What did Donald Trump do today?
He got manipulated in a way that might actually do some good for once.
Zohran Mamdani is the recently-elected Mayor of New York City.
He's a young Ugandan-born naturalized citizen, a Muslim, and a Democratic Socialist. He ran squarely against Trump in the mayoral primary, attacking Trump's immigration policy as racist and inhumane, and holding campaign events with Trump Tower as a backdrop. Then, during the general election, he made his race against former Democrat-turned-independent Andrew Cuomo a referendum on who would be better able to protect New Yorkers from the threat that Trump posed. Mamdani's victory in that election, part of a shockingly strong performance by Democrats nationwide that evening, was understood by everyone as a direct rebuke to Trump by an electorate that was much larger, younger, and more politically diverse than any that the party had fielded against Trump in 2024. In Mamdani's victory speech, he took dead aim at Trump:
After all, if anyone can show a nation betrayed by Donald Trump how to defeat him, it is the city that gave rise to him. And if there is any way to terrify a despot, it is by dismantling the very conditions that allowed him to accumulate power.
This is not only how we stop Trump; it’s how we stop the next one. So, Donald Trump, since I know you’re watching, I have four words for you: Turn the volume up.
We will hold bad landlords to account because the Donald Trumps of our city have grown far too comfortable taking advantage of their tenants. We will put an end to the culture of corruption that has allowed billionaires like Trump to evade taxation and exploit tax breaks. We will stand alongside unions and expand labor protections because we know, just as Donald Trump does, that when working people have ironclad rights, the bosses who seek to extort them become very small indeed.
New York will remain a city of immigrants: a city built by immigrants, powered by immigrants and, as of tonight, led by an immigrant.
So hear me, President Trump, when I say this: to get to any of us, you will have to get through all of us.
Trump, for his part, called Mamdani a communist and made a toothless threat to revoke his citizenship. But a curious thing happened when the two men met in November: Trump was, by his own admission, charmed by Mamdani and left their meeting visibly eager for Mamdani's approval. Since then, Trump has seemed unable to bring himself to attack Mamdani the way he does almost any other politician (including other Republicans) who resist him in any way, or even fail to be sufficiently obsequious. Even in his grievance-laden speech to Congress on Tuesday, Trump couldn't help but admit that the "communist mayor" was a "nice guy."
Of course, Mamdani is hardly the first politician to realize how easy it is to sway Trump on a personal level. The role of chief "Trump whisperer" is something foreign politicians have competed fiercely for, because it amounts to having the President of the United States in your pocket. Last year, for example, Argentina's president Javier Milei used his personal knack with Trump to win a massive $40 billion bailout for Argentina, a lavish gift that made no economic sense for the United States, and which Milei promptly used to undercut Trump's trade war with China by selling them the soybeans that would normally come from American farmers.
Even world leaders who famously lack that kind of personal charisma can win Trump over by modeling what he sees as "strength." Trump was deeply impressed by stories of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un murdering potential rivals by having them shot with enormous anti-aircraft guns, and quickly "fell in love" with the dictator. (Those are Trump's words.)
Mamdani and Trump met again today, and where other politicians have brought thinly-disguised bribes with real monetary value, Mamdani brought a fake newspaper headline praising Trump for signing onto Mamdani's plan to build more affordable housing in New York. This is explicitly contrary to Trump's own announced plans to keep housing prices high so that homeowners can make profits on them when they sell. Trump was visibly delighted, and left having effectively endorsed the "communist" mayor's plan. (It's not clear from Trump's remarks today that he remembered his previous intentions.)
Mamdani also prevailed on Trump to order the immediate release of a Columbia University student, Elmina Aghayeva, who was seized in a legally dubious raid by ICE yesterday in which agents lied about a missing child to trick employees into letting them into her residence hall, where they could not legally go otherwise. Trump, who has gone to truly extraordinary lengths to evade any legal oversight of his deportation regime, and who has held other students on legal visas in detention for months at a time, immediately agreed without condition to have Aghayeva released.
Of course, releasing a person from jail who is not accused or suspected of any crime is not a bad thing to do, and neither is adopting a pro-housing policy for an expensive real estate market. Indeed, given how much more widely admired Mamdani is than Trump—even outside of New York City— Trump taking more cues from Mamdani would hardly hurt him. But the story in the political press today is not a sudden liberal turn for Trump, but whether he is really able to act objectively in the presence of other people seeking to manipulate him, foreign and domestic.
Why does this matter?
- A president who does whatever a sufficiently charming person does is not emotionally stable enough to hold office.