New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani met with President Donald Trump during a visit to the White House on Thursday. During this, he presented Trump with a fake newspaper cover to discuss large-scale new housing investment in the city. This strategy was designed to woo Donald Trump, who is very careful about his media coverage. The Republican president and the Democratic mayor have enjoyed cordial relations since their first meeting last year.
What is the message hidden in the fake newspaper?
Zohran Mamdani’s communications director Anna Bahr said the mayor’s team created a fake cover and headlines to show Trump. So that they can know what kind of response the new federal housing investment might generate. The front page of the fake New York Daily News reads, ‘Trump tells the city: Let’s build.’ It is a satire of the famous 1975 cover, which read, ‘Ford tells the city: Die.’ Which was a reference to Gerald Ford’s vow to freeze financial aid to the city. The New York mayor posted a front-page photo of the meeting with Trump on his social media page. Bahr said Trump was very enthusiastic about Mamdani’s proposal. The proposal would create 12,000 new affordable homes by receiving more than $21 billion in federal grants to build a deck over the rail yard at Sunnyside Yard in Queens.
Project to generate employment through investment: Mayor’s Office
The mayor’s office estimates that the project could create 30,000 jobs and would be the largest investment in housing and infrastructure in the last 50 years. Bahr said that when Trump and Mamdani last met in November, the president encouraged Mamdani to come back to him in New York City with the idea of building big things together.