Mayor Zohran Mamdani said Thursday that his unannounced meeting with President Donald Trump in the Oval Office was productive and expressed optimism about expanding housing in New York City with the president’s support.
In a photo posted following the meeting, Trump is seen holding two front pages of the Daily News. One is from 1975, when then‑President Gerald Ford famously told New York City to “drop dead” (as the tabloid put it) after City Hall requested an emergency loan to prevent bankruptcy. The other is a mock-up with the headline, “Trump to City: Let’s Build,” with a subheading noting, “Trump delivers 12,000 homes.”
“I had a productive meeting with President Trump this afternoon. I’m looking forward to building more housing in New York City,” Mamdani wrote in the post.
In another post on social media, Mayor Mamdani stated that the Columbia University student who was arrested by ICE agents in her dorm building early Thursday morning would be “released imminently,” after he raised her case with the president.
ICE agents allegedly said they were NYPD officers looking for a missing child in order to gain access to the building to detain Elaina Aghayeva, a Columbia School of General Studies senior .
“Just got off the phone with President Trump. In our meeting earlier, I shared my concerns about Columbia student Elaina Aghayeva, who was detained by ICE this morning. He has just informed me that she will be released imminently,” Mamdani said. Aghayeva later posted on her Instagram story at around 3:45 p.m. that she had been released.
Further details on the meeting’s outcomes were not immediately available.
The mayor made the unannounced trip to Washington, D.C. on Thursday morning for a meeting with President Trump, the second in-person meeting between the two leaders whose relationship has drawn national attention.
Mamdani’s visit was not listed on his public schedule and was first reported by The New York Times on Thursday morning. A source familiar with the meeting confirmed the mayor’s presence in the nation’s capital to meet with the president with amNewYork, but did not disclose the agenda. The White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The meeting comes nearly three months after the two held an unexpectedly cordial Oval Office discussion in November, when then-Mayor-elect Mamdani traveled to the White House. During that visit, they discussed shared concerns about housing affordability, public safety, and the cost of living.
At the earlier November meeting, Trump praised Mamdani’s leadership potential and suggested a willingness to support initiatives to improve conditions in the city, even as both men acknowledged significant policy disagreements.
The 34-year-old mayor, a democratic socialist who took office in January, has repeatedly drawn sharp criticism from Trump, who during the 2025 mayoral campaign labeled him a “communist” — a false characterization, but the President has continued to use it. During the election, the president repeatedly threatened to cut off federal funding to the city if Mamdani were to win.
In turn, Mamdani previously called Trump’s approach to governance authoritarian and fascist, and his election victory speech vowed to push back against the president’s threats to defund the city and meddle in his administration. Since taking office, however, the mayor has toned down his campaign criticism of the president as he seeks to foster a good relationship with the federal government.
The pair have kept in constant contact since their initial meeting, and when asked about the content of their conversations, Mamdani has kept the content and frequency of those conversations closely under wraps.
Asked about it on Wednesday, after Trump shouted him out during his State of the Union address, Mamdani said: “I’ll keep the conversations that I have with the president private. I will tell you, however, that whenever they do happen, they always focus on how to better our city.”
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
