– The Washington Times
New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s inner circle at City Hall is already taking shape, and so is the backlash.
The mayor’s early hires are drawing fire from critics unnerved by his unapologetically socialist vision for New York City.
Mr. Mamdani, 34, has been under a spotlight ever since his upset victory rattled the city’s political establishment, powered by younger and disillusioned voters eager to upend the status quo.
His actions carry added weight because his politics diverge from the city’s traditional governing mold and because the city faces a projected budget shortfall of more than $2 billion. That gap could widen to $10 billion in the upcoming fiscal year.
Skeptics insist Mr. Mamdani’s early appointments show his approach is built more on wacky left‑wing dogma than on practical plans that will lift the working class.
Hank Sheinkopf, a Democratic political strategist in New York City who has been critical of Mr. Mamdani, was more forgiving.
“Some of them are very good, some of them are nuts,” Mr. Sheinkopf said. “This is the beginning of a show for the democratic socialists to prove they can reasonably operate a government the size of New York or so that they can ultimately win more elections around the country.”
Days after his election victory, Mr. Mamdani announced that the deputy mayor’s post would go to Dean Fuleihan, who held the post under Mayor Bill de Blasio. Before that, Mr. Fuleihan was director of the Mayor’s Office of Management and Budget.
The mayor named Elle Bisgaard-Church, his 34-year-old campaign manager, as his chief of staff.
One of his most closely watched decisions, his choice for police commissioner, was made before he took the oath of office. Despite their differences, including those over the authority of the city’s police misconduct watchdog, Mr. Mamdani announced that Jessica S. Tisch would remain as police commissioner. The choice was widely interpreted as an early signal that he intended to reassure the public about public safety after distancing himself from his earlier “defund the police” rhetoric.
Mr. Mamdani has praised Ms. Tisch, first appointed by Mayor Eric Adams in 2024, for cracking down on crime and rooting out corruption, a message aimed squarely at voters wary of sweeping ideological change.
Still, the transition has hit some turbulence.
Catherine Almonte Da Costa, Mr. Mamdani’s director of appointments, resigned after just one day when old social media posts resurfaced, including one from when she was 18 referencing “money hungry Jews.” It was the sort of stumble Mr. Mamdani hoped to avoid after spending months on the campaign trail trying to balance his pro‑Palestinian advocacy with a forceful condemnation of rising antisemitism in the city.
The criticism intensified again when Mr. Mamdani relaunched the Office to Protect Tenants and tapped Cea Weaver, a fellow democratic socialist known as a relentless tenant advocate, to run it.
She is expected to help the mayor follow through on his campaign pledge to freeze rents on 1 million rent‑regulated apartments. That promise has put his housing appointments under even closer scrutiny.
Ms. Weaver has long been a thorn in the side of the real estate industry, including some of the players who supported former Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s failed comeback bid.
Her online posts have helped fuel the uproar.
The Washington Post editorial board flagged her 2018 call to “seize private property” and a 2019 claim that homeownership is a “weapon of white supremacy.”
The newspaper’s editorial board said the episode underscored that Mr. Mamdani was not joking on inauguration day when he declared, “I was elected as a democratic socialist, and I will govern as a democratic socialist.” He vowed, “I will not abandon my principles for fear of being deemed radical.”
The New York Post, which has repeatedly knocked Mr. Mamdani, highlighted a 2020 post after the death of George Floyd in which she wrote, “The Police Are Just People The State Sanctions To Murder W[ith] Immunity.”
Howard Husock of the American Enterprise Institute said the Weaver appointment shows Mr. Mamdani has it backward about the driver of high rental costs. He said the mayor does not understand that “freezing the rent inhibits new supply.” In a recent Fox News op‑ed, he argued that the city’s landlord‑tenant laws already have been “so stacked against those foolish enough to own rental property, or stuck with it, that what Gotham really needs is an Office of Landlord Protection.”
Ben Burgis, a philosophy professor at Rutgers University, defended the appointment. He said Ms. Weaver, like Mr. Mamdani, has moved beyond her earlier social media posts.
“The debate over all of this rhetoric obscures the more important issue here: that the Right was going after a tenant organizer because she is extremely good at organizing tenants,” he wrote for Jacobin, a left-wing commentary website.
As a longtime tenant advocate, he said, Ms. Weaver will be key to translating Mr. Mamdani’s early popularity and momentum into lasting success in “delivering the goods for working‑class New Yorkers.”
Others scratched their heads when Mr. Mamdani announced that his campaign field director, Tascha Van Auken, would lead a new office of mass engagement tasked with “creating a deeper connection between City Hall and community organizations, faith-based groups, and everyday New Yorkers looking to make their voices heard.”
Mr. Mamdani tapped Dina Levy to serve as commissioner of housing preservation and development, making her a central figure in his pledge to build 200,000 affordable housing units over the next decade.
She served as a senior vice president at the state’s affordable housing agency.
Mr. Mamdani named Kamar Samuels, a former teacher who rose to become superintendent of Manhattan’s District 3, as chancellor of New York City Public Schools, the largest school system in the nation. Mr. Samuels built his reputation by advocating for the diversification of classrooms and reforming admissions policies.
Part of his mission will be to advance Mr. Mamdani’s plan to phase out the city’s elementary gifted and talented program in the name of equity.
• Seth McLaughlin can be reached at smclaughlin@washingtontimes.com.
