Trump, Mamdani to meet in Oval Office as mayor-elect pushes affordability agenda
Zohran Mamdani is seen on November 20, 2025 in New York City. (Photo by BG048/Bauer-Griffin/GC Images)
(WASHINGTON) — Friday will mark the first time that New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani and President Donald Trump will meet face to face following a war of words between the two leaders throughout Mamdani’s campaign and election.
And while Trump announced the meeting with an insult against the progressive Democrat’s policies, Mamdani has maintained that he is looking forward to the White House meeting to discuss his agenda, including tackling a “national crisis of affordability.”
“I’m not concerned about this meeting. I view this meeting as an opportunity for me to make my case,” Mamdani told reporters Thursday at a news conference.
Trump announced the meeting on Wednesday night on social media, repeating the “communist” label he’s been using against Mamdani, who is a member of the Democratic Socialist group, and putting his middle name, Kwame, in quotes.
Trump told reporters on Sunday that he was going to “work something out,” and meet with the mayor-elect in Washington.
“We want to see everything work out well for New York,” he told reporters.
Ahead of the meeting, Robert Wolf, a former UBS executive who is close with former President Barack Obama, said on X that he had a Zoom call with Mamdani Thursday “discussing recent economic news and his upcoming meeting with President Trump.”
Mamdani has been a vocal critic of the administration over its policies, including increased deportations, cuts to government agencies and attacks on cities run by Democrats.
On election night, the 34-year-old mayor-elect spoke directly to Trump in his acceptance speech and told him to “turn the volume up,” as he vowed to protect immigrants.
“So hear me, President Trump, when I say this: To get to any of us, you will have to get through all of us,” he said.
Since Mamdani won the June Democratic primary, Trump has spoken out against the state assemblyman, at one point threatening to deport Mamdani, who was born in Uganda, moved to New York as a child, and became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 2018.
“We’re going to be watching that very carefully. And a lot of people are saying, he’s here illegally,” Trump claimed with no evidence in July.
The president has also threatened to withhold federal funding to New York if Mamdani won the election.
Mamdani’s critics have raised skepticism about his proposals, calling them far-fetched and improbable, as some would require state approval. He has also come under fire for his past comments criticizing the NYPD and Israeli government actions in the Gaza conflict.
The mayor-elect has apologized for his comments against the department and vowed to fight for Jewish New Yorkers, while still being critical of the Israeli government’s polices during the conflict.
Mamdani has also repeatedly brushed aside the threats and said he will continue to speak out against the administration’s conservative policies.
“His threats are inevitable,” Mamdani told ABC News a day after the election. “This has nothing to do with safety, it has to do with intimidation.”
At the same time, Mamdani has said he was open to talking with Trump, especially when it comes to affordability issues, noting that Trump won his re-election promising to bring down rising prices.
“I have many disagreements with the president. I intend to make it clear that I will work with him,” Mamdani said Thursday.
The mayor-elect won the election on a campaign to help New Yorkers with costs, with proposals such as raising the income tax on New Yorkers who earn over a million dollars a year, providing free child care to parents with kids as early as six weeks old, and free public buses.
Following Mamdani’s victory and other key wins by Democrats, Trump has said in social media posts and news conferences that he and the Republicans are the party working to lower costs.
“We’re fighting for an economy where everyone can win, from the cashier starting first job to a franchisee opening his first location to the young family in a drive through line,” he told a crowd in Pennsylvania on Monday.
-ABC News’ Aaron Katersky and Tonya Simpson contributed to this report
: Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz speaks to media gathered on the first day of school at Deerwood Elementary on September 2, 2025 in Eagan, Minnesota. (Photo by Stephen Maturen/Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, a Democrat, announced Monday that he would drop his bid for reelection as governor, saying that he would not be able to give a campaign all of his attention as he works to defend Minnesota against allegations of fraud and right-wing attacks — including from President Donald Trump.
