It was funny, in hindsight, seeing how excited Republicans were before the meeting between President Donald Trump and New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani.
“Mamdani is acting like he is the kingpin of Gotham calling out Trump for a showdown,” one right-wing influencer wrote on X after Mamdani’s election night victory speech. “He is about to find out.”
As a result, conservatives expected one of Trump’s vintage public beatdowns, like the one he delivered to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, exemplified by this Fox News treatment:
Instead, Trump rolled out the red carpet for Mamdani, greeting him with smiles, jokes, and an eagerness that stood in stark contrast to months of GOP saber-rattling.
Mamdani pressed him on the affordability crisis hammering New Yorkers—rent, groceries, and utilities—and pushed for commitments that Trump, remarkably, entertained without hesitation, including not withholding federal funding for the city.
Trump even praised Mamdani, saying that he wanted to “help” and even admitted they had “a lot more in common than I would’ve thought.”
The whole exchange played out less like a tense clash than a weirdly warm meeting, with Trump visibly intent on winning him over.
New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani and President Donald Trump are seen in the Oval Office on Nov. 21.
The moment underscored how good they both are at the spectacle of politics. Mamdani publicly won over his fiercest critic, while Trump upended the narrative, knocked the Epstein files out of the news, and showed a shockingly charming side. It was all anyone could talk about afterward.
When a reporter asked Mamdani about calling Trump a fascist, Mamdani started to dance around the question until Trump cut in with a genuinely funny, “You could just say yes.”
But that is old news. What isn’t is the quandary in which Trump has now put his own party. The GOP’s entire 2026 strategy was to “turn national Democratic candidates into Mamdani copycats,” according to Politico.
House Republicans’ campaign arm had already launched digital ads across 49 battleground districts, casting Democrats as followers of the “socialist mayor” who “built his movement on defunding the police and abolishing ICE.”
The spot tried to fuse Mamdani to House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries—who endorsed him late in the race—and warned ominously that “your city could be next.”
Senate Republicans eagerly jumped on the bandwagon too, declaring that they would fight the “socialism [that] now controls the Democrat Party.”
Meanwhile, GOP Rep. Mike Lawler of New York insisted, “I don’t think there’s any question he will be on the ballot next November. This is something that will certainly play in New York, but I think you’ll see it across the country.”
And then there’s the star-crossed GOP Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York, who has been screwed over by Trump time and time again. Her entire uphill campaign for governor was built on claiming that current Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul was a puppet of “jihadist” Mamdani.
GOP Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York, who tried—and miserably failed—to stop the election of Mamdani.
Now all of those Republicans are left with egg on their face. They spent weeks painting Mamdani as the socialist boogeyman who would drag Democrats down with him, only for their own party leader to praise him. Those photos of Trump beaming beside Mamdani did more damage to the GOP narrative than any Democratic rebuttal ever could.
Try to make Mamdani a campaign issue now—and they’ll still try, of course—and all Democrats have to do is point to Trump’s own words. The whole attack collapses under the weight of Trump’s grin.
Stefanik, for her part, put on a brave face.
“I stand by my statement,” she told News 12. “He is a jihadist. This is an area where President Trump and I disagree.”
She was already going to lose next year—with or without Mamdani—running in one of the bluest states. But now she’s lost the entire premise of her campaign: tying Hochul to the “jihadist” mayor-elect. Even her defiance feels performative, as if she knows the script has changed and she’s stuck delivering lines from the wrong play.
And for the rest of the GOP? It’s doubtful Republicans could have squeezed much mileage out of one mayor, no matter how big New York City is. Voters aren’t in the mood for culture-war theatrics when their rent keeps climbing and their grocery bills double.
Now Republicans are sinking millions into the December special election in Tennessee’s 7th Congressional District—which Trump won 60% to 38% in 2024—because even in one of their strongest districts, they don’t feel safe after Mamdani’s win. That panic says far more about the GOP’s internal collapse than any fictional threat posed by New York City’s mayor.
A cartoon by Nick Anderson.
Their entire strategy collapses under the simplest test: If the monster doesn’t scare people in Tennessee’s reddest district today, he’s not going to scare anyone in 2026.
But all of that is moot because Trump is now friends with Mamdani, proving once again that Trump doesn’t give a damn about his party—or really anything other than himself. The GOP spent months painting Mamdani as the face of socialist doom, and Trump casually torched the entire strategy in a single photo-op..
The meeting knocked Epstein off the airwaves for the weekend, and to Trump, that alone made the whole thing worthwhile—no matter how much political shrapnel his party will take in the months and years to come.
And who knows, maybe Trump genuinely likes Mamdani. Maybe he enjoyed the meeting. Maybe he saw someone who wasn’t afraid of him and found that refreshing. And if that’s the case, then the GOP is in even deeper trouble.
Republicans can map out whatever 2026 strategy they want, but none of it matters if Trump wakes up one morning and decides he likes the guy they’ve spent months trying to turn into a national villain.
