Mamdani pitches Trump on 12,000-unit housing development in D.C. visit

WASHINGTON — New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani visited the Oval Office Thursday to pitch President Donald Trump on a 12,000-unit housing development and to push for the release of a Columbia University student that immigration agents had detained earlier in the day.

Mamdani spokeswoman Dora Pekec said later that the student, Elmina Aghayeva, who is from Azerbaijan, was being let go.

"I had a productive meeting with President Trump this afternoon," Mamdani wrote in a post on X shortly after 3 p.m. "I’m looking forward to building more housing in New York City."

Mamdani spokesman Joe Calvello said later at City Hall that the mayor had proposed a project with an estimated 12,000 housing units that he described as "one of the biggest federal investments in housing of the past 50 years."

Without providing details of the project, Calvello said that in a previous meeting Trump had asked for "big ideas" for projects in New York City and that Mamdani "took him up on his offer."

The White House remained tightlipped about the meeting, unlike Trump’s first meeting with Mamdani in November, when reporters were invited to cover its start and Trump spoke glowingly about the newly elected democratic socialist.

Calvello said the meeting was kept private "in respect to the president's wishes."

Afterward, Mamdani shared a photo of Trump holding a mock newspaper cover with the headline "Trump to City: Let’s Build. Backs New Era of Housing."

The cover plays off a 1975 New York Daily News front page, also held by Trump in the picture, that read "Ford to City: Drop Dead." The original cover ran after then-President Gerald Ford vowed to veto any federal funding to help bail the city out of bankruptcy.

The White House did not respond to questions about whether issues beyond housing were discussed.

But Mamdani in a follow-up post noted that he spoke by phone with Trump after the meeting, and was told by the president that Aghayeva "will be released imminently."

"In our meeting earlier, I shared my concerns about Columbia student Elmina Aghayeva, who was detained by ICE this morning," Mamdani wrote. "He has just informed me that she will be released imminently."

Calvello said Mamdani had also given Trump a list of four additional students who have been detained and asked that they be released. Pekec said they are current or former Columbia students named Mahmoud Khalil, Mohsen Mahdawi, Yunseo Chung and Leqaa Kordia.

Despite trading barbs during Mamdani’s mayoral campaign, the mayor and New York-native president have shared a friendly public relationship. Mamdani has said he speaks with Trump by phone on occasion, and Trump during Tuesday’s State of the Union speech gave a quick nod to Mamdani, calling him a "nice guy" whose policies he disagreed with.

"The new communist mayor of New York City, I think he's a nice guy, actually," Trump said during his speech. "I speak to him a lot. Bad policy, but nice guy."

By Laura Figueroa Hernandez

laura.figueroa@newsday.com,matthew.chayes@newsday.com@Laura_Figueroa,

Laura Figueroa Hernandez is the White House correspondent and previously covered New York City politics and government. She joined Newsday in 2012 after covering state and local politics for The Miami Herald.