US President Donald Trump gave an exceptionally warm welcome to incoming New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani at the White House on Friday, praising Mamdani’s electoral victory in the first in-person meeting for the political opposites, who have clashed over everything from immigration to economic policy.

The 79-year-old president, a former New York resident, had previously labeled Mamdani, 34, a “radical left lunatic,” a communist and a “Jew hater.”

Answering a reporter’s question, the mayor-elect reiterated his allegation that Israel has been “committing genocide” in Gaza — a charge Israel bitterly denies, and that Trump has rejected —  and his assertion that US taxpayers’ dollars are helping fund it.

Trump said that he and Mamdani did not discuss the latter’s pledge to arrest Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if he came to the Big Apple.

A democratic socialist and little-known state lawmaker who won New York’s mayoral race earlier this month, Mamdani requested the sit-down with Trump to discuss cost-of-living issues and public safety.

After months of trading barbs and insults in the media, the mayor-elect and the president appeared to put aside their differences and quickly strike a rapport in the Oval Office, a setting that Trump has sometimes used to embarrass heads of state.

“We agreed on a lot more than I thought,” Trump said after inviting journalists into the Oval Office following their private session. “We have one thing in common: We want this city of ours that we love to do very well.”

Sitting at his desk, Trump smiled up at Mamdani, who stood to the president’s right, and offered his congratulations on winning the mayoral election earlier this month: “He really ran an incredible race against some very tough people, very smart people.”

“It was a productive meeting focused on a place of shared admiration and love, which is New York City, and the need to deliver affordability to New Yorkers,” Mamdani said.

Trump said he was happy to put aside partisan differences. “The better he does, the happier I am,” Trump said.

As Mamdani surged in the polls toward victory, Trump, a Republican, had threatened to strip federal funding from the biggest US city. The mayor-elect has regularly criticized a range of Trump’s policies, including plans to ramp up federal immigration enforcement efforts in New York City, where four in ten residents are foreign-born.

Standing next to Trump, Mamdani told reporters that when he spoke to New Yorkers who supported both Trump and him, the two main reasons given were a desire to “end forever wars” and an “end to the taxpayer dollars we had funding violations of human rights,” along with the rising cost of living in the city.

Trump said he had no problem with sharing voters with Mamdani.

Asked about the Middle East, Trump reiterated that the US was pushing for the “total disarmament of Hamas.” He also said Hezbollah remains a “problem,” but that the US was working with Lebanon to address it.

A reporter claimed........

© The Times of Israel