{"id":41549,"date":"2026-02-27T01:19:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-27T01:19:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/?p=41549"},"modified":"2026-02-27T01:19:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T01:19:07","slug":"donald-trump-and-zohran-mamdani-discuss-housing-and-immigration-in-second-meeting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/?p=41549","title":{"rendered":"Donald Trump and Zohran Mamdani discuss housing and immigration in second meeting"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> \n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p>Unlock the White House Watch newsletter for free<\/p>\n<p class=\"article__content-sign-up-topic-description o3-type-body-base\">Your guide to what Trump\u2019s second term means for Washington, business and the world<\/p>\n<p><iframe class=\"article__content-sign-up-iframe close\" scrolling=\"no\" id=\"signUpIframe\" data-prev-url=\"\/register\/in-article-sign-up?ft-content-uuid=67b10faa-21c0-47ea-b396-e147a4c8c589&amp;newsletter-id=65b8fec772badb00166eafc6\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<div id=\"article-body\">\n<p>Zohran Mamdani pitched Donald Trump on a federal housing project on Thursday, in the latest\u00a0sign of an unlikely partnership between the democratic socialist mayor of New York City and the Republican president.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ft.com\/stream\/3ce9f9fc-7f3f-4049-8429-dd5570cfb38e\" title=\"\" data-trackable=\"link\">Mamdani<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI had a productive meeting with President Trump this afternoon,\u201d Mamdani wrote in a <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/NYCMayor\/status\/2027113267710021738?s=20\" title=\"\" data-trackable=\"link\">post<\/a> on X on Thursday afternoon. \u201cI\u2019m looking forward to building more housing in New York City.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>A spokesperson for Mamdani said the mayor pitched <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ft.com\/donald-trump\" title=\"\" data-trackable=\"link\">Trump<\/a> on a project to build 12,000 new housing units with federal funding in the city and described the president as \u201cvery enthusiastic about the idea\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>Mamdani posted on X a photograph of the two men in the Oval Office. <\/p>\n<div class=\"n-content-tweet\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">I had a productive meeting with President Trump this afternoon.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m looking forward to building more housing in New York City. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/XnPbt0KXYU\">pic.twitter.com\/XnPbt0KXYU<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani (@NYCMayor) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/NYCMayor\/status\/2027113267710021738?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">February 26, 2026<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<p>In the image, Trump is holding a printout of the infamous New York Daily News front page from 1975 with the headline: \u201cFord to City: Drop Dead\u201d. The US president is also holding a second newspaper, apparently Photoshopped, with the headline: \u201cTrump to City: Let\u2019s Build\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>The mayor\u2019s team had mocked up the newspaper front pages and given them to Trump, Mamdani\u2019s spokesperson said.<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn our meeting earlier, I shared my concerns about Columbia student Elmina Aghayeva,\u201d Mamdani <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/NYCMayor\/status\/2027129042432913711?s=20\" title=\"\" data-trackable=\"link\">said<\/a> on X. \u201cHe has just informed that she will be released imminently.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>The White House and the Department of Homeland Security did not respond to requests for comment.<\/p>\n<p>Thursday\u2019s meeting was the second time Mamdani has met Trump in the Oval Office since he was elected mayor last November.<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe have one thing in common: we want this city of ours that we love to do very well,\u201d Trump told reporters after their initial meeting. \u201cI would feel very, very comfortable being in New York\u201d under Mamdani, Trump added.<\/p>\n<p>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 \u201cdespot\u201d and \u201cfascist\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>The two men are now reportedly in regular contact, with Trump claiming as recently as this week that they speak \u201ca lot\u201d.<\/p>\n<aside aria-labelledby=\"aside-label\" class=\"n-content-recommended--single-story n-content-recommended--inset\" data-component=\"recommended\">\n<p class=\"n-content-recommended__title o3-type-body-highlight\">Recommended<\/p>\n<div class=\"o-teaser o-teaser--article o-teaser--small o-teaser--stacked o-teaser--has-image js-teaser\" data-id=\"00798589-da82-454a-9730-6b4460035a1a\">\n<div class=\"o-teaser__image-container js-teaser-image-container\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ft.com\/content\/00798589-da82-454a-9730-6b4460035a1a\" data-trackable=\"image-link\" data-trackable-context-story-link=\"image-link\" tabindex=\"-1\" aria-hidden=\"true\"><\/p>\n<div class=\"o-teaser__image-placeholder\" style=\"aspect-ratio:2289\/1288\"><\/div>\n<p><\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<p>\u201cThe new communist mayor of New York City, I think he\u2019s a nice guy, actually,\u201d Trump told lawmakers in Tuesday\u2019s State of the Union address. \u201cI speak to him a lot. Bad policy, but nice guy.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>Mamdani, who campaigned on a pledge to make New York more affordable, has called for sweeping changes to the city\u2019s housing policies, including an expansion of public housing and a rent freeze for rent-stabilised apartments.<\/p>\n<p>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 \u2014 an idea that has widespread support among Democrats but has attracted scepticism from many of Trump\u2019s fellow Republicans.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><br \/>\n<br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ft.com\/content\/67b10faa-21c0-47ea-b396-e147a4c8c589\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Unlock the White House Watch newsletter for free Your guide to what Trump\u2019s second term means for Washington,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":41550,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-41549","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-us","cs-entry","cs-video-wrap"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41549","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=41549"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41549\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/41550"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=41549"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=41549"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=41549"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}