The Trump-Mamdani Dance

This afternoon, Trump met with NYC mayor-elect Zoran Mamdani in the Oval Office. I frankly don’t know what to make of the press conference I just watched. Trump sat behind his desk, and Mamdani stood to his right, right next to him. It made the mayor-elect look subservient.

Both men talked about how great their meeting was, Trump praised Mandani in such a way that contradicted his previous comments about him, whom he has called a communist and a “disaester for NYC.” Mamdani is a democratic socialist. Mamdani was under great pressure from his constituents to push back against Trump; we don’t really know what was said in private.

For the cameras, however, both men were oh-so genteel.

Pundits will pick apart what happened in that press conference, but in the end what made my stomach churn was this: it was two highly skilled politicians doing what they do and we don’t know what to believe. Trump was playing nice simply because he’s had a horrible week, and politically speaking he would not benefit from being nasty to the mayor elect in front of cameras. I don’t think Trump’s base really cares about NYC anyway; they know what he really thinks. Mamdani, on the other hand, is simply repeating the word affordability ad nauseam. He had to go meet with Trump, of course and I wonder what his base is going to think of this meeting. Mamdani’s job, when he becomes mayor, is to do everything he can to be successful and help the people of New York City. It’s not dissimilar to when Trump meets with foreign dignitaries or heads of state. Because Trump is the most powerful leader in the world, they have to find a way to not antagonize him. That’s another reason why my stomach hurts. I admit, I hate it when people are pleasant with Trump. He does not deserve it.

An interesting moment was when Trump mentioned that many of Bernie Sanders supporters, another democratic socialist, voted for him in the 2016 election. We know that’s true. What makes it complicated, in my opinion , is that many of those Bernie Sanders voters ended up voting for Trump because they did not want to vote for Hillary Clinton. They did not want to vote for a woman.

The comparisons between the far left and the far right have been made before, it’s not a new discussion. Is this similarity about people wanting change?

As the New York Times notes, Trump was impressed with how Mamdani handled the press. He was smitten with how the media was intently interested in their meeting, remarking on how more press was there were in the room and outside the room than was usual for a meeting with the heads of state.

I bet this press conference will be studied by political scientists for decades, it feels like a petri dish for what’s going on right now in our country.

Epstein never came up.

Thanks for being here. I hope you have a wonderful Friday evening! I’ll see you tomorrow!