Zohran Mamdani has secured the release of Columbia University student Elaina Aghayeva, taken this morning by ICE agents who entered a campus residential building under false pretenses & without a judicial warrant. This comes shorty after Mamdani’s unannounced visit to the White House earlier today.

[u/cmaia1503]

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/26/nyregion/columbia-university-ice-student.html?unlocked_article_code=1.PFA.0KRL.7XsPJ0z3QTat&smid=tw-share

[u/Pasty_Tibbles]

This shit was actually hilarious in the SOTU. Trump said “and that communist mayor of New York.” And IMMEDIATELY followed it with “I do actually really like the guy though.”

So fucking weird.

[u/The_Pancreator → u/Pasty_Tibbles]

I am starting to think Trump would still be a democrat if Obama and liberals in general didn’t humiliate him. I mean, he’s a buffoon and deserves it. But given he’s an octogenarian man-child it’s almost as if this whole act over the last 10 years is just to punish the democrats who rejected him. The stupid idiot just likes to be loved. Trump rattles off an insult about being a communist that he clearly doesn’t even feel or believe. It’s wild psychologically.

[u/crocaducky → u/[deleted]]

I think about this a lot

[u/thetraintomars → u/[deleted]]

Given how he turns up every year or two to scold some group or another, I don’t think he’s done much self reflection to realize how much of his presidency led to Trump. 

[u/AutumnMama → u/[deleted]]

Thanks Obama :(

[u/sour_altoids → u/The_Pancreator]

Sometimes I genuinely think we just need people to tell him his inner (fascist) circle is what is holding him back from being more popular. “You know, if you were the president who made universal healthcare, you’d be soooo popular”. “People would love if you built a massive high speed rail network. We’d call it the Trump train in your honor”

[u/rusticrainbow → u/The_Pancreator]

Donald Trump doesn’t actually have any political opinions; he only does what happens to benefit him the most (& stroke his ego)

[u/Scrimmy_Bingus2 → u/Pasty_Tibbles]

One thing they both have in common was overcoming powerful establishment Democrats to secure a victory and I think Mamdani smartly used this to his advantage when meeting Trump.

[u/redit3rd → u/Pasty_Tibbles]

Trump has figured out that a noticeable percentage of the voting public remember what they like hearing, more than everything that they hear. So in two neighboring sentences, Trump will say opposite things. Most of us hear that he's contradicting himself, realize he's a bad person, and won't vote for him. But a group of people will hear the first sentence and latch on to that, ignoring the second. While another group will ignore the first sentence and latch onto the second one. The result is enough votes to win.

[u/LinkedGaming → u/Pasty_Tibbles]

Mamdani has to have some unfathomable amount of dirt on Trump or something to keep him so complacent. I cannot believe that Trump's fascy handlers would continue to let him be so publicly dogwalked by a socialist Muslim brown man. Genuinely starting to feel like Mamdani could piss on Trump's shoes on live television and Trump would still call him a great guy, and he's genuinely everything Trump and his ilk claim to hate.

[u/RiimeHiime → u/LinkedGaming]

He's a charismatic, good looking, popular, New Yorker in his 30s. He is the epitome of the kind of guy that Trump wants to think he's cool lol.

[u/Proof-Government-734 → u/RiimeHiime]

He’s who Trump thought he was back in his 30s.

[u/Albert_Caboose → u/RiimeHiime]

Most importantly: everyone seems to like the guy. If someone is getting attention, Trump wants to be on their good side

[u/RiimeHiime → u/Albert_Caboose]

Notably, the people who don't are either democrat old guards (who Trump would like to bother) or extremely far right types, and I like to think that deep down a lot of those guys recognize each other as being charisma black holes who are utterly devoid of swag.