Overview
- Mamdani used a televised town hall to describe an active line to President Trump and said the White House was open to discussing federal support for new affordable housing at Sunnyside Yard in Queens.
- He said he handed Trump a list of detainees in February and that the president soon called to say a Columbia student would be released, though Homeland Security has disputed the university’s claim that agents misrepresented themselves.
- Trump has attacked the mayor’s proposed surcharge on second homes over $5 million owned by non-residents, posting that Mamdani is “DESTROYING New York” and denouncing what he called constant taxing on Truth Social.
- The mayor argues the surcharge would raise about $500 million a year to expand universal, affordable childcare and other priorities, and he paired that pitch with a focus on basic services he calls “pothole politics.”
- Mamdani says his team has filled 102,000 potholes and begun repaving more than 1,000 miles of roadway, while coverage ranged from Business Insider’s timeline of his evolving relationship with Trump to a right-leaning critique that the town hall went too easy on him.