President Trump said Tuesday that New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani has a “really good personality” — but said he needs to stop the city from “losing people” and that he should convince the New York Stock Exchange to reverse the opening of an office in Dallas.
“I got along very well with him. We had some good themes, some good talks, and he’s the way he is. I guess you’re not going to change. You know, you grow up a certain way, and you sort of tend to be a certain way,” Trump told radio host Sid Rosenberg, recalling his November meeting with Mamdani.
“I want to see New York be successful, and if he could help make it successful, make it much more successful — because now it’s heading in the wrong direction, losing people, you saw I said the New York Stock Exchange, having a major stock exchange built in Dallas, is not a good thing.”
The NYSE opened the Dallas office in March 2025, before Mamdani took office this month, NYSE Texas is a fully electronic equities exchange.
“I would have talked to them, tried to get them to not do that if I were the mayor of New York. That’s a big deal. That’s not a positive thing for New York,” Trump said.
“I think he’s got a really good personality. I think he’s got, you know, tremendous assets,” the president went on.
“Forget about what he says about me, I don’t care about that. It’s policies, you know, concepts that really haven’t worked over the last 10,000 years. They haven’t worked. And maybe he can get them to work. But a lot of people think that can’t happen. So you got to be very careful. When people leave and you when you have a stock exchange opening up in Texas, when you know things like that happen, that really makes your job a lot harder.”
Trump added: “I’d love to see him be successful. Because if he’s successful, that means that’s a good thing for the New York so I would love to see him be successful.”
