Mamdani proposes building 12,000 new homes in NYC during meeting with Trump
Mamdani held his first press conference, answering questions about how this meeting went down.
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Mayor Zohran Mamdani is back in NYC after an unscheduled trip to Washington, D.C. to meet with President Donald Trump.
At the start of his news conference at the Weeksville Heritage Center in Crown Heights on Thursday, the mayor addressed the closed-door meeting in the Oval Office, calling it productive.
"After our first meeting in the Oval Office, one of the topics of conversation that we focused on was housing. I knew leaving that meeting, it was my responsibility to return with tangible proposals for what a partnership could look like in building exactly that in New York City," the mayor said.
It's the second meeting between the two, and Mamdani says it grew out of their first cordial discussion back in November, although he did not provide details on who initiated the conversation.
"I proposed working together to build more than 12,000 new homes in our city, which would be the single largest housing development New York City has seen since 1973. The president was interested in the idea," said the mayor.
The proposal revives the Sunnyside Yards plan, a project that failed to advance in previous administrations after years of planning and community pushback.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations on Columbia University's campus were also discussed. Mamdani says he pressed for the release of a Columbia University student, Elmina Aghayeva, who was detained in her dorm room on Thursday morning and for cases against four others to be dropped.
"I shared with the president that I thought these continued detentions, as well as those who are out of detention but face the prospect of having to be forced back into detention, do nothing to advance that cause and I asked for those cases to be dropped," the mayor said.
Unlike the first meeting, this one was left off the mayor's schedule on Thursday.
"I will always look to keep an open line of communication with the president of our country and to do so always with the interest of New Yorkers in mind, and that means making clear where there is disagreement, making clear where there is prospect for partnership, and always at the core of it asking how can we make it easier for New Yorkers to live in the most expensive city in the United States of America," said the mayor.
Mamdani said the conversation with the president is ongoing and he did not provide a timeline on when the two will meet again. He says he expects more conversations to come.
