Zohran Mamdani met with Donald Trump at the White House for the second time on Thursday, deepening the collaboration between the “democratic socialist” mayor of New York City and the fascist president of the United States. The two had previously met in November of last year, a disgusting spectacle of mutual affection in which Mamdani pledged to establish a “partnership” with Trump on “affordability.”
Unlike Mamdani’s first visit with Trump, this one was not announced in advance and was only confirmed by Mamdani after it was leaked to the press. Mamdani traveled to Washington on Thursday, supposedly to pitch the real estate swindler in the White House a housing proposal for New York.
Demonstrating his contempt for the population of New York, Mamdani did not publicly disclose the proposal that he made to Trump behind closed doors. His communications director, however, said Trump’s response was “very enthusiastic.”
Mamdani, renowned for his social media stunts, had his team put together a photo-op of the two with Trump holding a mock New York Daily News front page with the headline, “Trump to City: Let’s Build,” a spoof of the 1975 issue referencing Gerald Ford’s refusal to provide aid during the city’s financial crisis.
Mamdani also reportedly raised the ICE abduction early Thursday of Columbia University student Ellie Aghayeva. Trump’s immigration Gestapo, lacking a warrant, lied to gain access to the visa holder’s dorm and kidnapped her. Aghayeva was released from custody on Thursday afternoon.
To the extent that Mamdani played a role in her release, it was achieved by giving Trump cover to do far worse. Aghayeva is but one of the more than 3,000 people arrested by ICE in New York City since last year.
Mamdani’s meeting with Trump took place less than 48 hours after Trump’s State of the Union address, a nearly two-hour-long tirade packed with lies, racist filth and imperialist thuggery. Trump outlined plans for dictatorship, including undermining the midterm elections in November, if they are even held, by asserting that the Democrats are preparing to rig the vote.
Trump also boasted about massive cuts to social programs during his speech, including cutting 2.4 million Americans off of food stamps, effective between March and June this year. Somewhere around 200,000 New York City residents may be affected, a staggering number under conditions in which the cost-of-living crisis, including grocery prices, drove Mamdani’s victory.
At another point during the State of the Union address, Trump denounced the entire slate of Democratic senators and representatives as “crazy” for refusing to give him a standing ovation for his xenophobic comments. Overnight, Trump posted on Truth Social calls for the deportation of Representatives Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar. Trump also referred specifically to Mamdani during his remarks, calling him a communist but adding, “he’s a nice guy, actually. Speak to him a lot.”
It’s not an exaggeration to say that Mamdani, thanks to the services he is providing to Trump, has become the fascist president’s favorite Democrat. At least for the moment.
Mamdani’s trip to the White House occurs as he prepares the city’s response to a $5.4 billion budget shortfall for the next fiscal year, exacerbated in no small part by Trump’s policies. The city is facing shortfalls in education, housing assistance and Medicaid funding, among others, all areas targeted by the Trump administration for major cuts. Billions of dollars in federal aid for transportation projects, including the Second Ave Subway and Gateway Tunnel, have also been frozen or delayed in recent weeks.
In response to the budget crisis, Mamdani has centered his rhetoric on modestly increasing taxes on millionaires and corporations, calling on Governor Kathy Hochul to pass a 2 percent income tax increase on the wealthiest residents. Hochul has steadfastly rejected any tax increases, despite the number of millionaires in the state ballooning by 13 percent over the last decade as the stock market inflated. As a back-up plan, Mamdani said that the city would impose a regressive property tax increase, amounting to a 9.5 percent tax on over 3 million homeowners with a median income of $122,000.
The emptiness of Mamdani’s verbal appeals to tax the rich was reinforced by the mayor’s endorsement earlier this month of Hochul for reelection, despite her intransigent opposition to tax increases. Mamdani’s endorsement dealt a fatal blow to the primary challenge from Lieutenant Governor Antonio Delgado, who selected India Walton, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), as his running mate. Delgado dropped out days after Mamdani endorsed Hochul.
Mamdani also boycotted a rally on Wednesday in Albany intended to pressure state lawmakers to raise taxes on the wealthy. The rally was planned for months by Mamdani’s own DSA and Our Time, an organization formed directly out of Mamdani’s mayoral campaign. Mamdani refused to attend to avoid antagonizing his ally, Hochul. In the end, no major political figures participated, and attendance fell well short of expectations.
Mamdani’s undermining of his own campaign promises on taxing the wealthy follows a pattern: He courted billionaires after his primary win, reappointed Jessica Tisch as police commissioner, aligned himself with Governor Hochul as she authorized strikebreakers to weaken the six-week-long nurses’ strike, and deployed NYPD officers to arrest anti-ICE protesters and striking nurses—and his administration is not even two months in.
But collaboration with Trump is perhaps the most putrid political development. Trump is deeply hated and confronts a mounting political crisis. His deployment of ICE thugs to occupy cities and brutalize immigrants has sparked widespread opposition, raising the prospects of mass working class opposition, including calls for a general strike. Trump’s reckless foreign policy, including the latest threats of war against Iran, is deeply unpopular.
It is under these conditions that Mamdani is throwing Trump a lifeline, glad-handing with the would-be dictator and putting forward the conception that a man whom he has correctly characterized as a fascist is an ally. Even more than the mainstream Democrats like Hochul, Mamdani’s orientation is to the fascist right.
His embrace of Trump is not simply political expediency. It reflects a class outlook and serves definite class purposes. Mamdani and the DSA represent an upper-middle class layer that is more afraid of revolutionary struggle by the working class than they are of fascist dictatorship.
Mamdani’s alliance with Trump, a “Red-Brown” coalition in action, exposes him as an unprincipled fraud who is attempting to politically disorient and undermine the developing opposition to Trump’s dictatorship.