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,” said Trump. “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.” Both 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, Trump expected his surprising, statesman-like meeting with Mamdani would 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 US mainstream media continued to report about the Epstein files. On the day of the Trump Mamdani meeting, the media prominently covered Marjorie Taylor Greene’s resignation from the US House of Representatives. In a statement posted on X/Twitter, which has gotten seventeen 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 in the House joined the Democrats 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. Trump backed Andrew Cuomo in the New York Mayoral race, threatening to cut federal government funding to the city if Mamdani won. About one million voters backed Mamdani, roughly 200,000 more than those voting for Cuomo.
By now saying he will work with Mamdani, Trump may be trying to widen the divide within the Democratic Party, between left-wing leaders like Mamdani and moderates. In the Democratic mayoral primary race, Mamdani defeated several moderate and established leaders. They included Andrew 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 head of New York City’s police department. Her reappointment, which reduced fears about a rise in crime under Mamdani, was a top priority for business leaders in the city. She has MBA and law degrees from Harvard and is from the Tisch family, whose part ownership of the New York Giants football team, insurance, hotels and other businesses account for a net worth of $10 billion, according to Forbes.
(Photo: Zohran Mamdani speaking at a New York City Mayoral election rally, 2025. )
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 appeals to voters by speaking in Spanish, Bengali, Urdu and other languages.
Earlier, Mamdani worked as a counsellor helping home owners avoid eviction. He also worked in film and as a writer, while performing as a rap singer named Young Cardamom. He is married to Rama Duwaji, 28, 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 also 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 free public school system: “he attended the Bronx High School of Science.” Missing from the site is the fact that, from 1999 until finishing middle school in 2006, he studied at Bank Street. A private school, Bank Street’s tuition fees for the current academic year, for grades fifth to eighth, is $69,000. While in middle school at Bank Street, Mamdani was a nationally ranked chess player, he told a social media inerviewer.
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, in 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 did so to represent his “complex background” and not to gain an upper hand in the college admissions process.
Several Indians from affluent, upper caste backgrounds secure minority jobs and business contracts in the US, which were originally intended to help Blacks and other disadvantaged groups. None of the Indians, except for descendants of Sikh farmers, suffered any historical discrimination and economic hardships in America.
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 and wife Rama Duwaji in a New York City subway car.)
A big boost in the supply of rent-stabilized units could solve the key issue of housing affordability in New York City, which Mamdani and Trump said they plan to tackle together. More than 158,000 New Yorkers are homeless, with a third of them being children. A quarter of the city’s eight million population live in poverty, according to a report by the Robinhood Foundation. In the city, with one of the highest child poverty rates in the US, a family of four needs to make at least $50,000 just to survive.
Roughly half of the two million rental units in the city are rent-stabilized. 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 addition, there are roughly 1.1 million owner occupied homes, including co-operatives, condominiums, and single and multi-family houses. The Trump family’s business, currently run by the president’s two older sons, is a major residential and commercial real estate operator in the city.
Each year, the federal government provides around $30 billion in subsidies, mainly in mortgage interest, to homeowners in New York City. More than 90 percent of such subsidies goes to households earning over $100,000 a year, according to a city government report.
Mamdani 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 low-rent public housing units, which are in addition to the one million rent-stabilized units.
The rents paid by those occupying rent-stabilized housing are far below market rates and the annual increases, set by the Rent Guidelines Board, are small, well below inflation. So, Mamdani will have to offer cheap financing, major property tax rebates and other subsidies to attract real estate developers to build new rent-controlled apartments. Indeed, to fund his housing plan, the city will need to raise $70 billion in new capital, in addition to the $30 billion currently alloted.
Mamdani can secure much of the funds by eliminating, or even reducing, the federal subsidies received by high income home owners. If Mamdani attempts such a plan, it will be fiercely opposed by real estate developers and likely overruled by President Trump. Home builders also benefit from the subsidies since it reduces the cost to own a home and hence raises demand.
Instead, Mamdani plans to raise funds from institutional and individual investors, assuming the Trump administration lifts the city’s cap for affordable housing municipal bond financing.
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 follow the commission’s recommendation.
Mamdani also plans to raise funds, including to provide cheaper food and free bus rides, by hiking the minimum tax on corporations to 11.5 percent. Also, a two percent tax on those earning more than one million dollars a year, who account for one percent of the city’s residents. But any new taxes will need approval from the state legislature. New York Governor and fellow Democrat Kathy Hochul, who backed Mamdani in the Mayoral race, opposes his plan to raise taxes.
When he takes over as mayor on January 1, Mamdani will need to immediately tackle New York City’s $5 billion budget deficit. This fiscal year, the city expects 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. Also, in addition to home owner subsidies, the federal government provides billions of dollars to the city for transportation and other long-term programs. Meanwhile, the Trump administration is facing federal budet deficits. Also, financial markets are nervous about rising US government debt, which currently exceeds $38 trillion. The debt is 119% of GDP, up from 31% in 1981, and forecast to reach 169% in thirty years.
Trump’s helping Mamdani may depend on whether the president secures political and other advantages. Or, if Mamdani struggles to overcome major financial hurdles or the federal government’s financial problems worsen, will Trump abandon Mamdani and blame him for New York City’s problems?
(This story was updated November 26, 2025.)
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