New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani met with President Donald Trump at the White House for the second time since taking office. During Thursday’s meeting, the mayor arrived with specific requests and a creative gift for the President.
Here’s what Zohran Mamdani gave to Donald Trump
Zohran Mamdani presented Donald Trump with a mock newspaper front page modeled after the New York Daily News’ famous 1975 headline, “FORD TO CITY: DROP DEAD.” It is a reference to President Gerald Ford’s refusal to bail out New York City during its financial crisis. The updated version replaced Ford with Trump and featured the bold headline: “TRUMP TO CITY: LET’S BUILD.”
The mock cover also included lines that read: “Backs new era of housing” and “Trump delivers 12,000+ homes, most since 1973.” The President smiled and held up the fake front page in the Oval Office as he posed for a photo with Mamdani.
“I had a productive meeting with President Trump this afternoon,” Mamdani wrote while sharing the image. “I’m looking forward to building more housing in New York City.” Mamdani‘s press secretary, Joe Calvello, confirmed that the mayor’s office created the ersatz front page as a gift to encourage federal funding for the 12,000-unit housing development. He said the idea followed Trump’s earlier request for the mayor “to come back with big ideas to build big things together in New York City.”
Calvello said, “The mayor took him up on this invitation and came to D.C. today to do just that.” He added that the proposal would be “the biggest federal investment in housing” in the past five decades. He added, “The president was very enthusiastic about this idea (via Politico).”
In other words, Zohran Mamdani urged Donald Trump to approve $21 billion in federal grants for a long-stalled project that would build 12,000 affordable apartments over Sunnyside Yards and create a new neighborhood. He also raised the names of five students detained by ICE during the conversation.
Originally reported by Debanshi Basu on Mandatory.
