The mayor of New York City has made clear on national television that Donald Trump’s newest bromance may be a case of unrequited love.
Zohran Mamdani, 34, sat down with Jimmy Kimmel to talk about his first nine months on the job at Gracie Mansion. The comic quickly asked him about his relationship with the 80-year-old president, who now appears to adore Mamdani despite previously trying to paint him as a dangerous left-wing extremist.
“You text with the president, I’ve read?” Kimmel, a frequent target of Trump’s anger, asked the mayor. The comedian then suggested sending Trump “a selfie of us right now.”
Mamdani, who had already explained that he’s solely focused on getting federal funding for a new housing development in Queens, quickly poured cold water on the idea. “Jimmy, I love you,” he said on Monday night. “But I love housing more.”
Trump spent Mamdani’s run for office last year trying to smear the self-described Democratic socialist as a “100% communist lunatic” and a “total nut job.” He even suggested that the Ugandan-born politician, who became a U.S. citizen in 2018, was in the country illegally.
The president then had a total change of heart after personally meeting with the mayor at the White House last November. He has since called him “a very rational person” who “really wants to see New York be great again,” telling reporters he thinks Mamdani, a “good-looking guy,” could do “a very good job” as mayor and has “great potential.”
That fawning praise has not sat well with other Republicans. GOP campaigns have increasingly tried to dent the Democrats’ 7-point lead ahead of the Nov. 3 midterms by portraying the party as overrun by an extreme left-wing ideology, pointing to Mamdani and a run of primary victories by other progressive candidates as evidence of that trend.
But the GOP frustration at Trump’s affection for Mamdani pales in comparison with the president’s treatment of Xi Jinping. Republican strategists balked at Trump rolling out the red carpet for the Chinese leader, and the world’s foremost communist despot, for a lavish state visit earlier this week.
“The in-your-face arguments from Republicans this election cycle is that Democrats want to bring socialism or communism to America,” Barret Marson, a GOP strategist based in Arizona, told Politico last week. “Trump warmly embracing two of the most outspoken leaders of those ideologies makes it that much harder for the message to resonate with voters.”
The Daily Beast has contacted the White House for comment.
