Donald Trump and Zohran Mamdani discuss housing and immigration in second meeting

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Zohran Mamdani pitched Donald Trump on a federal housing project on Thursday, in the latest sign of an unlikely partnership between the democratic socialist mayor of New York City and the Republican president.

Mamdani also said he had successfully appealed to the president to release a New York City university student who had been detained by federal immigration agents during the Oval Office meeting.

The 34-year-old, who sent shockwaves through the Democratic Party establishment when he was elected mayor last year, confirmed the meeting in a series of social media posts.

“I had a productive meeting with President Trump this afternoon,” Mamdani wrote in a post on X on Thursday afternoon. “I’m looking forward to building more housing in New York City.”

A spokesperson for Mamdani said the mayor pitched Trump on a project to build 12,000 new housing units with federal funding in the city and described the president as “very enthusiastic about the idea”.

Mamdani posted on X a photograph of the two men in the Oval Office.

In the image, Trump is holding a printout of the infamous New York Daily News front page from 1975 with the headline: “Ford to City: Drop Dead”. The US president is also holding a second newspaper, apparently Photoshopped, with the headline: “Trump to City: Let’s Build”.

The mayor’s team had mocked up the newspaper front pages and given them to Trump, Mamdani’s spokesperson said.

In a subsequent social media post, the mayor said he and Trump had also spoken about a Columbia University student who had been detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.

“In our meeting earlier, I shared my concerns about Columbia student Elmina Aghayeva,” Mamdani said on X. “He has just informed that she will be released imminently.”

Columbia said Aghayeva had been detained on Thursday morning after federal immigration agents entered university housing. The university confirmed late Thursday afternoon that she had been released.

The White House and the Department of Homeland Security did not respond to requests for comment.

Thursday’s meeting was the second time Mamdani has met Trump in the Oval Office since he was elected mayor last November.

Trump invited Mamdani to the White House weeks after the mayoral election, in what turned out to be an unexpected display of bonhomie between the two New Yorkers.

“We have one thing in common: we want this city of ours that we love to do very well,” Trump told reporters after their initial meeting. “I would feel very, very comfortable being in New York” under Mamdani, Trump added.

It was an abrupt change of tone for a president who had previously called Mamdani a communist and threatened to withhold federal funds for New York City if he were elected. Mamdani had in the past referred to Trump as a “despot” and “fascist”.

The two men are now reportedly in regular contact, with Trump claiming as recently as this week that they speak “a lot”.

“The new communist mayor of New York City, I think he’s a nice guy, actually,” Trump told lawmakers in Tuesday’s State of the Union address. “I speak to him a lot. Bad policy, but nice guy.”

Mamdani, who campaigned on a pledge to make New York more affordable, has called for sweeping changes to the city’s housing policies, including an expansion of public housing and a rent freeze for rent-stabilised apartments.

Trump has said he wants to bring down the cost of housing for first-time homebuyers and has called on the US Congress to pass a law banning institutional investors from buying homes — an idea that has widespread support among Democrats but has attracted scepticism from many of Trump’s fellow Republicans.