Mamdani promotes Trump on housing investments through satirical newspaper with his name in the headline

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump met Thursday with New York City Mayor Zahran Mamdani at the White House to discuss massive new housing investments in the city, with the new mayor presenting a mock front page of a newspaper to show the president how an important housing initiative might be received.

It’s a tactic designed to appeal to Trump, who is keenly aware of his media coverage and, aside from being an avid viewer of cable news, has been known to voraciously consume coverage in local New York City publications.

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Anna Bahr, Mamdani’s director of communications, said the mayor’s team created the mock front page and headlines for Trump to look at and show what kind of reaction new federal housing investments could bring. The fictitious front page of the New York Daily News reads “Trump to the City: Let’s Build” — a quotation from the famous 1975 cover that read “Ford to the City: Drop Dead,” a reference to Gerald Ford’s pledge to veto financial aid to the city.

The mayor posted a photo of their meeting, which appeared on the front pages, on his page on the social networking site.

Mamdani’s office declined to provide further details about the mayor’s housing proposal, but Bahr said Trump is “very excited” about it. Bahr said that when Trump and Mamdani last met in November, he encouraged the president to come back to him with an idea to build big things together in New York City.

Although Trump had repeatedly criticized Mamdani as a “communist” during his run for mayor of New York City, the president seemed enamored with him after their one-on-one meeting at the White House last fall and the two have maintained a mostly cordial relationship since then.

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At the meeting on Thursday — which was not previously announced and lasted about an hour — Mamdani also raised the detention of Elli Aghayeva, the Columbia University student from Azerbaijan who was arrested by federal immigration agents earlier Thursday.

The agents had arrived at a campus residence claiming they were searching for a “missing person,” according to Agayeva’s attorney and the Columbia president. During his meeting with Trump, Mamdani urged Trump to consider releasing her.

In a phone call shortly after their meeting at the White House, Trump told the mayor that Agayeva would be released. Mamdani also gave White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles a list of four other students in federal immigration custody and requested the administration’s assistance with them.