Newsman: New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and President Donald Trump met at New York’s Gracie Mansion on Monday, where both said they talked about building housing in the city.
In a news conference following their meeting, Mamdani said he and the president had agreed to “set up a new level of that conversation” between the city and the White House to build as many as 12,000 homes and provide 30,000 jobs in the city’s Sunnyside Yards area.
Trump noted that Mamdani first raised the issue during a visit to the White House, said such a project will likely require “a lot of federal approvals and probably some federal money to do it,” but that “maybe they have a shot at doing it.”
Mayor Zohran Mamdani and President Donald Trump praised each other Monday after meeting privately at the mayor’s residence in New York City for a wide-ranging discussion about everything from interior design to housing to immigration.
“I want what’s good for New York. I want what’s good for the country. So if I had a choice of having him be a bad mayor, or a horrible mayor — I don’t want that. I want him to be a great mayor, and he’s certainly got potential, got great potential,” Trump, standing alongside Mamdani, told reporters on the lawn of Gracie Mansion before giving the mayor a slap on the back.
“The mayor feels very strongly about it, I can tell you,” Trump said. “And he did bring it up.”
“I appreciate the president, his interest in this, and we also know the president not just as the leader of the country but also as someone who has built quite a lot of housing here in our city,” Mamdani said.
“I told the president that we’re going to have all of the members of the press here on the lawn,” Mamdani said. “And that is something that I believe in.”
Trump then told reporters he has “an obligation” to bar “fake news” from the White House. (POLITICO, CNN and MS NOW are suing the president over the ban.)
The roughly hour long meeting was their third meeting in less than a year — was set up at Mamdani’s request and included their respective chiefs of staff, Susie Wiles and Elle Bisgaard-Church. Trump came to New York early to make time for the meeting before he’s set to address the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday.
In his first two meetings with Trump at the White House, Mamdani raised the topic of constructing housing atop a vast rail depot in Queens known as Sunnyside Yard. And on Monday, the mayor said that he and Trump had agreed to elevate the project from conceptual talks to technical discussions between the city’s housing department and the White House.
Developing housing atop the rail yard has been a pipe dream for generations of mayors. Doing so would require navigating a complex ownership structure and constructing a multibillion-dollar platform over the tracks.
“What we’re talking about is something very rare in our city: It’s the possibility of constructing an entirely new neighborhood,” Mamdani said. “And again, it’s only possible with federal partnership because of not only the scale of funding required, but also the authorization in constructing a platform that would then serve as the foundation for about 12,000 homes and about 30,000 jobs.”
The meeting with Trump comes amid a big week for Mamdani as this year’s United Nations General Assembly kicks off in Midtown Manhattan.
Over the weekend, Mamdani hosted a bevy of mayors from around the globe, including ideological bedfellows from Toronto, Mexico City and Amsterdam. And Monday night, after his Trump meeting, the mayor was set to attend a previously unreported dinner with Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who’s in New York to attend a U.N. event also featuring pro-Palestine activist Mahmoud Khalil.
Trump was already scheduled to be in New York City Monday to address the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday.
Trump and Mamdani have met twice before. The first meeting was in November of last year at the White House, when Mamdani was mayor elect, and the second was in February, also at the White House.
Mayor Mamdani — a democratic socialist who once freely called the Republican president a fascist but has taken a softer approach since taking office — returned the compliments by thanking Trump for committing to take conversations to “a new level” about securing federal funding for building more than 12,000 units of housing on top of an old rail yard in Queens.
And more broadly, the two have diametrically opposed views on immigration enforcement.
Mamdani has repeatedly criticized the increasing number of arrests by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in New York City, even if he does not often call out the president by name.
Mamdani also offered a different view of the media’s role when asked about Trump’s decision to ban several news outlets from the White House.
NYC Mayor Mamdani and Trump meet at Gracie Mansion
