SerpApi.Org
Zohran Mamdani blushed when asked about Donald Trump’s repeated compliments over his appearance.
The New York City mayor was pressed by Rolling Stone magazine over the US president’s habit of praising his looks, with the interviewer asking: “What do you think about him constantly saying how handsome you are?”
Mr Mamdani laughed and shook his head before blushing and replying: “Thank you?”
Mr Trump remarked on Mr Mamdani’s appearance during an Oval Office meeting in November before he took office in January.
“Wow, you are even better-looking in person than you are on TV,” the president told him.
In the interview with Rolling Stone, Mr Mamdani also defended Darializa Avila Chevalier, an activist and the Democratic candidate for New York’s 13th congressional district, who wrote “F--- Kamala Harris” in a now-deleted post on Twitter (now X) in 2021.
Reflecting on Ms Avila Chevalier’s campaign leading up to her Democratic primary victory, Mr Mamdani described public criticism of her as “blatant racism”.
He said: “So much of what we saw, the fearmongering, the blatant racism, it was an attempt to distract from the fact that Darializa would deliver on exactly that vision for those same working people.”
The mayor of New York City also revealed that his wife, Rama Duwaji, an artist whom he met on Hinge and married in February 2025, regularly receives death threats.
“When you are willing to speak up for all people, there are consequences that come from it. It’s obviously at a different scale now that I sit in front of you as the mayor,” he told the magazine.
Mr Mamdani said that his relationship with Mr Trump remained unchanged and was “built around New York City”, adding that despite their political disagreements, “we have one thing in common, which is a love of this place.”
The pair have clashed in recent weeks about Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister. In an interview with the New York Times on Saturday, Mr Mamdani said that he believed Mr Netanyahu should be arrested if he comes to New York as expected in September, describing him as “a war criminal who has been charged by the International Criminal Court”.
Mr Trump responded on Monday by insisting that Mr Netanyahu “will not be arrested, in any way, shape or form”.
Before Mr Mamdani’s election victory, Mr Trump dismissed him as a “100% Communist lunatic” and has called him a “nut job”, while some of the president’s allies accused him of being a jihadist.
Last November, the president wrote on his Truth Social platform that anybody who voted for Mr Mamdani was a “Jew hater”, a charge that the mayor later suggested was motivated by his Muslim faith.
Mr Mamdani, New York’s first Muslim mayor, has been a highly outspoken critic of Israel’s war in Gaza, which he has described as a genocide.
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