New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani on Wednesday called his relationship with President Donald Trump “honest, direct and productive” in an interview with NBC News’ “Meet the Press,” one day before Trump said Mamdani is “destroying New York” by proposing a new property tax on wealthy New Yorkers.

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“He’s the president of the United States of America. I’m the mayor of New York City, and we know that so much of what the city needs is also dependent on a relationship with the federal administration,” Mamdani said in an interview marking his first 100 days in office that aired Sunday.

He added that he partially credits their at times chummy relationship to the fact that “New York City holds a very special place for him as well as for me. We’re both from the same city.”

“Our conversations are not just of the scale that is typical with the president, but also granular about even the things as specific as zoning law changes in midtown Manhattan, and that, I think, speaks to the fact that Donald Trump is not just the president of this country, he’s also someone who’s been a New Yorker for his entire life, and there is an investment in this,” the mayor added.

Though the two have worked together and met in the Oval Office at least twice since Mamdani was elected last November, the mayor declined to comment on how often he speaks with Trump.

Still, the mayor was the subject of the president’s ire this week when Trump criticized Mamdani and New York Gov. Kathy Hochul’s proposal to institute a pied-a-terre tax on properties in New York City worth over $5 million whose owners do not primarily reside there.

“Sadly, Mayor Mamdani is DESTROYING New York! It has no chance! The United States of America should not contribute to its failure. It will only get WORSE. The TAX, TAX, TAX Policies are SO WRONG. People are fleeing. They must change their ways, AND FAST. History has proven, THIS ‘STUFF’ JUST DOESN’T WORK,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post on Thursday.

“The president and I both want this city to succeed. This is how you do it,” Mamdani said Friday in response to Trump’s post.

On Wednesday, Mamdani touted the pied-a-terre tax, which he says would raise $500 million for New York City to help fund some of his key priorities, like expanding free child care throughout the city.

Taxing the rich in New York to pay for some of his goals was a key policy proposal for Mamdani during his campaign.

“I always said that I believed in the importance of taxing the rich. This is taxing the rich,” the mayor told “Meet the Press” moderator Kristen Welker.

“A pied-a-terre tax has been something that has long been fought for in the city but hasn’t been possible to get over the finish line. It’s been really exciting to work with the governor to win something that many thought would never have a chance,” Mamdani added.

He also spoke about some of the other priorities that were central to his campaign in 2025, like expanding free child care, making public buses free in the city and opening government-run grocery stores.

In March, Hochul and Mamdani launched a free child care program for up to 2,000 2-year-olds in New York City, with plans to continue expanding the program over the next several years.

“On Day 8 [of the term], we announced a $1.2 billion agreement with Gov. Kathy Hochul to put our city on the pathway to universal child care,” Mamdani said. “We are not only providing free child care for every 3-year-old in the city, we’re now doing it for 2-year-olds as well. By the end of our first term, we will see every single 2-year-old receiving free child care across the five boroughs of New York City.”

Last week, the mayor also announced that his administration would open the first city-run grocery store in East Harlem, the start of fulfilling a campaign promise to open at least one such store in each of the city’s five boroughs.

“We’ve always said that we would have one city-run grocery store in each borough and they would provide cheaper groceries, and we’re going to do that by guaranteeing it through a basket of essential items, the kinds of things that New Yorkers need from their grocery store, but they haven’t been able to budget for,” Mamdani told “Meet the Press.” “We’re talking about bread and eggs, the staples that have been skyrocketing.”

The mayor acknowledged that rising costs at the grocery store aren’t unique to the five boroughs, “but they’ve been increasing at an even higher rate in New York City. Our goal here is to deliver cheaper groceries to New Yorkers. That’s what we want the outcome to be.”

Mamdani also blamed the war in Iran for prices continuing to rise in New York City and elsewhere.

“While this war has exacerbated a cost-of-living crisis, that is a crisis that existed from even before the time I was running for mayor,” he said.

He called for people to oppose the war “on political grounds, on moral grounds, but even just on economic grounds.”

But the mayor said sometimes his friendly relationship with Trump can be helpful, like when he told the president about a Columbia University student, Elmina Aghayeva, who had been detained by the Department of Homeland Security in February.

“Over the course of the meeting, I did mention that just that morning, that ICE had detained a Columbia University student. I mentioned to him that this was part of a larger trend that we had seen of five individuals being detained in or around Columbia University. I gave him a list of those five,” Mamdani told Welker.

“Thirty minutes after the meeting, he called me and said he had now made the decision to release her. And so I think we see in those decisions the worth of a relationship that is both honest and direct,” he added.

One of the other key campaign promises Mamdani made last year was to institute free buses in the city, a proposal that has been stalled in part due to the city’s $5.4 billion budget deficit.

“We’re working with Albany right now, and we’re still confident that there is a part of the budget that could start that process of making buses free. We have one bus route free in New York City right now. We’re excited at the prospect of building that out before we deliver it for every bus route,” the mayor told “Meet the Press.”

Mamdani also dismissed questions about whether he’ll be able to fulfill his campaign promises.

“I’ve always been hopeful of getting two terms, and I’ve always said to New Yorkers that we would accomplish everything with however much time that we get,” the mayor said.

He also fielded questions about the state of the Democratic Party nationally, but said he’s more focused on New York City and winning the midterms than what is going on with his party nationally.

“Here in 2026, I want to be delivering for New Yorkers, and when it comes to the national level, I want to make sure that we win these midterms and actually have a vision that we’re fighting for, not just one that we’re fighting against,” the mayor said.

“I think that New Yorkers are tired of politicians pontificating about other politicians,” he added. “What they want to see are results, and that’s why my focus has been more on potholes than on politics.”