“In September, I announced that I would run for a historic third term as Minnesota’s Governor. And I have every confidence that, if I gave it my all, I would succeed in that effort,” Walz wrote in a statement Monday.
“But as I reflected on this moment with my family and my team over the holidays, I came to the conclusion that I can’t give a political campaign my all. Every minute I spend defending my own political interests would be a minute I can’t spend defending the people of Minnesota against the criminals who prey on our generosity and the cynics who prey on our differences.”
Walz, who served as Vice President Kamala Harris’ running mate in 2024, had come under fire in recent weeks amid allegations of fraud in child-care centers in Minnesota. Walz had said the state was investigating alleged fraud and slammed how rhetoric targeting the state’s Somali community about the allegations could put people at risk.
Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar met with Walz over the weekend about a possible bid for governor, according to two sources familiar with the meeting.
This comes as a source close to Klobuchar tells ABC News that she’s been getting a lot of outreach encouraging her to run. She is considering the bid, according to two sources, but hasn’t made a final decision.
Representatives for Klobuchar, who won reelection to the Senate in 2024, did not immediately respond to ABC News’ requests for comment.
Walz was the subject of Trump’s frequent criticism — with the president claiming he was “a Crooked Governor” in a recent social media post.
The president commented on Walz’s decision in a social media post on Monday, saying Walz “destroyed the State of Minnesota.”
Walz would have made history if he won the governorship in 2026, as previously no Minnesota governor has won a third consecutive four-year term.
The Democratic Governors Association, the arm of the Democratic Party focused on electing Democratic governors, released a statement on Monday praising Walz for his work without endorsing any other potential candidates.
“No matter who decides to run or how much national Republicans want to spend, the DGA remains very confident Minnesotans will elect another strong Democratic governor this November,” DGA chair and Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear wrote in a statement.
On the Republican side, longtime Trump loyalist and CEO of MyPillow Mike Lindell announced in December that he is running for governor of Minnesota. Lindell has already been endorsed by Trump.
Walz also has been viewed as a potential 2028 presidential hopeful, and visited a few key presidential battleground states in 2025, although he has previously downplayed the prospect of running for the Democratic presidential nomination.
Walz, in his statement announcing he would not seek reelection, had harsh words for Trump and Republicans who have excoriated the state for alleged child-care fraud and said that it occurred on Walz’s watch.
“I won’t mince words here,” Walz wrote. “Donald Trump and his allies — in Washington, in St. Paul, and online — want to make our state a colder, meaner place.”
Saying that the state government had taken steps to investigate fraud, and continues to work on combating it, Walz said Minnesota “will win the fight against the fraudsters. But the political gamesmanship we’re seeing from Republicans is only making that fight harder to win.”
Republicans celebrated Walz’s announcement on Monday. House Majority Whip Tom Emmer, a Republican representing Minnesota, wrote in a short statement reacting to Walz’s announcement, “Good riddance.”
“It’s been failure after failure for Tim Walz, so it’s no surprise he chickened out of running for re-election,” Republican National Committee Regional Communications Director Delanie Bomar wrote in a separate statement on Monday.
Minnesota has been under scrutiny in recent weeks over yearslong investigations and controversies about alleged fraud in child-care centers.
According to federal charges filed over the past couple of years, at least 70 people were part of a wide-ranging criminal conspiracy that exploited two federally funded nutrition programs to fraudulently obtain more than $250 million in one of the largest COVID-era fraud schemes anywhere in the nation.
The defendants allegedly used a Minnesota-based nonprofit organization called Feeding Our Future to avoid tough scrutiny from the Minnesota Department of Education, which was supposed to be conducting oversight of the programs.
More scrutiny came recently after an unverified online video from conservative influencer Nick Shirley alleging fraud in child care in Somali communities in Minneapolis. Minnesota officials have disputed the allegations. During more recent site checks, officials said locations highlighted by the video were operating as expected.
