New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani quietly traveled to Washington, D.C., on Thursday for a closed-door meeting with President Donald Trump focused on housing policy — and arrived with a photoshopped newspaper front page seemingly designed to flatter the president.
Mamdani later described the Oval Office sit-down as “productive.”
“I had a productive meeting with President Trump this afternoon,” the Democratic Socialist mayor posted on X. “I’m looking forward to building more housing in New York City.”
Attached to his post was an edited image showing Mamdani standing beside a smiling Trump at the Resolute Desk. In the image, Trump appears to be holding a fake newspaper front page reading: “TRUMP TO CITY: LET’S BUILD,” alongside the subheadline, “Backs new era of housing. Trump delivers 12,000+ homes. Most since 1973.” In his other hand, Trump held the famous 1975 New York Daily News headline, “FORD TO CITY: DROP DEAD.”
The trip was not listed on Mamdani’s public schedule. City Hall confirmed the meeting only after news of the visit surfaced. Sources briefed on the agenda said the two discussed a range of housing initiatives that could amount to what was described as a “historic investment” in new housing development across the five boroughs.
According to one source, Mamdani’s visit was also intended to bolster momentum around a proposal by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) aimed at curbing large Wall Street firms from purchasing single-family homes in bulk.
Trump himself highlighted the housing issue during his recent State of the Union address, where he said he had signed an executive order banning large investment firms from buying up thousands of single-family homes and urged Congress to make the policy permanent.
“We want homes for people, not for corporations,” Trump said during the speech.
Despite sharp policy differences, Trump has struck a surprisingly cordial tone toward Mamdani in recent months. During the State of the Union, he referred to the mayor as “the new communist mayor of New York City,” but added, “I think he’s a nice guy, actually. I speak to him a lot. Bad policy, but nice guy.”
This marks the second Oval Office meeting between the two since Mamdani’s election in November. Their first meeting also centered on housing and regulatory reform. Mamdani’s team previously said Trump expressed interest in streamlining development approvals, particularly through the Expedited Land Use Review Procedure (EULER), a 90-day approval process for certain affordable housing projects. By contrast, the traditional Uniform Land Use Review Procedure (ULURP) can take seven months or longer.
Mamdani was reportedly accompanied on the flight to Washington by top adviser Morris Katz. Observers spotted the mayor wearing a black hat and mask aboard a commercial Delta flight Thursday morning.
While the optics of the photoshopped newspaper drew attention, both sides publicly emphasized the substance of the conversation: housing supply, cutting red tape, and finding potential areas of overlap between a populist Republican president and a progressive New York City mayor navigating affordability pressures at home.
The post Mamdani Meets Trump In DC On Housing, Brings Mock Newspaper As Icebreaker appeared first on Real News Now.
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