Surprisingly friendly meeting between President Trump and Zoran Mamdani
USA TODAY’s Joey Garrison breaks down the surprisingly friendly meeting between President Donald Trump and New York Mayor-elect Zoran Mamdani.
New York City’s next mayor, Zoran Mamdani, shared in a social media post that he and his wife will be moving into the Gracie Mansion, the city’s top leader’s historic residence on the East River.
Mamdani, 34, announced her decision to move there in a Dec. 8 Instagram post alongside a photo of a miniature replica of the mansion on display at the New York Botanical Garden.
“I went to the New York Botanical Garden train show last week and saw our new home!” he wrote. “My wife Rama and I have decided to move to Gracie Mansion in January.”
He said he was making the move for safety reasons and is “committed to enacting the affordability agenda that New Yorkers voted for.”
It’s customary for mayors to live in their Upper East Side homes, but it’s a big change for Mamdani and his wife, Rama Duwaj. The two have lived in a one-bedroom rent-stabilized apartment in Astoria, Queens, for several years. His living situation became a heated topic during the campaign, with rival former Gov. Andrew Cuomo attacking him, arguing that the state lawmaker’s $142,000 salary was too much to live in a rent-stabilized apartment. The New York Times reported that Mr. Cuomo himself once lived in rent-stabilized housing.
Mamdani has put affordability at the center of his successful mayoral campaign, advocating for a rent freeze on the city’s roughly 1 million rent-stabilized housing units.
At 226 years old, Gracie Mansion is one of the oldest surviving wooden structures in the five boroughs. Spanning over 10,000 square feet, it features five bedrooms, a ballroom, and beautiful views of the East River. It also marks a major change for the neighborhood for the mayor-elect, who has lived in Queens for several years, including during a four-year term in the New York State Assembly representing Astoria.
“We miss our home in Astoria. Cooking dinner side by side in the kitchen, riding sleepy elevators in the evenings with our neighbors, listening to the music and laughter vibrating through the walls of our apartment,” Mamdani wrote. “To Astoria: Thank you for showing me the best of New York City.”
Gracie Mansion became the official residence of the Mayor of New York City in 1942, when Mayor Fiorello H. LaGuardia and his family moved there. Billionaire former mayor Michael Bloomberg famously refused to live in a mansion, choosing instead to live in his large apartment on the mountainside and open his home to the public.
Mamdani will be sworn in on New Year’s Day.
Kathryn Palmer is USA TODAY’s political reporter. She can be reached at the following address: kapalmer@usatoday.com And to X@Kathryn Purml. Sign up for her daily politics newsletter here.
