"Much of the focus on the Trump-Mamdani meeting was on what Trump did, such as his interruption before Mamdani had to answer whether he believed Trump was a fascist, rather than on what Mamdani said. But if you look closely at what Mamdani said - which was often simply a restatement of his campaign pitch - he managed to say them in such a way that Trump parroted them as his own."
"Mamdani's first comment did so - as did his relentlessly disciplined campaign did - in terms of affordability; Mamdani mentioned "groceries," the awkward shorthand Trump's handlers have had him use to address affordability. Mr. Trump: You know, we had some interesting conversation, and some of his ideas really are the same ideas that I have. A big thing on cost. The new word is "affordability." Another word, it's just groceries. It's sort of an old-fashioned word, but it's very accurate. They are coming down. They are coming down."
Three events occurred: Trump welcomed Zohran Mamdani to the White House, the White House advanced another plan seen as ceding Ukraine to Russia, and Marjorie Taylor Greene announced a January resignation. These events arose from a fragile and fluid power structure around Trump, driven by increasing political weakness and separate mental and physical decline. Mamdani framed messages around affordability and "groceries," echoing language that aligns with Trump voters, and Trump repeated those lines. The convergence of odd public encounters, foreign-policy shifts, and intra-coalition exits signals intensifying fights for control within the pro-Trump ecosystem.
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