New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s inner circle at City Hall is already taking shape — and so is the backlash.
The new 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 fall outside the city’s traditional governing mold and come as the city faces a projected budget shortfall of more than $2 billion — a gap that could widen to $10 billion in the coming fiscal year.
Skeptics insist his early appointments show his approach is built more on wacky left‑wing dogma than on practical plans that will actually lift the working class.
Hank Sheinkopf, a Democratic 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 victory, Mr. Mamdani announced that the deputy mayor’s post would go to Dean Fuleihan, who had held the post under Mayor Bill de Blasio and, before that, as director of the mayor’s office of management and budget.
The mayor also 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 — came before he even took the oath of office. Despite their differences, including over the authority of the city’s police‑misconduct watchdog, Mr. Mamdani announced that Jessica S. Tisch would stay on as police commissioner. The choice was widely read as an early signal that he intended to steady nerves about public safety after distancing himself from his earlier “defund the police” rhetoric.
Ms. Tisch, first appointed by Mayor Eric Adams in 2024, has been praised by Mr. Mamdani 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 him follow through on his campaign pledge to freeze rents on 1 million rent‑regulated apartments, a promise that made his housing appointments even more closely watched.
Ms. Weaver has long been a thorn in the side of the real estate industry, including some of the same players who backed former Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s failed comeback bid.
Her online posts have helped fuel the uproar.
The Washington Post editorial board, for instance, 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,” and 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 murder 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 what is driving up rental costs, warning he 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 are already “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.”
On the flip side, Ben Burgis, a philosophy professor at Rutgers University, defended the Weaver appointment, saying that, like Mr. Mamdani, she 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 also tapped Dina Levy to serve as the new 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 previously served as a senior vice president at New York State’s affordable housing agency and also has faced criticism.
Mr. Mamdani named Kamar Samuels — a former teacher who rose to become superintendent of Manhattan’s District 3 — as schools chancellor. Mr. Samuels built his reputation by pushing to diversify classrooms and overhaul 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.
