New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani sat down with MS NOW’s Chris Hayes on Wednesday’s “All In” after his decisive election victory. The democratic socialist, who will take office in January, discussed his upcoming White House meeting with Donald Trump, the president’s threats to dispatch federal agents to his city and more.
On Monday, Mamdani told reporters that he had contacted the White House about a possible meeting, which was confirmed by Trump in a Truth Social post on Wednesday. The president said they would meet inside the Oval Office on Friday.
The mayor-elect said his team arranged the face-to-face “because of a commitment that I made to New Yorkers that I would be willing to meet with anyone and everyone, so long as it was to the benefit of 8.5 million people who call this city home and their struggle to afford the most expensive city in the United States of America.”
When Hayes asked whether Mamdani had any goals going into the meeting, he said he wanted to “speak plainly” to Trump about how New Yorkers are “struggling to afford this city.”
During his campaign, Mamdani made an effort to reach out to Trump voters to gain their support. “Cost of living is something that I heard time and time again from New Yorkers about why they voted for Donald Trump,” he said.
The MS NOW host then asked the mayor-elect about these New York voters who supported Trump in 2024 and voted for Mamdani a year later.
“What we found is that if you listen to New Yorkers, as opposed to lecturing them, they will start to see themselves in your movement,” the mayor-elect said, adding: “And by focusing on cost of living, as opposed to paying consultants to tell New Yorkers what they should think, we were able to actually craft a campaign where — we had someone come to our Forest Hills rally with a hat that said, ‘MAGA [for] Mamdani.’”
One topic that is likely to come up during the Oval Office meeting is Trump’s repeated pledge to send federal troops into New York City. Mamdani said that even though the president has not issued an official order, “We’re already seeing aspects of that in this city.”
“I was speaking to a number of New Yorkers the other night,” he said. “A young woman told me in tears about how ICE has tried to detain her aunt on multiple occasions, coming to her door, coming to school drop off, just leaving her aunt with a feeling like she couldn’t even leave their home.”
Mamdani then called out the city’s current mayor, Eric Adams, who he said has shown “an unwillingness to stand up for the laws we already have here.” “We have sanctuary city policies, which used to be defended by Democrats and Republicans alike,” Mamdani said. “These are policies that do not allow ICE admission into schools, into hospitals, into any city property or properties of city contractors, unless they can show a judicial warrant signed by a judge.” He said it was time for New York to have a mayor “who recognizes this risk is a present-day one.” Mamdani pledged to “stand up for each and every one of the three million immigrants who call this city home.” “I’m one of them,” he said, adding that “an attack on any New Yorker is an attack on the entirety of the city.” You can watch Mamdani’s full interview in the clip at the top of the page.
Allison Detzel is an editor/producer for MS NOW.
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