There was one moment in particular when Zohran Mamdani seemed like he might have bit off a little more than he could chew by making his lonely pilgrimage down to the lion’s den that is President Trump’s blinged-out Oval Office.
The 34-year-old mayor-elect of New York was pressed by a reporter if he thought his host, who was sitting about four inches away, was really “a fascist.”
How terribly awkward.
But before Mr. Mamdani could even get out one of his slick and diplomatic answers, the president jumped in to throw him a lifeline.
“That’s OK, you could just say, ‘Yes,’” Mr. Trump said, looking highly amused by the whole thing. He waved his hand, as if being called the worst term in the political dictionary was no big deal.
“OK, all right,” Mr. Mamdani said with a smile.
“It’s easier,” Mr. Trump said. “It’s easier than explaining it.” Chuckling good-naturedly, he reached up and gave Mr. Mamdani a pat on the arm. “I don’t mind,” he added.
It was like the oddest screwball buddy comedy in American politics. ...
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Mr. Mamdani, for his part, was clever about deploying certain facts that would help disarm his host. He made a point of talking about how Mr. Trump had gained votes in New York in the last presidential election, and described talking to Trump voters on Hillside Avenue in Queens and Fordham Road in the Bronx.
“When we spoke to those voters who voted for President Trump, we heard them speak about cost of living,” Mr. Mamdani said. “We focus on that same cost of living.”
“He said a lot of my voters actually voted for him,” Mr. Trump chuckled, “and I’m OK with that.”
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The two did a kind of populist pas de deux that would have been unthinkable in a previous political age.
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It was as though Mr. Mamdani was bringing out in Mr. Trump his original focus on economic issues, one that powered his political rise but which some influential figures in the MAGA movement have lately been accusing Mr. Trump of abandoning.
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His meeting with Mr. Mamdani was the happiest he had seemed in a while.
