President Donald Trump joins the list of New York City developers who see common ground with Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani when it comes to housing.
Trump said on Friday that he was surprised by how much he agreed with the democratic socialist, especially when it came to issues of affordability.
“He wants to see no crime, he wants to see housing being built, he wants to see rents coming down. All things that I agree with,” Trump told reporters during a joint media briefing on Friday.
Mamdani met with Trump in Washington, D.C., on Friday, and then the two fielded questions from reporters in the Oval Office.
It seems Mamdani was able to tap into an issue core to Trump’s personality: New York City development. The president said one of the things he gleaned from their meeting was that Mamdani agreed that the way to drive down rents is to build more housing. The president said this hadn’t been clear to him, based on media reports. He was presumably referring to Mamdani’s pledge to freeze rents for stabilized tenants for four years. The mayor-elect has also said he wants to build 200,000 apartments in the next decade.
“He’d like to see them come down, ideally, by building a lot of additional housing,” Trump said. “That’s the ultimate way. He agrees with that, and so do I.”
The two would presumably not see eye to eye on zoning reform. The Trump administration rolled back Obama-era rules that required local governments that receive federal funds to address discriminatory housing policies, including zoning rules that have reinforced segregation. He has also decried forcing suburbs to welcome low-income housing into their neighborhoods.
Mamdani said the two also discussed the need for housing regulations to be manageable and not further delay construction. When asked about comments he made about wanting to raise taxes on “richer, whiter neighborhoods,” Mamdani pushed back on the reporter’s characterization of the phrase as “race-based property taxes,” saying that this was referring to the makeup of neighborhoods, not an expression of intent.
“We intend to create a fair property tax system because we want a New York City that is not only fair and equitable, but also one that every New Yorker can afford,” the mayor-elect said.
The two displayed a surprising amount of warmth toward each other, given that Trump has referred to Mamdani as a “communist lunatic” and stoked fears that he would deploy National Guard officers in the city. Mamdani has also not been shy about criticizing the president. During his victory speech this month, Mamdani addressed Trump directly and said the city could show the rest of the nation how to defeat him.
But Trump said he wants to help New York City and said he would feel comfortable living under a Mamdani administration.
“I think you’re going to have, hopefully, a really great mayor,” Trump said. “I expect to be helping him, not hurting him.”
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