The highly anticipated Oval Office meeting between Donald Trump and Zohran Mamdani – the mayor-elect of New York City, the US president’s beloved home town – was hardly the combustible tête-à-tête many had predicted. For the moment at least, the two New Yorkers appeared relaxed, smiling and cautiously optimistic about the work they might accomplish together.

Neither revived their hot campaign trail rhetoric, in which they cast each other as diametrically opposed political adversaries. Trump had labeled Mamdani a “ 100% Communist Lunatic ” and urged voters to back his opponent, the former New York governor Andrew Cuomo. In turn, Mamdani assailed Trump as a “despot” and pledged to be the president’s “ worst nightmare ”.

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