On 21 November, Donald Trump — the leader of the American right — met with Zohran Mamdani — the rising star of the American left. While many expected a Zelensky-style showdown, others predicted the president would continue his uninterrupted run of fawning over hot winners:
trump loves winners, he has a unique eye for talent – and he knows this will make the establishment dems look horrible. he’ll continue calling zohran a communist tomorrow https://t.co/9bc3sGHVCK
— hasanabi (@hasanthehun) November 21, 2025
Mr Mamdani goes to Washington
In the clip above, Mamdani had just begun answering when Trump said he didn’t have to and fondly tapped him on the arm. And this wasn’t the only strange moment:
Q: Stefanik has called Mamdani a ‘jihadist.’ Do you think you’re standing next to a jihadist right now?
TRUMP: No, I don’t. I met with a man who’s a very rational person pic.twitter.com/DrdUFhwNHX
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) November 21, 2025
This is one of the funniest things that has happened in a long, long time. https://t.co/dEoMH4bs3r
— Jeet Heer (@HeerJeet) November 22, 2025
Trump said he will “stick up” for Mamdani, which must have been a very strange thing to hear for the incoming mayor:
Reporter: “Why didn’t you take the train?”
Mamdani: “I’ll use every form of transit”
Trump: “If he flew that’s a lot quicker, he’s working very hard, that’s a very long drive, Ill stick up for ya” pic.twitter.com/g8q9RCK1U1
— Polling USA (@USA_Polling) November 21, 2025
Lest we forget, this is what Trump was saying during the mayoral race:
Donald Trump is now threatening to arrest Zohran Mamdani, and apparently, “a lot of people are saying he’s here illegally.”
The US president gets his Intel from Twitter trolls. pic.twitter.com/b5SqHnMRIm
— Mukhtar (@I_amMukhtar) July 1, 2025
That feeling you have from switching between the two tweets is ‘whiplash’, and if there was any way of holding president Trump to account he would be liable for your injuries.
Trump also went after current mayor Eric Adams:
https://t.co/DDVduy2dA6 pic.twitter.com/sEkjx39EKD
— Will
Menaker (@willmenaker) November 21, 2025
This highlights how much Trump hates losers and loves winners, especially as it’s widely suspected the Trump admin made a deal with Adams to help the outgoing mayor get off with corruption charges. If Adams had stayed in the mayoral race and beat Mamdani, he would have been in the White House getting his tummy rubbed; instead he’s in Israel saying shit like this:
“I wanted to come back here to Israel and let you know that I served you as the mayor.”
– NYC Mayor Eric Adams pic.twitter.com/sBypIxFNyq
— Henri Fjord (@henri_fjord) November 17, 2025
Very normal stuff!
Trump-Mamdani—Popular support
As Lewis Goodall noted, while Mamdani isn’t right wing, he is most certainly a populist, and this no doubt appealed to Trump:
This was completely predictable. Ultimately, Trump loves a winner. And on some level, he must deeply enjoy politics being remade in his image, in different directions. https://t.co/9Ox6AQaYBC
— Lewis Goodall (@lewis_goodall) November 21, 2025
People are jokingly suggesting that Trump has had a communist conversion:
trump after 1 brief meeting with mamdani https://t.co/Zb8jghyqsC pic.twitter.com/vbEWPMedN5
— Elijah Cone (@ElijahCone) November 21, 2025
While this is obviously a joke, we can’t rule it out entirely:
NOW – Trump on Mamdani: “I can tell you, some of my views have changed. And we had discussions on some things. I’m not going to discuss what they were, but that I feel very confident that he can do a very good job.” pic.twitter.com/pf1Zepp9jT
— Disclose.tv (@disclosetv) November 21, 2025
Some of Trump’s most ardent supporters, however, are deeply confused by the turn of events:
— Mike from PA (@Mike_from_PA) November 21, 2025
Of course, the meeting did present an issue for Mamdani. While Trump is a vile individual, he’s also — unfortunately — very funny and charming in certain situations. This can make handling a happy Trump more difficult than managing a belligerent Trump for someone like Mamdani, and the incoming mayor has received criticism:
More people were mad at AOC for a photo with Biden than they are at Zohran for cozying up to Trump. Gaza’s still being bombed with the president’s permission.
Israel has already violated the ceasefire agreement 393 times since October 10.
We’re cool with genocidaires now? https://t.co/sMG2Bgg5j5
— Nerdeen Kiswani (@NerdeenKiswani) November 22, 2025
Fair play to Mamdani, though, he did speak out against Israel’s genocide:
Watch | Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani highlighted the role of Washington’s funding for israel’s genocide in Gaza.
President Trump, seemingly sidestepping these remarks, instead praised Mamdani personally, stating, “I think he’s different than your typical guy, I think you have a… pic.twitter.com/EbwAiSLLYF
— Quds News Network (@QudsNen) November 21, 2025
As people have noted, Trump’s indifference to this could be a further sign that Israel is falling out of favour with the American right — something which the Zionists are livid about:
the most notable thing out of this meeting is that Zohran Mamdani stood in the Oval Office and said Israel is committing a genocide against Palestinians and Trump kind of didn’t give a shit? lol we’ve got to be reaching a completely unprecedented level of seething right now
— manny (@mannyfidel) November 21, 2025
A look at Hebrew media after Zohran Mamdani stood next to Donald Trump in the Oval Office and said the “Israeli government [is] committing genocide” and “our government [is] funding it.”
Jerusalem Post, Kan News, and Times of Israel
https://t.co/au0F2dScwJ pic.twitter.com/FYbWGgOnRo
— Drop Site (@DropSiteNews) November 21, 2025
All in all, then, just another uniquely strange day in the history of American politics.
Featured image via the Canary
By Willem Moore
From Canary via this RSS feed
For 5 minutes until he starts agreeing with the next person he meets.