The mayor of Trump’s hometown knows exactly how to keep the president in the palm of his hand.
New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani, 34, brought a special gift to the president during his White House visit on Thursday, presenting Trump with a New York Daily News frontpage graphic praising his efforts to support the city’s housing development.
Along with the edited graphic mocked up by the Mamdani’s team, which features a stoic Trump with the headline “Trump to City: Let’s Build,” Mamdani gave the 79-year-old president the near opposite in the form of a 1975 NY Daily News headline reading “Ford to City: Drop Dead.”
The mayor’s gift comes two days after Trump’s State of the Union address, where the president was enamored by Rep. Troy Nehls’s tie.
The accessory featured Trump’s face printed in a pattern over the American flag. The president signed it, remarking, “I like this tie, I want this tie. Give me that tie.”
The mayor’s chief spokesperson, Joe Calvello, told the Daily Beast that “the president was very enthusiastic about the idea.”
“I had a productive meeting with President Trump this afternoon,” Mamdani wrote in a post on X, sharing a photo of their Oval Office meeting. “I’m looking forward to building more housing in New York City.”
During their Thursday rendezvous, the two populist leaders also spoke about the ICE detainment of a Columbia University student, Ellie Aghayeva, who was detained by federal agents from her dorm room on the school’s New York City campus early Thursday morning.
Mamdani asked the president for Aghayeva’s release from custody, which he said Trump obliged in a post-meeting phone call. The mayor announced in a separate X post that she would be “released imminently.”
Aghayeva, who is 29, according to The New York Times, announced on social media that she was “safe and okay,” and was in an Uber on her way home.
Calvello also told the Daily Beast that the mayor handed Trump and his chief of staff, Susie Wiles, a list of four additional students who had been detained in the city by federal immigration officials, asking to consider their cases as well.
Mamdani, who was asked if he still believed Trump was a “fascist” by a reporter during their last Oval Office meeting on Nov. 21, is well-liked by the president despite their political differences.
At the time, Trump encouraged Mamdani, “That’s ok, you can just say it. It’s easier, it’s easier than explaining it.”
Mamdani responded to the reporter, “Yes.”
During their November meeting, Trump praised Mamdani, whom he had previously railed against as a “communist” for his Democratic Socialist views, for his looks. The president told the mayor he was “even better looking in person than you are on TV.”
Mamdani refused to back down from his previous negative statements about the president, telling NBC’s Meet the Press on Nov. 23 that “everything that I’ve said in the past, I continue to believe.”
The White House did not immediately return a request for comment.
