New York, New York - New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani said Sunday he still believes President Donald Trump is a fascist, despite their surprisingly warm meeting at the White House.

"That's something that I've said in the past, I say it today," Mamdani told NBC News.

The democratic socialist on Friday met Trump, setting aside months of mutual recriminations and promising to cooperate on the city's future.

The Republican, who had previously suggested the Ugandan-born New Yorker should be deported, was seemingly charmed by Mamdani and even came to his rescue as the two addressed reporters at the White House on Friday.

When a journalist asked Mamdani if he continued to view Trump as a fascist, the president stepped in.

"That's OK. You can just say it. That's easier," Trump told Mamdani. "It's easier than explaining it. I don't mind."

In his NBC interview Sunday morning, Mamdani elaborated:

"I appreciated about the conversation that I had with the president was that we were not shy about the places of disagreement, about the politics that has brought us to this moment," he said.

He added: "I found in the meeting that I had with the president a productive one and a meeting that came back again and again to the central themes of the campaign that we ran: the cost of housing, cost of child care, the cost of groceries, the cost of utilities."

Having threatened to cut federal funding to the biggest city in the US and send in the National Guard, Trump praised Mamdani's historic election win, said he could do a "great job."

"We're going to be helping him to make everybody's dream come true: having a strong and very safe New York," Trump said.