SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
President Trump had an amiable, just about chummy meeting with New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani at the White House yesterday. The two men showered each other with praise and complimented each other on their political victories.
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PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: I think you're going to have, hopefully, a really great mayor. And the better he does, the happier I am.
SIMON: It was a remarkable show of mutual regard after weeks of vicious personal attacks. NPR White House correspondent Franco Ordoñez has this story.
FRANCO ORDOÑEZ, BYLINE: During the New York City mayoral campaign, President Trump called Mamdani a communist lunatic and threatened to cut off funding if he was elected.
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TRUMP: Look, the Mamdani thing is - it's a disaster waiting to happen. We can't have a communist in charge of a great, supposedly free enterprise kind of a representative city.
ORDOÑEZ: While Mamdani described himself as Donald Trump's worst nightmare. He called Trump a fascist and, in his victory speech, a despot.
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ZOHRAN MAMDANI: So, Donald Trump, since I know you're watching, I have four words for you. Turn the volume up.
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ORDOÑEZ: But on Friday, the two adversaries were full of smiles and promises to partner together on lowering the cost of housing and groceries, while they talked of finding common ground on thornier issues like crime.
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TRUMP: I expect to be helping him, not hurting him - a big help, because I want New York City to be great. Look, I love New York City. It's where I come from.
ORDOÑEZ: And Mamdani returned the affection.
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MAMDANI: I appreciated the meeting with the president. And as he said, it was a productive meeting focused on a place of shared admiration and love which is New York City and the need to deliver affordability to New Yorkers.
ORDOÑEZ: Now, both have mutual interests in making nice with the other. Mamdani wants to protect federal funding that Trump has threatened to withhold. The president has not shied away from using the levers of federal power to attack his opponents. And Trump, he wants to recapture his economic message that Mamdani has taken and tweaked into his own winning affordability message.
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MAMDANI: And I can tell you that there were more New Yorkers who voted for President Trump in the most recent presidential election because of that focus on cost of living, and I'm looking forward to working together to deliver on that affordability agenda.
ORDOÑEZ: The show for the public was all kind words. At one point, when a reporter pressed Mamdani if he still thought Trump was a fascist, the president gave him a pass.
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TRUMP: I've been called much worse than a despot, so it's not that insulting. Maybe - I think he'll change his mind after we get to working together.
ORDOÑEZ: But so much friendliness could come at a cost. Trump had been using Mamdani as a convenient foil, urging Republicans to paint him as the face of the Democratic Party. It was going to be a key talking point for the midterms, and he may well again decide confrontation is better than affection.
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TRUMP: I mean, he's got views and - out there, but who knows? I mean, we're going to see what works or he's going to change also. We all change. I changed a lot.
ORDOÑEZ: But for now, this mutual praise could complicate Republican efforts to make New York City political ground zero, and it remains to be seen if other prominent Republicans follow Trump's lead when it comes to embracing Mamdani.
Franco Ordoñez, NPR News, the White House.
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