WASHINGTON — New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani doubled down Sunday on his claim that President Trump is a “fascist” and “despot” — but says he can still work with him.
“That’s something that I’ve said in the past. I say it today,” Mamdani told NBC’s “Meet the Press” when asked whether he still views Trump as a fascist.
The socialist pol said he’s eager to work with Trump because they agreed that the Big Apple needs to be more affordable at their surprisingly chummy meeting Friday.
“What I appreciated about the conversation that I had with the president was that we were not shy about the places of disagreement,” he said. “We also wanted to focus on what it could look like to deliver on a shared analysis of an affordable crisis for New Yorkers.”
During their press conference afterward in the Oval Office, Mamdani was put on the spot by a reporter who asked whether he still believes Trump is a fascist, something the Democratic Socialist has said repeatedly in the past.
“That’s OK. You can just say yes,” Trump interjected as Mamdani geared up to sidestep the question. “It’s easier than explaining it. I don’t mind.”
Despite their political differences, Mamdani said, he told Trump that both he and the president won their respective elections because of voters’ concerns over the high cost of living — affordability.
He said he had interviewed voters on Fordham Road in The Bronx and Hillside Avenue in Queens — Democratic strongholds — about why they voted for the Republican leader last year.
“I shared with the president that when I asked those New Yorkers why did they vote for the president, they told me again and again it was cost of living, cost of living, cost of living,” the mayor-elect said.
Mamdani said he was heartened that he and Trump — a former real-estate developer who is familiar with New York City’s labyrinthine bureaucracy — had a granular discussion about the difficulty of building new housing and the higher costs involved in the Big Apple.
They discussed some of the city”s restrictive zoning regulations hindering more development and the lengthy Land Use Review Procedure, or ULURP, in order to build, the socialist said.
“We spoke about the need to change so many of those situations such that a developer doesn’t tell you the thing more expensive than labor or materials is waiting,” Mamdani said.
Mamdani said he stands behind his proposals to hike the income tax on millionaires and increase the corporate tax — which require the approval of Gov. Kathy Hochul and the state legislature — to support his agenda of free child care, free buses and providing more affordable housing.
But he also said he would support other sources of revenue or government funding to support his agenda as an alternative to the tax increases..
“And what I’ve also said is more important than how we fund something is that we fund something,” the top city pol said. “And if there are additional or alternate revenue streams to do so, I will accept them, and I will celebrate them because the most important thing is to actually deliver for the New Yorkers who, right now, can’t even conceive of having a family in New York City because of how expensive we’ve made childcare across the five bureaus.”
He repeated that he’s not interested in boosting the size of the city police force, saying 35,000 officers is sufficient.
Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch, who has agreed to remain as NYPD boss under Mamdani, has advocated for beefing up the force.
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