Welcome to the online version of From the Politics Desk, a newsletter that brings you the NBC News Politics team’s latest reporting and analysis from the White House, Capitol Hill and the campaign trail.
In today’s edition, Kristen Welker breaks down an unexpectedly warm meeting between President Donald Trump and New York Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani. Plus, Ben Kamisar explores how the redistricting fight is scrambling campaigns ahead of the midterms.
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— Adam Wollner
Programming note: We’re taking a holiday break next week. We’ll be back on Dec. 1. Have a happy Thanksgiving!
Trump and Mamdani find a surprising amount of common ground in their first meeting
Analysis by Kristen Welker
Their improbable victories were fueled by populist messages, serving as direct repudiations of their parties’ elder statesmen and inspiring voters who normally sit on the sidelines.
In countless ways — their backgrounds, their policies, their ages — President Donald Trump and New York Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani could not be more different. But the similar manner in which the two men rose to power provided the backdrop for their first face-to-face meeting in the Oval Office today.
In an extraordinary reversal, the insults Trump and Mamdani have been trading for months evaporated in an instant this afternoon, with the two political foes shaking hands and showering each other with praise. Trump called his meeting with Mamdani “very productive,” adding that it “surprised” him — in a positive way.
“We agree on a lot more than I would have thought,” said Trump, a native New Yorker.
Trump and Mamdani downplayed their differences and played up their shared goals — on affordability, on peace in the Middle East and on wanting the best for New York City.
“There were more New Yorkers who voted for President Trump in the most recent presidential election because of that focus on cost of living. And I’m looking forward to working together to deliver that affordability agenda,” Mamdani said, noting that about 1 in 10 of his voters backed Trump in 2024.
Asked by reporters about the past attacks they’ve lobbed at each other, both politicians brushed them off.
“I’ve been called worse than a despot,” Trump quipped in response to a question about Mamdani’s past criticism.
And while Trump had previously floated cutting off federal funding to the city in response to Mamdani’s policy proposals, he told reporters today: “I don’t think that’s gonna happen. … I expect to be helping him, not hurting him.”
The warm encounter between the two stands in stark contrast to how they treated each other in the run-up to this month’s mayoral election. Trump cast Mamdani, a democratic socialist, as a “communist” and issued a last-minute endorsement to his main opponent in the race, former Gov. Andrew Cuomo. Meanwhile, Mamdani called the administration “authoritarian” and memorably addressed Trump directly during his victory speech, telling him to “turn the volume up.”
Today’s meeting is yet another way the 34-year-old Mamdani has stayed in the national spotlight since his election, perhaps sending a signal of the role he will play moving forward in a party that is still trying to find its footing following the 2024 election.
His affordability-centric message has already inspired Democrats to follow a similar path heading into next year’s midterms. He publicly discouraged an ally who launched a primary challenge to House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y. — one of the party leaders who was slow to embrace Mamdani’s candidacy.
And Mamdani will sit down with me for an exclusive interview that will air on “Meet the Press” this Sunday. I will also speak with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn. I hope you’ll join us.
Read more on the Trump-Mamdani meeting →
How the redistricting fight has scrambled dozens of midterm campaigns across the country
By Ben Kamisar
The national redistricting battle has cast a long shadow over the race for control of Congress next year — not only fundamentally reshaping the battlefield, but also creating a domino effect that’s pushing candidates into new seats, ushering longtime lawmakers to the exits and exposing deep political rifts in state parties across the country.
The fight is still playing out across courtrooms, back rooms and President Donald Trump’s social media accounts, as Republicans and Democrats tinker with district lines. Developments like this week’s federal court ruling blocking the new Texas maps from going into effect — leaving the ultimate decision to the Supreme Court — also show how much remains to be determined in the redistricting fight.
