Mamdani meets Trump at White House, seeks administration’s help on Mahmoud Khalil

NYC mayor asks Trump’s chief of staff for assistance with anti-Israel students who have been targeted by feds, as he successfully pushes for release of Columbia student accused of overstaying visa

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani presented President Donald Trump with a mock newspaper front page during a visit to the White House on Thursday to discuss massive new housing investments in the city.

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, is known to voraciously consume coverage in the local New York City publications. The Republican president and Democratic mayor have maintained a cordial relationship since their first meeting last fall.

Anna Bahr, Mamdani’s communications director, said the mayor’s team created a mock front page and headlines for Trump to look at and demonstrate what kind of reaction new federal housing investments could bring. The mock New York Daily News front page says “Trump to City: Let’s Build” — a riff on the famous 1975 cover that read “Ford to City: Drop Dead,” referring to Gerald Ford’s vow to veto financial assistance to the city.

The mayor posted the photo of their meeting, featuring the front pages, to his social media page.

Mamdani’s office declined to elaborate on the mayor’s housing proposal, but Bahr said Trump was “very enthusiastic” about it. When Trump and Mamdani last met in November, the president encouraged Mamdani to return to him with an idea to build big things together in New York City, Bahr said.

Though Trump repeatedly maligned Mamdani as a “communist” as he ran for New York City mayor, the president appeared charmed by him after their one-on-one meeting at the White House in November. While again calling Mamdani a “communist” during his State of the Union speech, Trump described the mayor as a “nice guy” who has “bad policies” and said the two “speak a lot.”

At the meeting on Thursday, which was previously unannounced and lasted for about an hour, Mamdani also brought up the detainment of Ellie Aghayeva, a Columbia University student from Azerbaijan who was arrested earlier Thursday by federal immigration agents.

The agents had accessed a campus residence by claiming they were searching for a “missing person,” according to Aghayeva’s attorneys and Columbia’s president.

DHS said the building manager and Aghayeva’s roommate let its agents in. The department denied that agents had misrepresented their intentions.

“ICE arrested Elmina Aghayeva, an illegal alien from Azerbaijan, whose student visa was terminated in 2016 under the Obama administration for failing to attend classes,” DHS said.

As he met with Trump, Mamdani urged Trump to consider releasing her. In a phone call not long after their White House meeting, Trump told the mayor that Aghayeva would be released. Mamdani also gave White House chief of staff Susie Wiles a list of four other students targeted by federal authorities and asked for the administration’s help with them.

The four students are Mahmoud Khalil, Yunseo Chung, Mohsen Mahdawi and Leqaa Kordia, who were all detained after playing roles in pro-Palestinian protests against Israel. Of the four, only Kordia remains in custody, although all cases are proceeding through the courts.

Mamdani has been vocal in defending Khalil, a leading figure in the demonstrations at Columbia that began after the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, terror onslaught, and the mayor’s chief counsel is defending Khalil in his deportation case.