Friends and foes alike credit Donald Trump with a capricious style that sometimes sees the President rapidly change his tune — and often the facts — with a showman’s sensitivity to which way the wind is blowing. (So long as that wind isn’t blowing into one of his hated windmills.)
Trump’s multiple shifts on tariffs, Ukraine, crypto, vaccines and — ostensibly — the Epstein files, however, are comparatively small next to his about-face this week on New York City’s new Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani.
Before Mamdani — famously a Democratic Socialist — won the election, Trump endorsed his opponent Andrew Cuomo. The President called Mamdani a “communist” whose election would place New York in existential peril and invite bankruptcy.
Trump also threatened to withhold federal funds from the city if it elected him, a sort of protection racket threat many likened to the type commonly issued by mob bosses.
Yet in the Oval Office on Friday, Trump put on a master class of malleability and contradiction, welcoming and roundly praising the New York City Mayor-elect, saying he believed Mamdani would be “great” for the city and that he would “surprise some conservatives.”
In a week’s time Mamdani, without altering any of his policy stances, had gone — in Trump’s view — from “deranged” to “rational.”
Trump is posting photos of his love fest with Mamdani while MAGA is melting down online over the meeting. It’s just too funny. The Republicans are in complete shambles! pic.twitter.com/CY5a0ioJQl
— Harry Sisson (@harryjsisson) November 22, 2025
The switch left many Trump loyalists in a bind, especially in New York, where the President’s reversal made playing ‘Follow the Leader’ harder for MAGA hardliners like Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY), who is running for Governor with Trump’s endorsement.
Seen below, Stefanik, expecting Trump to continue to hinder and deride Mamdani, goes all in against the Mayor-elect. She repeats Trump’s “communist” charge, says Mamdani endangers Jewish New Yorkers, and that he will exacerbate affordability problems.
All this rhetoric, perfectly on MAGA message, only to learn the next day that Trump undercut her criticism, offering Mamdani an olive branch. Mamdani has promised free bus rides in the city; Trump essentially threw Stefanik under one.
Fox Interview Yesterday
Roberts: We’re hoping they open this thing up to the press because it could Pelosi Schumer 2.0
Stefanik: Certainly, there’s always surprises. I think it would be great to have it open… What we cannot continue to see this this embrace of communism which… pic.twitter.com/6H4Htgdnyo
— Acyn (@Acyn) November 21, 2025
Ironically, Trump sees the same quality in Mamdani that he identified in Stefanik — star power.
Stefanik went viral earlier this year grilling university presidents on the House floor, doing the thing Trump appreciates above all else (to judge by his Fox News-heavy staffing choices): She proved she was good on TV.
Mamdani has likewise proven he is a high wattage celebrity politician, rising from outside the conventional channels and defying the gatekeepers to captivate voters and alter the power dynamics of his party — a path resembling in many ways the one Trump himself took to power.