Last week, an official with the Department of Health and Human Services said that the Trump administration is pausing child-care funding to all states after the Minnesota allegations emerged. The official said the funds will be released “only when states prove they are being spent legitimately.”
“Republicans are playing politics with the future of our state,” Walz said in his statement on Monday. “And it’s shameful.”
ABC News’ Laura Romero and Mike Levine contributed to this report.
Larry Hoover, in prison since 1973, faces the parole board with his wife, Winndye Jenkins, at the Dixon Correctional Center on on Feb. 7, 1995, in Dixon, Illinois. John Dziekan/Chicago Tribune/Tribune News Service via Getty Images
(CHICAGO) — For 23 hours a day, Larry Hoover, the founder of notorious street gang Gangster Disciples, had been sitting in a 7-by-12-foot concrete cell at the ADX Florence federal supermax facility in Colorado, where he spent 27 years in almost complete isolation, according to his attorneys.
Hoover, 74, remains imprisoned under a separate Illinois state sentence, an up-to-200-year term stemming from a 1973 murder conviction.
Since that transfer to the Colorado State Penitentiary earlier this year, his attorneys say, Hoover has suffered three heart attacks while performing prison labor, the most recent in September. They describe, in a newly filed legal petition with the prison board, his condition as fragile and his treatment as “a slow, state-sanctioned death sentence.”
Hoover’s lawyers are asking Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker to do what the federal government has already done, recognize his transformation and grant Hoover a chance to live out his remaining years in freedom.
Hoover founded the Gangster Disciples on Chicago’s South Side in the late 1960s. In 1973, he was convicted on state charges of ordering the murder of William “Pooky” Young, a 19-year-old drug dealer accused of stealing from the gang. Hoover was sentenced to 200 years in prison under Illinois’ former indeterminate sentencing system.
In 1997, following a 17-year federal investigation, Hoover was convicted on 40 counts including drug conspiracy and racketeering for allegedly directing gang activity from prison. He was sentenced to six life terms, sentences that President Donald Trump commuted earlier this year.
On Wednesday, Hoover’s attorney, Justin Moore of the Stafford Moore Law Firm, filed a 39-page petition for clemency, obtained exclusively by ABC News. His plea now rests with the Illinois Prisoner Review Board and Pritzker.
Ron Safer, who served as the former lead federal prosecutor in Hoover’s 1997 conviction, told ABC News’ Chicago station WLS that he was disappointed Hoover was granted federal clemency.
“I believe in redemption. I believe in rehabilitation. I believe in mercy. There are some crimes that are so heinous, so notorious, that they’re not deserving of mercy,” Safer said. “If Larry Hoover said there was going to be a killing, there was a killing.”
Wednesday’s filing argues that Hoover’s continued imprisonment, given his age, health and decades of rehabilitation, no longer serves justice or public safety.
At the heart of the filing are Hoover’s words, breaking his silence for the first time in 25 years in two deeply personal letters to an as-yet-assigned judge and to the public, offering a window into his remorse, aging and reckoning.
“People, when writing about me in the papers, always use photos of me depicting the way I appeared 40 years ago, as if I’m still a young, strong and rebellious gang leader. That man no longer exists,” Hoover wrote in a typed letter to the judge. The letter is undated.
“I am no longer the Larry Hoover people sometimes talk about, or he who is written about in the papers, or the crime figure described by the government,” he wrote. “That man has over these many years transformed into the man I am today. It is true that some men never learn, or that prison makes some into monsters; I’ve seen it, but for me, over time, prison — this prison in particular — became a place of reflection.”
In a separate and also undated letter addressed to the public, Hoover wrote, “I have come to realize that with my silence over these years I have done myself a grave disservice.”
“I have been involved, and in fact, had initiated, I cannot avoid taking responsibility. With this responsibility, now being able to honestly assess and appreciate the magnitude and scope of the harms my actions had wrought, I cannot help but to have immense remorse,” Hoover wrote.
