This is Brian Laird's Daily Politics podcast from WNYC Studios.

It's Friday, November 21st.

President Trump is meeting with New York City mayor-elect Zerun Mamdani in the Oval Office today.

In a statement on social media this week, he said the, quote, communist mayor had requested the meeting. A likely topic for the two

will be affordability. Affordability has, of course, been a central issue for Mamdani during the recent

mayoral campaign. And for Trump, it seems that he's perhaps realizing what economists have been saying,

which is tariffs don't work, that the negative effect they have on the economy at large

by hitting working Americans in their pocketbooks is real.

We'll talk with our first guest about the president's meeting with Mamdani,

about the repeal of certain

tariffs, and about what some people think is the increasing chaos in the White House, some of which

has been spawned by the impending release of the Epstein files. We'll also talk about what Congresswoman

Marjorie Taylor Green's beef with the president might signal for the upcoming midterm elections.

With us for that conversation is Jonathan Lemire, a writer for The Atlantic Magazine,

and co-host of Morning Joe on MS Now, which is formerly MSNBC.

Welcome back to the Brian Laird Show, Jonathan.

Always happy to be here. Good morning.

All right, Jonathan. Let's just start with this meeting between

president trump and mayor-elect momdani president trump announced the meeting on his social media

site truth social i just want to quote what he wrote here communist mayor of new york city

zoran kwami momdani has asked a meeting. We have agreed that this meeting will take place

in the Oval Office on Friday, November 21st. Jonathan, I have to say the first thing that struck me,

...