That was one weird hell of a meeting, that it was. I especially love how some people are like "I am not at all surprised". Sure buddy in retrospect everything is always very clear.

Sure it is politics but these two people were at each other's throats for the last couple months. And Trump has insulted Sadik Khan, mayor of London, every chance he gets, for almost a decade, because Sadik Khan called him ignorant once, about ten years ago. He doesn't even stand to gain much from this, it is just petty feud. Trump is a vindictive man child. And yet somehow he pretended like he was best friends with a guy who called him a fascist about a month ago. And the way he showed mental agility to deflect questions from reporters like "Do you still think he is a fascist" to save both Mamdani and himself from a difficult spot is so unlike Trump. I would never in a decade think he can display such mental feats and maturity. And yet here we are.

Either Trump thinks he is losing too much support and shifting to center, or he thinks he stands to lose much more financially by losing control of NYC to an enemy rather than someone neutral(ish). It might be both, acting vindictively on NYC might be both a big support and financial loss for him. Or alternatively Trump isn't this strategic and Mamdani just has found Trump's levers and is manipulating him by saying the right things.

It makes more sense from Mamdani's point of view that this was a win. He did not get the vindictive wrath of Trump on NYC (which could have terrible effects on his mayoral term tbh), he did not have to make a statement about backing from any of his policies or ideologies he stated during his campaigning. He also did not really praise Trump (unlike Trump somewhat praising him) but just said they will work together to make NYC better. How this will play out in terms of ICE and increasing racism is to be seen. He will definitely lose some support because of this but he has four years to make up for this.