New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani told Jimmy Kimmel that a shared love of the city is the key to his working relationship with President Trump, even amid many disagreements.
Mamdani made the remarks Monday night during a special Big Apple taping of “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” at the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Howard Gilman Opera House, where the late-night show is staging its eighth-annual weeklong run away from its usual California studio.
The New York Post reported that the mayor described meetings and occasional texts with the president focused on practical city business, including a major Queens redevelopment plan, rather than personal sparring.
Comedian Pete Davidson and the band TV On The Radio also appeared on the taping. Other names lined up for the five-day stretch at BAM included Paul McCartney, Billy Crystal, Howard Stern, and Mahershala Ali.
Mamdani said his approach took shape at the first meeting in November of last year.
He put it this way:
“The president and I have many disagreements, but one thing we do agree on is this city and how much we love this city.”
He continued:
“And so from that first meeting in November of last year, I was just thinking of how can we make this meeting not about us, but about New Yorkers. How can we spend that time talking about the things that could make life in this city a little bit easier. That’s what it’s been, whether we met at the White House or at Gracie Mansion.”
Trump, who was born and raised in Queens, visited Gracie Mansion earlier this month. During that stop, cameras caught Mamdani slowly blinking while the president spoke to reporters. On Kimmel’s stage, the mayor said the moment was not boredom or disdain. He said he was thinking about the Queens project they had been discussing.
Mamdani said the two men text “from time to time.” One subject is Sunnyside Yards, a proposal to build a platform over a rail yard and put 12,000 homes on top.
He also noted a small stylistic detail: Trump’s messages to him arrive with normal punctuation and capitalization. That stands apart from the looser style often seen in the president’s public Truth Social posts.
Kimmel, a longtime Trump critic, asked the mayor for a selfie to send the president. Mamdani declined. The host also floated the idea of Mamdani someday running Los Angeles. The mayor shut that down too.
The taping came with its own recent baggage for the host. Disney briefly suspended “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” after the comedian’s remarks about Charlie Kirk’s death. ABC said the show would be preempted indefinitely, then brought it back days later. Kimmel returned earlier this month for his 4,000th episode and took aim at FCC Chairman Brendan Carr. He has insisted he never intended to make light of Kirk’s death.
Kimmel has also claimed ABC recently opted not to air an interview with Texas Democrat Senate hopeful James Talarico over what he described as pressure tied to the FCC. That claim sits with him; the network’s full rationale was not laid out in the account of Monday’s show.
None of that stopped Mamdani from using the Brooklyn stage to spell out a simple operating rule with the White House: keep the focus on housing, livability, and the city both men say they love.
For a progressive mayor and a Republican president, the public posture is unusual. The substance Mamdani described is not. Delivering homes over a rail yard and cutting through noise to talk about New Yorkers is the kind of basic governing most voters still expect.
Partisan late-night stages come and go. City problems do not. When the mayor and the president text about 12,000 homes instead of scoring points, taxpayers should take the win and demand more of it.
