Trump to meet with Mamdani on Monday in New York City

By Susan Ferrechio - The Washington Times - Sunday, September 20, 2026

President Trump will meet with New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani on Monday during his visit to the United Nations General Assembly.

Mr. Trump will sit down with the mayor at Gracie Mansion, the mayor’s communications team said.

“The meeting will focus on issues affecting New York City and New Yorkers,” Mr. Zohran’s aides said in a statement Sunday.

The president and Mr. Mamdani have stayed cordial, despite the political gulf between them.

Republicans have made the socialist candidates endorsed by Mr. Mamdani the centerpiece of their “common sense versus crazy” campaign for the midterm elections. Mr. Trump also called Mr. Mamdani a “100% Communist Lunatic” when he won the mayor’s race.

Mr. Mamdani criticized Mr. Trump’s decision to launch the U.S. military attack on Iran, his immigration policies and U.S. military attacks on Venezuelan drug boats. He once pledged his administration would be “Trump’s worst nightmare.”

Yet the two have met and talk regularly on the phone.

Mr. Mamdani visited Mr. Trump in the Oval Office last year and despite Mr. Mamdani’s criticisms, the president has complimented him.

“He’s got a great personality,” Mr. Trump, who built his fortune as a New York City real estate developer, told radio host Hugh Hewitt earlier this year.

In a press conference last week, Mr. Mamdani hinted at the upcoming meeting with Mr. Trump, which will be the first of its kind held at Gracie Mansion.

“When it comes to the president, we continue to have a conversation about how best to deliver for this city, and that is a conversation that has been done in person, it’s been done over the phone, and it will continue so long as either of us have the ability to deliver for the city,” Mr. Mamdani said on Sept. 17.

Mr. Trump will address the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday, U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Mike Waltz said.

The president will also meet with global leaders. He’ll have a pull-aside meeting with Venezuela’s acting president Delcy Rodriguez, who was installed in January after the United States captured ex-President Nicolas Maduro and brought him to New York City to face drug-trafficking charges that were first brought by the Biden administration.