In his letter, Hoover expressed deep remorse for the harm his past actions caused, saying he had wasted his talents on choices that hurt his Chicago, his community and society. He emphasized that he has long renounced all ties to the Gangster Disciples and any form of criminal activity, declaring that he wants nothing to do with that life “now and forever.”
After more than five decades in prison, including over 25 years in isolation, Hoover said, there is no chance he would reoffend, noting that most men his age devote their final years to steering others away from crime. He said he hopes to spend his remaining time honoring a promise he made to his late mother not to waste his final years.
His letters center on a petition written by his lawyers and filed on his behalf that portrays a man shaped by decades of confinement, failing health and personal reckoning. His attorneys argue that half a century behind bars has already fulfilled the purpose of punishment and that his rehabilitation stands as proof of transformation.
Hoover’s lawyers note that he has not committed a serious infraction during his decades in prison and has completed more than 100 educational and rehabilitation programs.
“My father has suffered multiple heart attacks from being forced to perform hard labor despite his age and medical condition,” said his son, Larry Hoover Jr., in a statement to ABC News “All he wants now is to come home, spend what time he has left with his family, and use his experience to help bring peace to the same communities he once came from.”
The filing also details what Hoover’s attorneys said were the stark conditions of his confinement and his deteriorating health. ABC News has contacted prison officials for comment.
Hoover is one of just 35 people still incarcerated under Illinois’ pre-1978 indeterminate sentencing system, which left prisoners with open-ended “C-numbers” and no release date except at the discretion of the review board, according to the filing. His lawyers note that Hoover’s co-defendant in the 1973 case, Andrew Howard, was paroled more than 30 years ago, a disparity his lawyers cite as evidence of continued punishment without purpose. Both were accused of murder and Howard was convicted of carrying out the killing.
The Illinois Parole Board, in it’s decision to deny Hoover’s release in 2022, stated, “The Board feels that parole release at this time would not be in the interest of public safety, as there is a substantial risk that Mr. Hoover would not conform to reasonable conditions of parole release, and that parole release at this time would deprecate the serious nature of the offenses and promote a lack of respect for the law.”
The new petition for his release revisits Hoover’s early life in Chicago’s South Side, describing a boy shaped by poverty, segregation, and systemic neglect.
“From his bedroom window as a child,” the filing states, “he saw drug deals, prostitution, fights, stabbings, and shootings. His daily reality was the theater of urban abandonment.”
One of his attorneys, Justin Moore, wrote in the petition, “Hoover did not create the fire. He grew up in it.”
Hoover’s story has drawn attention far beyond Chicago. In 2021, rappers Kanye West and Drake set aside their long-running feud to headline the “Free Larry Hoover” benefit concert in Los Angeles, calling attention to criminal justice reform and urging compassion for aging inmates like Hoover. West, a Chicago native, had previously advocated for Hoover’s release during a 2018 meeting with Trump in the Oval Office.
That public support has continued to grow. Among those backing Hoover’s clemency bid are civil rights leaders Jesse Jackson Sr. and the Rev. Al Sharpton, Rep. Jonathan Jackson, Chance the Rapper, Judge Greg Mathis, and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Yohance Lacour and former U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan.
Also lending support is Alice Marie Johnson, Trump’s current White House pardon czar, who also serves as CEO of Taking Action for Good. Johnson wrote in a letter in the filing to the Illinois review board that Hoover is repentant and has the potential and the desire to live the rest of his life as a force for good in his community. She added that if he were released, she would personally help support his reintegration into society.
Rep. Jonathan Jackson expanded on that theme in a statement released by his office supporting clemency, questioning “whether continued imprisonment serves the public interest — or whether compassion is now the more just response.”
Hoover’s petition now rests with Pritzker and the Illinois board, which reviews clemency cases and can make recommendations to the governor.
