York City police department. Her appointment, which reduced fears about a rise in crime under Mamdani, was welcomed by business leaders in the city. Tisch, who earned MBA and law degrees from Harvard, is from a New York based business family with a net worth of $10.1 billion, according to Forbes.
(Zohran Mamdani at a rally in New York City, 2024. Courtesy Wikimedia Commons.)
At age 34, Mamdani will be New York’s youngest mayor in more than a century. In 2018, he became naturalized as an American citizen. Two years later, he was elected to the New York State Assembly from a district in the New York City borough of Queens. The first South Asian man to serve in the assembly, he was re-elected twice. In TikTok videos, he appealed to voters by speaking in Spanish, Bengali, Urdu and other languages.
Earlier, Mamdani worked as a housing counsellor helping home owners avoid eviction. He also worked in film, writing and was a rap singer using the name Young Cardamom. He is married to Rama Duwaji, a Syrian American artist. They met on the dating app Hinge and live in Queens.
Zohran Kwame Mamdani was born to Indian parents in Kampala, Uganda. His family lived briefly in Cape Town, South Africa, before moving to New York City when he was seven years old. His mother Mira Nair, is a filmmaker whose credits include Monsoon Wedding, The Namesake and Mississippi Masala. His father, Mahmood Mamdani, is a professor of anthropology at Columbia University.
Zohran Mamdani’s New York Assembly website states he is a graduate of the New York City-run public school system as “he attended the Bronx High School of Science…” Missing from the site is that he attended the Bank Street School from 1999 until his graduation from middle school in 2006. A private school, Bank Street’s tuition fees for the current academic year, for grades fifth to eighth, is $69,000.
In his application for college admissions, Mamdani identified his race as both “Asian” and “Black or African American,” according to The New York Times. While he was not accepted at Columbia, he was admitted to Bowdoin, Maine, another elite private college where he earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Africana Studies.
Mamdani told the Times he identified himself as Black or African American only in his college applications. He added that he attempted to represent his complex background and not to gain an upper hand in the college admissions process by claiming to be a minority. Several Indians in the US have secured jobs and business contracts originally set aside for disadvanted Blacks and other racial minorities.
In August, amidst the mayoral contest, Cuomo criticized Mamdani for paying $2,300 per month for a rent-stabilized one bedroom apartment. “Somewhere last night in New York City, a single mother and her children slept at a homeless shelter because you, Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani, are occupying her rent controlled apartment,” Cuomo wrote on X/Twitter, in a post which has gotten more than 35 million views.
Mamdani earns an annual salary of $142,000 as a New York State Assemblyman. Last month, the New York Times reported that Cuomo lived in a rent-stabilized apartment, from 1982 to 1987, when he earned more than $200,000 a year as a lawyer.
(Photo: Zohran Mamdani at a New York City Mayoral election rally. )
Supply of more rent-stabilized units could solve the key issue of housing affordability, which Mamdani and Trump said they plan to tackle together. There are around one million rent stabilized apartments in New York City, roughly half of the city’s rental housing stock, in a city of roughly eight million people.
The annual increases for rent stabilized housing, set by the Rent Guidelines Board, are modest. The original intent was for such apartments to house financially struggling New Yorkers. Instead, nearly a fifth of households occupying the apartments earn more than $150,000 a year.
In fact, one immediate way to raise supply, without additional costs, is to disqualify roughly 30,000 New Yorkers from occupying rent-controlled apartments since their annual income exceeds $200,000, as sought by the Citizens Budget Commission. Such tenants include Hollywood actors and other celebrities.
Apparently, Mamdani does not intend to disqualify the high income earning tenants. Instead, he plans to triple the number of “publicly-subsidized, affordable, union-built, rent-stabilized homes…(by) creating 200,000 new units over the next ten years.” This, his site states, will provide homes for families who earn less than $70,000 a year, the median income for renters in the city. He also plans to double the investments into preserving nearly 180,000 existing public housing units, which are in addition to the one million rent-stabilized units. The Trump family’s business, currently run by his sons, is a major real estate owner in New York City.
Mamdani’s housing plan will require the city to raise $70 billion in new capital, in addition to $30 billion currently in the spending plans. To raise the $100 billion, Mamdani needs the Trump administration’s approval to lift the city’s cap for affordable housing municipal bond financing.
Trump had earlier threatened to cut federal government funding to New York City after Mamdani takes over as mayor in January. This fiscal year, the city is expected to receive $7.4 billion in federal funds, about six percent of the $118 billion operating expenses, mainly for education, social services, and children’s services. In addition, the city receives billions of dollars in federal funding for transportation and other long-term programs.
As mayor, Mamdani will need to immediately tackle a $5 billion budget deficit. He plans to raise funds, including for housing and to provide cheaper food and free bus rides, by hiking taxes on corporations based in the city and on residents earning more than one million dollars a year. But his tax plan will need approval from the New York State legislature. Governor and fellow Democrat Kathy Hochul, who backed Mamdani in the Mayoral race, opposes his plan to raise taxes.
Trump’s helping Mamdani may depend on whether he can secure political and other advantages. Or, as Mamdani struggles to overcome major financial hurdles, will Trump abandon and blame him for New York City’s problems?