Dementia Don probably thought Mamdani was someone from Saudi Arabia.

He's a narcissist and is easily charmed.

He sees Mamdani as a "winner" and therefore feels compelled to cosy up to him to enlarge his own ego.

Trump knows a handsome man when he sees one

And oh how he’s missed hanging out with handsome men

If I didn't know Trump was a flip flopping erratic personality him saying they have a lot on common would be very concerning lol.

He pulled a similar move with “Bernie bros” back in the day. He sees the rift in the Democratic party and thinks he can scoop up some disaffected leftists by aligning himself (in words alone) with a popular socialist.

He has no policy positions. It’s all posturing. He’ll fit whatever mold is necessary for that moment. It’s amazing he can posture this much without a spine, tbh.

I'm trying to parse this but I just don't get it.

The only explanation I can come up with is simply that Trump identifies Mamdani as a popular democratically elected official, and wants to share some of that sunshine.

Still weird as hell.

Let's get them to hang out more then! Donnie needs good role models.

Trump has no spine of his own. He just likes the last person who talked to him. See: Zelensky/Putin flipflopping

It's triangulation.

The plans Mamdani campaigned on are going to cost billions, and will require state and federal support to have any chance of success. He said as much himself and I imagine that's why he agreed to the meeting.

Hochul supported him verbally and now Trump has too (words are free).

From Trump's perspective, if he had done a presser where he immediately shits on Mamdani to his face, and vows to oppose him with the entire Federal apparatus, then that adds fuel for more people to potentially support Mamdani-like figures if for no other reason than opposition to Trump. It also gives Mamdani an easy target to blame if his policies ultimately fail in NYC.

In contrast, Trump comes out and says "NYC is great, it's gonna be great under his leadership, he can do it" etc. then later when things don't go so well in New York (which Trump is betting on) then it's easier for Trump to say Mamdani owns the failures.

Its the same thing as building up a debate opponent prior to the event and then it becomes easier to suggest they underperformed expectations.

In every pic mandami is blocking his junk like trump is trying to get at it

It could be as simple as him demonizing every Democrat by default, but when he actually talks to Mamdani he saw he was just a person, and a charming one at that.

I think part of the reason Democrat Abigail Spanberger won the governor race in Virginia is because she actually went into red areas and talked to Trump voters face to face. It's harder to demonize people when you have met them and they didn't kill your wife or turn your dog trans.

But after Trump spends a few days back in his sycophant and Fox News echo chamber he will go right back to bad-mouthing Mamdani.

Trump becoming submissive and breedable when faced with a strong man.

(Kill me).

I'm wondering if trump is waking up and realizing his endorsements actually hurt people instead of helping them.

He might be trying to use reverse-psychology on us to get us to hate Mamdani.

Yeah, this was so bizarre to watch. It's the first time I've ever seen Trump acting like a proud father, I mean with good reason, seeing as how Don Jr and Eric are the textbook definition of the term "fail son"