New York City mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani said he believes that President Donald Trump is a ‘fascist’ and ‘despot’ but what changed after his first meeting with the president is that he thinks there is an opportunity to work together for New Yorkers. Their bonhomie as displayed in the Oval Office meeting where Trump, in fact, encouraged Mamdani to call him a ‘fascist’ does not make them friends but Mamdani says he can work with the President. “I’m not coming into the Oval Office to make a point or make a stand. I’m coming in there to deliver for New Yorkers,” Mamdani told Meet the Press. Soon after their meeting, Mamdani was asked by reporters if he still considered Trump as a ‘fascist’. “That’s OK, you can just say it,” Trump said, saving Mamdani from a difficult situation. “It’s easier, it’s easier than explaining it,” Trump added. Trump later clarified that he did not mind being called a ‘despot’ as he was certain that Mamdani would change his mind when they work together. “I’ve been called much worse than a despot,” Trump said. Mamdani addressed the ‘fascist’ question again and said his answer was ‘yes’ during the press meet after Trump made his comment. “That’s something I’ve said in the past and I say today. And I think what I appreciated about the conversation that I had with the president was that we were not shy about the places of disagreement, about the politics that has brought us to this moment, and we also wanted to focus on what it could look like to deliver on a shared analysis of an affordability crisis for New Yorkers,” Mamdani said asserting that he is not in awe of Trump after their first meeting and he continued to believe in all the negative things he said about Trump in the past. “I thought again and again about what it would mean for New Yorkers if we could establish a productive relationship that would focus on the issues that those New Yorkers stay up late at night thinking about,” rather than keep trading barbs, Mamdani said.
