Philip Wegmann writes for Real Clear Politics about the potential electoral impact of President Donald Trump’s recent friendly meeting with New York City’s new mayor.
When New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani and President Donald Trump met for the first time at the White House, all previous invectives were forgotten. They laughed. They bonded over a shared affection for Franklin Delano Roosevelt. When cameras were rolling, they practically bear-hugged in the Oval Office. …
… The president may not be personally insulted, but his hopes of retaining majorities in Congress could be severely damaged. Mamdani was the one bright spot for Republicans in the blue wave that came crashing down on Trump’s party in the off-year elections.
Speaker Mike Johnson told RealClearPolitics the day after those elections that he was prepared to make Mamdani the face of the Democratic Party. The next leader of the biggest metropolis in America, he said, was about to become the biggest liberal liability for Democrats. “The reason I’m optimistic is they’ve handed the keys to the kingdom to the Marxist,” Johnson predicted, “and he will destroy it.”
But the president does not think so. At least not now, after his visit with Mamdani. “I think you’re going to have, hopefully, a really great mayor,” Trump said, promising to help Mamdani “make everybody’s dream come true.” It was a stark reversal given how Trump had floated the idea of cutting off all federal funding to the city just weeks earlier.
And then the president made it personal. Mamdani had provided Republicans with a foil to depict New York as a socialist hellhole on the Hudson, that is, right until Trump took that talking point away from them. The billionaire real estate mogul said he would “absolutely” feel comfortable moving back to Manhattan under Mamdani. “I really would,” Trump replied when asked about returning to his hometown, “especially after the meeting.”
Trump even managed to neuter the campaign of Rep. Elise Stefanik. She is running for governor of New York and has accused Democrats of embracing, not just a socialist in Mamdani, but “a jihadist,” given his past criticisms of Israel.