Pritzker did not offer a comment following Trump’s commutation order, but has met with family and supporters of Hoover. A spokesperson for Pritzker’s office did not immediately respond to ABC News’ request for comment.
The filing lands at a time of renewed friction between Trump and Pritzker, whose relationship has long been strained over the COVID-19 pandemic, immigration and public safety policy in Illinois. In recent months, the two have clashed over ICE enforcement in Chicago, with Trump accusing Pritzker of “failing to protect” federal officers, while Pritzker has described Trump’s tactics as “acts of aggression against our people.”
Detractors, including some former prosecutors, law enforcement officials and community anti-violence advocates, argue that Hoover’s release could reopen wounds in Chicago neighborhoods still scarred by gang violence.
They maintain that, despite his renunciations, Hoover’s name still holds symbolic power among some Gangster Disciples factions.
Chicago FBI Special Agent in Charge Doug DePodesta said in a statement to WLS in Chicago in May that “Larry Hoover caused a lot of damage in Chicago. He was also convicted on state charges and is likely to continue serving time in state prison where he belongs.”
His supporters counter that his transformation and the decades he has already served show a man committed to peace, not power.
In his own words, Hoover wrote, “I want my legacy to be peace. I want my name to mean growth, not destruction. I want to be remembered not as who I was, but as who I fought to become.”
Exterior view of the U.S. Capitol on October 23, 2025 in Washington, DC. Eric Lee/Getty Images
(WASHINGTON) — A group of moderate House Republicans broke ranks with GOP leadership on Wednesday to force a vote on a clean, three-year extension of the Affordable Care Act insurance subsidies set to expire at the end of the year.
Four Republicans signed onto House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries’ discharge petition, giving it the 218 signatures needed to force a vote.
The decision by moderate Republican Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick, Mike Lawler, Rob Bresnahan and Ryan Mackenzie to join Democrats comes after the Republican-controlled House Rules Committee on Tuesday night blocked amendments to extend the ACA subsidies from advancing.
House Speaker Mike Johnson has also resisted from allowing an up or down amendment vote on extending the expiring subsidies, which were Democrats’ focal point of the record 43-day government shutdown this fall.
Moderate Republicans who signed onto the petition took aim at House leadership.
Lawler, of New York, said he doesn’t endorse the Democrats’ bill as written,
“…When leadership blocks action entirely, Congress has a responsibility to act. My priority is ensuring Hudson Valley families aren’t caught in the gridlock,” Lawler wrote on X.
“Our only request was a Floor vote on this compromise, so that the American People’s voice could be heard on this issue. That request was rejected,” Pennsylvania’s Fitzpatrick said in a statement. “Then, at the request of House leadership, me and my colleagues filed multiple amendments, and testified at length to those amendments. House leadership then decided to reject every single one of these amendments. As I’ve stated many times before, the only policy that is worse than a clean three-year extension without any reforms, is a policy of complete expiration without any bridge. Unfortunately, it is House leadership themselves that have forced this outcome.”
What happens next?
The Republican-controlled House will hold vote on a clean three-year extension of the ACA subsidies; however, the vote is not expected to occur until January 2026 at the earliest given the rules for when a discharge petition can hit the floor.
The big question now is how the Senate will respond. The Senate already rejected a clean three-year extension of the subsidies in a pair of dueling health care votes last week, though several Republican senators crossed the aisle to join all Democrats in supporting it.
On Wednesday night, the House will hold a vote at approximately 5:30 p.m. on a narrow Republican health care package that does not address the expiring ACA tax credits.
Johnson needs a simple majority for the bill to pass and can only afford to lose three Republican votes. Democratic leaders are whipping their members against the bill. The vote will be tight for Johnson, who continues to navigate a slim majority.
The House GOP proposal would expand the availability of association health plans and what are known as “CHOICE arrangements;” impose new transparency requirements on pharmacy benefit managers to lower drug costs; and appropriate money for cost-sharing reductions to reduce premiums in the individual market.
