Donald Trump said on Monday that he hoped Zohran Mamdani would be a “great mayor” for New York, an unusually warm assessment of the democratic socialist leader whom the president and his Republican allies have spent months holding up as a symbol of the Democratic party’s alleged embrace of “communism” ahead of the November midterms.

At a news conference following their closed-door meeting at Gracie Mansion, Trump and Mamdani appeared friendly as they have in previous meetings. Mamdani said he and Trump held a “wide-ranging” discussion, which touched on affordable housing and immigration, but did not offer extensive details regarding any disagreements between them.

Asked whether he challenged Trump over his decision to ban CNN, MS Now, and Politico from White House grounds, Mamdani said: “I told the president that we’re going to have all of the members of the press here on the lawn, and that is something that I believe in.”

“It’s interesting because they said they were going to boycott me, but they never boycott me, so I wasn’t very worried about that,” Trump chimed in, pointing to the large assembly of press on the lawn.

The visit to Gracie Mansion, ahead of the president’s speech to the United Nations general assembly on Tuesday, was a measure of Trump’s apparent respect for the 34-year-old mayor of his native New York. It was the first presidential visit to the historic riverside residence in 45 years, following Ronald Reagan, who met there with Ed Koch in 1981.

Pressed on why he had invited Trump, Mamdani said he was willing to work with anybody who could “deliver” for New Yorkers, and highlighted their shared interest in building thousands of new housing units at Sunnyside Yard in Queens. For his part, Trump said he believed Mamdani had “great potential”.

It was the latest unlikely meeting between Trump, a rightwing populist who has targeted immigrants and Muslims, and Mamdani, a democratic socialist who was born in Uganda and is New York’s first Muslim mayor.

Trump has focused his midterm election campaign on denouncing Democrats as “godless communists” who seek to abolish borders and prisons and pose the greatest threat that the US has ever faced.

Yet on Monday he said of Mamdani, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America: “I certainly hope he will be a great mayor. You have to understand – I want what’s good for New York. I want what’s good for the country ... I want him to be a great mayor.”

The body language again seemed amicable. Trump deferentially stood aside as Mamdani spoke from the lectern and, when the press conference finished, gave him an affectionate double tap on the arm.

Trump, Mamdani, Trump’s chief of staff Susie Wiles and Mamdani’s chief of staff Elle Bisgaard-Church were all in attendance during Monday’s meeting.

Mamdani said that they discussed the Trump administration’s stripping of protections for Haitian immigrants.

“I shared my very strong opinions about how we can keep New Yorkers safe, how we can keep immigrant New Yorker safe, and how important immigrant New Yorkers, especially Haitian New Yorkers, are – not only to the fabric of our city, but also to our city’s economy,” Mamdani said.

“The president and I have been very frank about the many disagreements we have,” he added.

The meeting came one day after Mamdani, and Clara Brugada, the mayor of Mexico City, met with migrant delivery workers in New York City, who expressed precarity and fear surrounding the increase in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrests.

Earlier this month, Mamdani helped initiate a lawsuit against the Trump administration for its “public charge” rule change targeting immigrant communities. The lawsuit was filed by the State of New York and 21 other states against the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and various of its agencies. It is unclear if they discussed the lawsuit during the meeting.