NYC Mayor-elect hopes to meet with Trump to discuss affordability

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NYC Mayor-elect hopes to meet with Trump to discuss affordability

2025-11-18 05:07 Last Updated At：05:20

NEW YORK (AP) — New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani said Monday that he hopes to meet with President Donald Trump to find ways the political polar opposites can work together on the central focus of his winning campaign: affordability.

At an appearance at a food pantry in the Bronx, the Democrat confirmed that his team had reached out to the White House to set up a possible sit-down.

Trump told reporters Sunday night that he planned meet with Mamdani, saying ” we’ll work something out ” as he prepared to fly back to Washington after spending the weekend in Florida.

Mamdani said the overture reflected his commitment to meet with anyone who could help address the city's most pressing needs, including controlling soaring costs.

“The president ran a campaign where he spoke about a promise to deliver cheaper groceries, a promise to reduce the cost of living," the mayor-elect said after visiting Part of the Solution, or POTS. “We are seeing his actions and that of his administration in Washington leading to the exact opposite effect for New Yorkers.”

Mamdani also criticized Trump's efforts to cut funding to the food aid program known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, during the federal government shutdown.

He vowed to “protect” New Yorkers from a “federal administration that would rather starve the people of this city, than serve the people of this city.”

The potential face-to-face could represent a detente for the Republican president and Democratic political star, who have cast each other as political foils.

Trump has for months slammed Mamdani, falsely labeling him as a “communist” and predicting the ruin of his hometown if the democratic socialist was elected.

He also threatened to deport Mamdani, who was born in Uganda and became a naturalized American citizen in 2018, and to pull federal money from the city.

Trump has spoken more about affordability following the November election, when Republicans lost badly in Georgia, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Virginia. But he and Republicans insist the economy has never been stronger.

In a social media post Friday, Trump even declared the GOP is the "Party of Affordability!”

Meanwhile Mamdani has risen from an obscure state lawmaker representing Queens to a symbol of the resistance against Trump in just a few short months.

The 34-year-old upset former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo in June’s Democratic primary then trounced him and Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa in the general election.

During his victory speech earlier this month, Mamdani said he wanted New York to show the country how to defeat the president.

He's also talked about “Trump-proofing” New York once he takes office in January while also promising to work with anyone, including the president, if it benefited New Yorkers.

Authorities say they will release person of interest detained in Brown University shooting

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — A person of interest detained after a Brown University shooting that killed two students and injured nine will be released after an investigation took law enforcement authorities in a “different direction,” officials said Sunday night.

The disclosure, made at a hastily convened late night news conference, represents a stunning turn of events in an investigation into killings that rattled the Ivy League campus and came more than 12 hours after officials had announced that they had taken a person into custody in connection with the attack.

The release means that whoever is responsible for the killing may remain at large.

“We know that this is likely to cause fresh anxiety for our community,” Mayor Brett Smiley said.

The attack Saturday afternoon set off hours of chaos across campus and surrounding Providence neighborhoods as hundreds of officers searched for the shooter and urged students and staff to shelter in place. The lockdown, which stretched into the night, was lifted early Sunday, but authorities had not yet released information about a potential motive.

On Sunday morning, officials took a person into custody that two people familiar with the matter identified as a 24-year-old man from Wisconsin. That individual, whose name was never released by authorities, is now being released.

"I’ve been around long enough to know that sometimes you head in one direction and then you have to regroup and go in another and that’s exactly what has happened over the last 24 hours or so,” said Attorney General Peter Neronha.

Col. Oscar Perez, the Providence police chief, said Sunday afternoon that no one has been charged yet. Perez, who also said no one else was being sought, declined to say whether the detained person had any connection to Brown.

The person was taken into custody at a Hampton Inn hotel in Coventry, Rhode Island, about 20 miles (32 kilometers) from Providence, where police officers and FBI agents remained Sunday, blocking off a hallway with crime scene tape as they searched the area.

The shooting occurred during one of the busiest moments of the academic calendar, as final exams were underway. Brown canceled all remaining classes, exams, papers and projects for the semester and told students they could leave campus, underscoring the scale of the disruption and the gravity of the attack.

As police scoured the area for the shooter, many students remained barricaded in rooms while others hid behind furniture and bookshelves. One video showed students in a library shaking and wincing as they heard loud bangs just before police entered the room to clear the building.

University President Christina Paxson teared up while describing her conversations with students both on campus and in the hospital.

“They are amazing and they’re supporting each other,” she said at a news conference. “There’s just a lot of gratitude.”

The gunman opened fire inside a classroom in the engineering building, firing more than 40 rounds from a 9 mm handgun, a law enforcement official told AP. Two handguns were recovered when the person of interest was taken into custody and authorities also found two loaded 30-round magazines, the official said. One of the firearms was equipped with a laser sight that projects a dot to aid in targeting, said the official, who was not authorized to discuss the investigation publicly and spoke to AP on the condition of anonymity.

One student of the nine wounded students had been released from the hospital, said Paxson. Seven others were in critical but stable condition, and one was in critical condition.

Durham Academy, a private K-12 school in Durham, North Carolina, confirmed that a recent graduate, Kendall Turner, was critically wounded. The school said her parents were with her.

“Our school community is rallying around Kendall, her classmates, and her loved ones, and we will continue to offer our full support in the days ahead,” the school said.

On Sunday evening, city leaders, residents and others gathered at a park to honor the victims. The event originally was scheduled as a Christmas tree and Hanukkah menorah lighting.

“For those who know at least bit of the Hanukkah story, it is quite clear that if we can come together as a community to shine a little bit of light tonight, there’s nothing better that we can be doing,” Mayor Brett Smiley said at a news conference earlier in the day.

Smiley said he visited some wounded students and was inspired by their courage, hope and gratitude. One told him that active shooting drills done in high school proved helpful.

“The resilience that these survivors showed and shared with me, is frankly pretty overwhelming,” he said.

Investigators were not immediately sure how the shooter got inside the first-floor classroom at the Barus & Holley building, a seven-story complex that houses the School of Engineering and physics department. The building includes more than 100 laboratories, dozens of classrooms and offices, according to the university’s website.

Engineering design exams were underway. Outer doors of the building were unlocked but rooms being used for final exams required badge access, Smiley said.

Emma Ferraro, a chemical engineering student, was in the lobby working on a final project when she heard loud pops. Once she realized they were gunshots, she darted for the door and into a nearby building where she waited for hours.

Surveillance video released by police showed a suspect, dressed in black, walking from the scene.

Eva Erickson, a doctoral candidate who was the runner-up earlier this year on the CBS reality competition show “Survivor,” said she left her lab in the engineering building 15 minutes before shots rang out.

The engineering and thermal science student shared candid moments on “Survivor” as the show’s first openly autistic contestant. She was locked down in the campus gym following the shooting and shared on social media that the only other member of her lab who was present was safely evacuated.

Brown senior biochemistry student Alex Bruce was working on a final research project in his dorm across the street from the building when he heard sirens outside.

“I’m just in here shaking,” he said, watching through the window as officers surrounded his dorm.

Brown, the seventh-oldest higher education institution in the U.S., is one of the nation’s most prestigious colleges, with roughly 7,300 undergraduates and more than 3,000 graduate students.

Ramer reported from Concord, New Hampshire. Contributing were Associated Press journalists Jennifer McDermott in Providence; Christopher Weber in Los Angeles; and Alanna Durkin Richer, Mike Balsamo and Eric Tucker in Washington, D.C.