Trump–Mamdani faceoff amid president's threats to cut New York’s funding

President Donald Trump is set to meet New York’s mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani later today, Friday, a high-stakes encounter overshadowed by Trump’s repeated threats to strip billions in federal funding from the nation’s largest city. The meeting will be the first in-person interaction between the two men, who represent opposite poles of American politics and have clashed fiercely on immigration, policing and economic policy.

Mamdani — a 34-year-old democratic socialist, first-term state lawmaker, and the first Muslim and first South Asian to win New York’s mayoralty — requested the meeting to discuss housing affordability and public safety.

But the conversation is likely to be dominated by Trump’s vow to choke off federal money to New York, even though it is unclear what legal powers he has to do so. According to the New York state comptroller, the federal government currently contributes $7.4 billion to New York City’s 2026 budget, about 6.4 per cent of its planned spending.

The 79-year-old Trump, a former New Yorker himself, has responded to Mamdani’s victory with characteristic hostility, branding him a “radical left lunatic,” a communist, and a “Jew hater” — allegations the president has offered no evidence to support. Mamdani, for his part, has denounced Trump’s policies, particularly the administration’s plan to intensify federal immigration enforcement in a city where four in ten residents are foreign-born.

Trump’s behaviour in Oval Office meetings remains famously unpredictable. He has alternated between rare civility toward adversaries and blunt ambushes — most notably with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and South Africa’s Cyril Ramaphosa.

Asked on Thursday how he was preparing for his encounter with Trump, Mamdani told reporters: “Being a New Yorker means you’re prepared for all situations.” He will be sworn in on 1 January 2026.

Mamdani’s win — achieved through an energetic, social-media-driven campaign — has electrified the Democratic left and reopened debates within the party over its ideological direction. Democrats remain deeply split on policy, and with the party out of power in Washington, their main unifying force is continued opposition to Trump, who is barred by the US Constitution from running again in 2028.

On the campaign trail, Mamdani focused relentlessly on the city’s soaring cost of living, promising to tackle unaffordable rents, rising grocery prices, childcare costs and transit fares. New Yorkers pay nearly double the national average for rent. Inflation has been a political weak point for Trump: only 26 per cent of Americans approve of his handling of the cost of living, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released this week.

The pair exchanged blunt public messages immediately after Mamdani’s win. In his victory speech, Mamdani told supporters: “If anyone can show a nation betrayed by Donald Trump how to defeat him, it is the city that gave rise to him.”

Trump responded on Fox News: “He has to be a little bit respectful of Washington, because if he is not, he doesn’t have a chance of succeeding.” He added pointedly: “I don’t want to make him succeed. I want to make the city succeed.”

As Trump moves closer to a direct funding confrontation with New York — and Mamdani prepares for his first term in one of the most complex municipal jobs in the world — their meeting on Friday may set the tone for years of political conflict to come.

With agency inputs