Mayor Zohran Mamdani met Trump in the Oval Office yesterday to pitch a huge New York City housing initiative – and secure the release of a Columbia University student from ICE custody. Mamdani’s communications director said that Trump was “very enthusiastic” about the plan to build 12,000 new affordable homes in Sunnyside, Queens, by using over $21 billion in federal grants. What’s more, the student, who happens to be a photogenic young woman, was freed. Results all around.
Zohran and his team gave Trump a prop newspaper with the headline “TRUMP TO CITY: LET’S BUILD,” a play on the 1975 New York Daily News cover – “FORD TO CITY: DROP DEAD.” The headlines made a clear case for how much the people would love Trump if he went ahead with Mamdani’s plans. Holding both newspapers, Trump beamed like a kid on school-picture day. Mamdani stood behind him, a proud sales associate with his hands clasped demurely.
The reactions on the left since the meeting have focused on Mamdani’s ability to maneuver Trump, while those on the right point out the similarities between left-wing socialism and right-wing nationalism. “Zohran eats free at Butterworth’s. Come through,” wrote one DC restaurateur on X, after mentioning the “strong ideological overlap” between the two systems of thought. The deeper truth is that both men are radiant, persuasive New Yorkers.
It is in Trump’s DNA to love charismatic men with wide smiles who know how to make New York City happy. What sealed the deal was Zohran demonstrating how he imagines their stars will rise together. Next on the soccer-mad Mayor’s agenda with Trump: cheaper World Cup tickets…
On our radar
PERSIAN RUG-PULL Vice President J.D. Vance told the Washington Post there was “no chance” America would find itself in a drawn-out war in the Middle East.
HOW NOW? Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick is facing pressure to testify before the House Oversight Committee after the Department of Justice deleted a picture of Lutnick and Jeffrey Epstein on an island from its trove of published files.
STEAK OUT Spotted dining out at the Occidental last night: Attorney General Pam Bondi.
Candace’s PR read my Thetan levels
Candace Owens released Bride of Charlie on YouTube this week, a “documentary” about Charlie Kirk’s widow Erika that comes across in the same spirit of those Westboro Baptist Church members picketing a funeral. The outcry over Owens’s film has been immense – and needless to say, those in her orbit have been catching a few strays.
Take Mitchell Jackson, for instance, her PR rep (and a sometime contributor to these estimable pages). In the early hours of yesterday morning, an anonymous X account accused Jackson of being a Scientologist. “Wait. Candace Owens, Brett Cooper, and Clavicular – all people I encounter only against my will – all have the same Scientologist publicist?” tweeted Emily Zanotti. “And the Mommy Sleuths think Erika Kirk is the interesting conspiracy?! This is fascinating! Like, I’m actually horrified.”
The evidence of Jackson’s cult membership appears relatively thin, predicated solely on a jokey picture of him posing outside their Los Angeles command base. The rep was happy to clarify, telling Cockburn, “I’m not a Scientologist.”
“Whoever is paying for this smear campaign should fire the consultants they’ve hired,” Jackson said. “This is the worst hatchet job I’ve ever seen. 1/10 on the crisis PR rating system.”
Owens haters have also been at pains to point out Jackson’s sexuality. “Congrats to whichever private investigator was paid to dig up that I’m gay. Shocking!” said Jackson. “A gay man doing PR, the gayest job on earth!” Tell us what you really think…
Pope says nope to AI
Pope Leo XIV has warned Catholic clergy to stop chasing likes on social media and to stop using AI, as reported by Vatican News, which would know. They must exercise their brains and resist “the temptation to prepare homilies with Artificial Intelligence.” This comes even as the Vatican has released an AI that will translate services at St. Peter’s Basilica into more than 60 languages – but copying the Lord’s prayer into Swahili is one thing. Pope Leo is also concerned that AI and social media will swallow people’s souls.
“Illusion on the internet, on TikTok,” he says, is no substitute for an authentic connection with God. Catholicism survived, and even thrived, in the age of the printing press, of radio, of television, and, up to now, the scrolling era.
Cockburn has a confession to make: he isn’t too worried, unlike Pope Leo who at press time was spotted wearing a spangled cowboy hat while riding the dog-dragon from The Neverending Story. Or maybe that was AI. Who can tell anymore?
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