Texas: The map Texas enacted over the summer adds more Republicans to the battleground districts represented by Democratic Reps. Henry Cuellar and Vicente Gonzalez, while redrawing two districts in Houston and Dallas in a way that will likely force incumbent Democrats into primaries against each other. It also split Austin to create one deep-blue seat and one additional Republican-leaning seat that stretches toward San Antonio. The Supreme Court’s eventual decision will have a significant impact on a spate of races, starting with whether Austin-area Democratic Rep. Lloyd Doggett decides to retire.
There’s also the question of whether the winner of January’s special election to succeed the late Democratic Rep. Sylvester Turner will have to immediately run against a longtime Democratic incumbent, and how Democratic Reps. Marc Veasey, Julie Johnson and Jasmine Crockett handle a potentially significant redraw in North Texas that could leave one of them out of a job. The redistricting plan already has Crockett weighing a Senate bid.
California: The Democratic-drawn map voters approved earlier this month has similar potential to upend the Republican caucus in the state. The districts represented by GOP Reps. Doug LaMalfa, Darrell Issa, Kevin Kiley, Ken Calvert and David Valadao are becoming significantly more vulnerable to being flipped by Democrats, according to an analysis from the University of Virginia Center for Politics.
One early bit of fallout: Calvert’s decision to seek re-election in a nearby district currently represented by fellow Republican Rep. Young Kim, which will likely trigger an expensive primary between two prominent incumbents. In an early show of force, Kim has already announced plans to spend more than $3 million on ads ahead of the 2026 primary.
Utah: A court decision to enact a new map over the protests of Republicans created a new blue seat in the Salt Lake City area — one that could spark a primary focused on ideology as well as electability, an unusual position for Utah’s Democratic minority.
Read more from Ben →
🗞️ Today’s other top stories
- 🌏 Russia-Ukraine update: Trump said he wants Ukraine to accept a new peace deal by Thanksgiving, after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned the proposal was forcing his country to choose between its “dignity” and a “key partner.” Read more →
- 🗣️ War of words: Trump said that he’s “not threatening death” toward a group of Democratic members of Congress whom he accused of committing “seditious behavior,” which he said a day earlier was “punishable by death.” Read more →
- 🛥️ Reality check: Drug cartels operating vessels in the Caribbean, where roughly 50% of U.S. airstrikes have taken place, are mainly moving cocaine from South America to Europe — not to the U.S., according to current and former U.S. law enforcement and military officials as well as narcotics experts. Read more →
- 🛢️ Drill, baby, drill: The Trump administration announced new oil drilling off the California and Florida coasts for the first time in decades. Read more →
- 🗳️ Special election watch: The Democratic group House Majority PAC is putting more than $1 million into TV and digital ad reservations ahead of the Dec. 2 special election in Tennessee’s deep-red 7th District. Democrat Aftyn Behn raised more than $1 million from Oct. 1 to Nov. 12, while Republican Matt Van Epps brought in about $591,000. Read more →
- 💰 Money moves: The Democratic National Committee took out a $15 million loan in October, an unusually large amount of debt for this point in the political calendar, as the party looks to rebuild its brand and infrastructure under new leadership. Read more →
- 🔵 2026 watch: Rep. Eric Swalwell announced that he will run for California governor, the latest Democrat to join the crowded race to succeed outgoing Gov. Gavin Newsom. Read more →
- 🗽 2026 watch, cont.: 72-year-old Rep. Nydia Velázquez, D-N.Y., will not seek re-election next year, telling The New York Times that “now is the right moment to step aside and allow a new generation of leaders to step forward.” Read more →
- 🔴 2028 watch: Long-simmering tensions between Trump and Sen. Ted Cruz are boiling over, with White House allies convinced that the Texas Republican is aiming to boost his 2028 presidential prospects at the expense of Vice President JD Vance. Read more →
- 💲 It’s still the economy: In Nevada, concerns about the direction of the economy and high costs are threatening to wipe away the gains Trump and the GOP have made with Latino voters. Read more →
That’s all From the Politics Desk for now. Today’s newsletter was compiled by Adam Wollner.
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