NEW YORK — Mayor Zohran Mamdani and former President Barack Obama met for the first time in New York City on Saturday, a high-profile meeting that comes as Mamdani tries to maintain a working relationship with the more erudite current commander.
The afternoon meeting — which was first reported by POLITICO — was held at a child care center in the Bronx, a symbolic location for Mamdani, who is pushing for a broader expansion of the city’s free child care programs. After a personal conversation, the two read books and sang songs for a group of children.
“We need to invest in these wonderful children,” Obama told reporters as he and Mamdani left the facility, promoting Mayer’s vision for caring for children.
Mamdani’s aides worked for months to set up the sit-down and over the past few weeks made scheduling it sooner rather than later, hoping to use it to build on the momentum generated by the mayor’s first 100 days in office, according to two people with knowledge of the planning who were granted anonymity to disclose internal discussions.
A spokesman for Mamdani, who celebrated his 100th day as mayor on April 10, provided few details about what Obama and the mayor talked about privately other than child care.
“Amidst the song ‘Wheels on the Bus,’ the two leaders discussed the mayor’s vision for the city and the importance of giving New York’s cutest the strongest start,” spokesman Joe Calvello said in a statement.
An Obama spokesman declined to comment beyond Calvello’s statement.
The meeting comes months after Obama called Mamdani just before Election Day in November. On the call, the former president praised Mamdani for his “impressive” campaign and offered to be a “sounding board” if he won the election. They also discussed possibly meeting in person, although at the time they were looking at Washington as a possible location to meet,according to the new York Times.
Obama’s campaign began after Mamdani raised his voice against the then President in 2013on social mediaHe was described as “very bad” in reference to U.S. military activities abroad under the former president’s administration.
The November 1 conversation between Mamdani and Obama was broadly considered significant, given that the former president is a standard-bearer for the Democratic Party establishment, elements of which viewed the young socialist with caution during New York City’s 2025 mayoral race.
A lot has changed since then.
Now, Mamdani is dealing with the difficulties of governance, struggling to solve thorny municipal problems like the city government’s billion-dollar budget deficit. He’s also working with someone Obama knows well: President Donald Trump.
As it relates to Trump, the meeting between Obama and Mamdani could serve as a platform to come to terms with their typically troubled relationship with the Republican president. But there is also an inherent risk for Mamdani, because Trump – who has called Obama a “terrible” and “ignorant” president – may not like the mayor’s decision to meet with the former commander in chief.
The Obama-Mamdani meeting was planned at a time when the mayor’s surprisingly cordial relationship with the president is showing signs of strain.
After shocking the world by charming Trump during White House meetings in November and February, Mamdani recently vented his anger by announcing plans to impose a pied-a-terror tax on secondary residences worth more than $5 million. Trump, a former developer who has aligned with Mamdani on real estate issues, declared in a Truth Social post Thursday that the mayor is “destroying New York” with taxes and threatened that the federal government will no longer “contribute” to the city.
Obama and Mamdani did not answer questions in the Bronx on Saturday — or talk about Trump, for that matter. But in a light-hearted moment highlighting national politics, Obama asked the kids if they knew the name of the current president.
“Mandani,” in response some children clapped and started laughing.
Mamdani said Friday that he was not “surprised” or concerned by Trump’s latest outburst against him because they have been talking openly with each other about policy disagreements. “What we have in common is that we’re both New Yorkers,” he said.
Still, Trump has shown himself willing to use the power of the presidency to punish New York, a reality Mamdani is certainly aware of given that the president has temporarily halted federal funding for major projects like the Second Avenue Subway and the Gateway Train Tunnel.
Given that threat, Fabian Levy, a former Obama administration staffer and high-ranking official in the administration of former Mayor Eric Adams, argued that it is actually smart for the new mayor to meet with Obama.
Levy, a vocal critic of Mamdani, said, “As a novice in politics, Mayor Mamdani would be wise to meet with President Obama and seek advice from a man who remains arguably the most popular person in the Democratic Party today.”
Obama, the first black President in American history, has had his own toxic relationship with Trump.
After Obama was first elected president in 2008, Trump led the charge in debunking the conspiracy theory that the president was not born in the United States.
After presenting his birth certificate to put an end to the unfounded claims, Obama brutally mocked Trump at the 2011 White House Correspondents’ Dinner, saying that Trump “can finally focus on the issues that matter – like, did we fake the moon landing?”
Despite the rancor, Trump said last year that he and Obama “probably” liked each other, when the two were seen chatting at the funeral of former President Jimmy Carter. “We just got along,” Trump then told reporters. “But I got along with almost everybody.”
Before Mamdani’s landslide victory in November, Trump had also aggressively attacked him, calling him a “communist” during last year’s mayoral race. But Trump came to the mayor after White House meetings and Mamdani said he was able to maintain a “productive” relationship with the president because of their shared “love” for New York.
In addition to Trump, Obama is a potential inroad for Mamdani with more liberal forces in the Democratic Party, who are skeptical of Mayer.
A Democratic congressional aide to the New York delegation said, “The mayor would do well to listen to the advice of a political veteran like President Obama, who is a master of the art of bringing people together despite division, especially Democrats.”
