By Gram Slattery, Jonathan Allen and Trevor Hunnicutt
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -After months of trading insults, U.S. President Donald Trump and incoming New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani smiled at each other, swapped compliments and pledged to collaborate on tackling crime and affordability in the nation's biggest city at an unexpectedly friendly meeting at the White House on Friday.
The political opposites - a Republican billionaire and a young democratic socialist - have clashed over everything from immigration to economic policy. But it was clear the two forged a rapport in their first encounter.
Mamdani, 34, stood by Trump's desk as the 79-year-old president smiled up at him and patted him warmly on the arm, having only recently caricatured Mamdani as a "communist," among other jibes.
"We agreed on a lot more than I thought," Trump said after inviting journalists in following a private meeting. "We have one thing in common: we want this city of ours that we love to do very well."
The meeting in the Oval Office, where Trump has sometimes embarrassed or chastised visiting heads of state, far exceeded Trump's prediction earlier on Friday that it would be "quite cordial."
The men, two different generations of New Yorkers, announced nothing new on policy except what seemed to be the launch of an unexpected, politics-shifting professional friendship.
"What I really appreciate about the president is that the meeting that we had focused not on places of disagreement, which there are many, and also focused on the shared purpose that we have in serving New Yorkers," Mamdani said.
Trump said he was happy to put aside partisan differences. "The better he does the happier I am," Trump said.
As Mamdani surged in the polls to victory earlier this month, Trump, a Republican, issued threats to strip federal funding from New York City. The mayor-elect has regularly criticized a range of Trump's policies, including plans to ramp up federal immigration enforcement efforts in New York City, where four in ten residents are foreign-born.
In the weeks before they met, Trump, a former New York resident, had labeled Mamdani a "radical left lunatic," a communist and "Jew hater," without offering evidence for those assertions.
Mamdani has espoused Nordic-style democratic socialism, not communism. While a staunch critic of Israel, he was endorsed by prominent Jewish politicians, is bringing in Jewish staff in his new administration, notably New York Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch, and has repeatedly condemned antisemitism.
At the meeting, Mamdani and Trump laughed off some of their spicier insults from recent weeks as reporters reminded them of what they had said about each other.
"I've been called much worse than a despot," Trump said with a smile. "So it's not that insulting, but I think he'll change his mind after we get to working together."
Trump's Oval Office meetings have been wildly unpredictable, including respectful encounters with opponents and ambushes of guests, such as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and South Africa's Cyril Ramaphosa.
TRUMP DEFENDS MAMDANI AS 'VERY RATIONAL PERSON'
Trump defended the Uganda-born Mamdani, who will be New York City's first Muslim mayor, from some of the Islamophobic slurs he has faced. One reporter asked Trump if he believed he had "a jihadist" standing to his right.
"No, I don't," Trump said as Mamdani looked on. "I met with a man who was a very rational person."
Mamdani's energetic, social media-savvy campaign provoked debate about the best path for Democrats nationally. Out of power in Washington and divided ideologically, Democrats are mainly unified by their opposition to Trump, who is constitutionally prohibited from seeking another term in 2028.
Mamdani vowed to focus on affordability issues, including the cost of housing, groceries, childcare and buses in a city of 8.5 million people. New Yorkers pay nearly double the average rent nationwide.
Inflation has been a major issue for Americans, and it's one on which they give Trump low marks. Just 26% of Americans say Trump is doing a good job at managing the cost of living, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll this week.
The U.S. federal government is providing $7.4 billion to New York City in fiscal year 2026, or about 6.4% of the city's total spending, according to a New York State Comptroller report. It was not clear what legal authority Trump could claim for withholding any funding mandated by Congress.
Trump had repeatedly urged New Yorkers not to vote for Mamdani, warning it would be a disaster for a city that is already portrayed as a crime-ridden hellscape by conservative media, despite being among the safest big cities in the country. After his first term as president, Trump decamped from Manhattan to become a Florida resident.
A reporter asked Trump if he would consider moving back to the city of his birth with Mamdani running it.
"Yeah, I would," Trump said, "especially after the meeting."
(Reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt and Gram Slattery in Washington, Jonathan Allen in New York; Additional reporting by Kanishka Singh, Steve Holland, Helen Coster and Bhargav Acharya; Writing by Trevor Hunnicutt and Jonathan Allen; Editing by Paul Thomasch, Colleen Jenkins and Alistair Bell)
