New York’s incoming leftist mayor Zohran Mamdani said on Sunday he still believes US President Donald Trump is a fascist, even after the two had a warm meeting at the White House.
"That’s something that I’ve said in the past, I say it today," the mayor-elect said on NBC news.
The self-described Democratic Socialist on Friday met the Republican leader, setting aside months of mutual recriminations and promising to cooperate on the city’s future.
Trump, who had previously suggested the Ugandan-born New Yorker should be deported, even came to his rescue as the two addressed reporters at the White House on Friday.
When a journalist asked Mamdani if he continued to view Trump as a fascist, the president stepped in.
"That’s OK. You can just say it. That’s easier," Trump told Mamdani. "It’s easier than explaining it. I don’t mind."
In his NBC interview Sunday morning, Mamdani elaborated:
"I appreciated about the conversation that I had with the president was that we were not shy about the places of disagreement, about the politics that has brought us to this moment," he said.
He added: "I found in the meeting that I had with the president a productive one and a meeting that came back again and again to the central themes of the campaign that we ran: the cost of housing, cost of child care, the cost of groceries, the cost of utilities."
After threatening to cut federal funding to the United States’ biggest city and sending in the National Guard, Trump at the White House praised Mamdani’s historic election win, said he could do a "great job."
"We’re going to be helping him to make everybody’s dream come true: having a strong and very safe New York," Trump said.