Trump says he plans to meet with New York City mayor Mamdani
President Donald Trump indicated Sunday that he plans to meet with New York City’s mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani and said they will “work something out”, AP reported.
Trump has for months slammed Mamdani, falsely labeling him as a “communist” and predicting the ruin of his hometown, New York, if the democratic socialist was elected. He also threatened to deport Mamdani, who was born in Uganda and became a naturalized American citizen, and to pull federal money from the city.
Mamdani rose from an obscure state lawmaker to become a social media star and symbol of the resistance against Trump during his mayoral campaign. He campaigned on an array of progressive policies and a message that was stark in its opposition to the aggressive, anti-immigrant agenda Trump has rolled out in his second White House term.
The 34-year-old appealed to a broad cross-section of New Yorkers and defeated one of its political heavyweights, former governor Andrew Cuomo, by nearly 9 percentage points.
In his election night victory speech, Mamdani said he wanted New York to show the country how to defeat the president. But the day after, while speaking about his plans for “Trump-proofing” New York once he takes office in January, the incoming mayor also said he was willing to work with anyone, including the president, if it can help New Yorkers.
Trump dismisses Marjorie Taylor Greene’s claim that his attacks put her in danger
Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog. I am Tom Ambrose and I will be bringing you all the latest news lines over the next few hours.
We start with the news that president Donald Trump doubled down on his attacks against Republican lawmaker Marjorie Taylor Greene on Sunday, despite his reversal on resisting the release of the Epstein files.
He continued to dismiss her claim that his criticism was endangering her and said he did not believe anyone was targeting her. Greene said on Saturday that Trump’s online criticism had unleashed a surge of threats directed at her.
On Sunday morning, she told CNN that Trump calling her a traitor was the “most hurtful” part of his remarks. Trump repeated the insult hours later.
“Marjorie ‘Traitor’ Greene,” he said, referring to the lawmaker. “I don’t think her life is in danger… I don’t think anybody cares about her,” the president told reporters before boarding Air Force One on Sunday night for a return to Washington, DC from his Mar-a-Lago social club in Florida.
Greene, a US House of Representatives member from Georgia who was long known as a Trump loyalist, has recently taken positions at odds with the president. She said on Saturday she has been contacted by private security firms warning about her safety and that harsh attacks against her have previously resulted in death threats.
The public fallout came as Trump urged his fellow Republicans in Congress to vote for the release of files related to the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, reversing his earlier resistance to such a move.
Trump’s post on his Truth Social came after House speaker Mike Johnson said earlier that he believed a vote on releasing justice department documents in the Epstein case should help put to rest allegations “that he [Trump] has something to do with it”.
Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform on Sunday: “House Republicans should vote to release the Epstein files, because we have nothing to hide.
“And it’s time to move on from this Democrat Hoax perpetrated by Radical Left Lunatics in order to deflect from the Great Success of the Republican Party, including our recent Victory on the Democrat ‘Shutdown’” he said.
Although Trump and Epstein were photographed together decades ago, the president has said the two men fell out before Epstein’s convictions. Emails released last week by a House committee showed the disgraced financier, who died by suicide in jail in 2019, believed Trump “knew about the girls,” though it was not clear what that phrase meant.
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In other developments:
The United States conducted anotherattackon an alleged drug trafficking boat in the eastern Pacific on Saturday, killing three people aboard, the Pentagon said on Sunday. “Intelligence confirmed that the vessel was involved in illicit narcotics smuggling, transiting along a known narco-trafficking route, and carrying narcotics,” the US Southern Command announced in a post on social media.
Trump said the US may open talks with Nicolas Maduro, the Venezuelan president, who faces escalating pressure from Washington amid a huge US military buildup in the Caribbean. “We may be having some discussions with Maduro, and we’ll see how that turns out. They would like to talk,” the US president said on Sunday, in one of the first signs of a possible path to defusing the increasingly tense situation in the region.
Trump on Sunday brushed aside concerns about conservative commentator Tucker Carlson‘s recent interview with a far-right activist known for his antisemitic views, which has caused a schism within the Republican party. Trump defended Carlson, saying the former Fox News host has “said good things about me over the years.” He said if Carlson wants to interview Nick Fuentes, whose followers see themselves as working to preserve America’s white, Christian identity, then “people have to decide.” Trump did not criticize Carlson or Fuentes.
Trump indicated on Sunday that he plans to meet with New York City’s mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani and said they will “work something out”, in what could be a detente for the Republican president and Democratic political star who have cast each other as political foils. Trump has for months slammed Mamdani, falsely labelling him as a “communist” and predicting the ruin of his hometown, New York, if the democratic socialist were elected.
A group of 17 transgender US air force members has sued the Trump administration for denying them early retirement pensions and benefits. The complaint, submitted in federal court, describes the government’s move against them as “unlawful and invalid”.
