The Elitist Media is still abuzz about the recent meeting between President Donald Trump and New York Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani and subsequent Oval Office presser. Contrary to expectations and hype, the tone was cordial and light.
This chumminess appears to have dismayed some within the Acela Class. Witness Susan Glasser, of The New Yorker, as aired on ABC’s This Week on Sunday, November 23rd, 2025:
New Yorker’s @sbg1 marvels, not happily, at how Trump used Mamdani: “I thought as a matter of political changing the story, I think this is where Donald Trump excels because we’re talking about a yuck-yuck photo opportunity in the Oval Office and not the sort of incredible scene… pic.twitter.com/JFB5taPNEJ
— Brent Baker 🇺🇲🇺🇦 🇮🇱 (@BrentHBaker) November 23, 2025
SUSAN GLASSER: I mean, sticking it to billionaires -- I mean, maybe that is the reason in the end that Donald Trump needed to have and wanted to have this meeting on Friday because there was this indelible image, it seemed to me, of this Trump presidency earlier in the week when you had the billionaire leaders of the American tech economy, including Elon Musk, who was banished but now apparently is back, in the White House for a formal, practically state level dinner for the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, you know, the bone saw guy. And here it is, Trump perhaps wanting to get his populist credentials back at a time when there's persistent inflation in the economy, at a time when his poll numbers are sinking. And I thought, you know, as a matter of political changing the story, I think, you know, this is where Donald Trump excels because we're talking about a yuk-yuk photo opportunity in the Oval Office and not the, you know, the sort of incredible scene of those billionaires in the White House, really echoing the January 20th inauguration of Donald Trump where the billionaires were given seats of honor ahead of many of the Republican politicians in Donald Trump's own party.
It appears to escape Glasser that one can have fundamental ideological differences while desiring to work together to bring good things to New York. Thus, her dismay at what she derided as the “yuk-yuk photo opportunity.”
Perhaps she was expecting Mamdani to come into the Oval and perform Communist Resistance Theater. Because he didn’t, Glasser feels that Trump co-opted Mamdani and used him to deflect from earlier meetings full of billionaires.
Glasser thinks Trump gained political points from using Mamdani, with no consideration of whether the meeting was a win-win. The current zero-sum media game allows for no other possibilities.
