Tik Tok On The Clock But The Party Don’t Stop

His first formal press conference last week was in fact restricted to only “content creators” and closed to mainstream journalists (“City Hall aides said the online reach of the 78 attendees totaled roughly 82 million people”) as his administration picks up where his campaign left off when it comes to social media:

There was Zohran Mamdani — same suit, same beard, same Instagram handle — once again peering into the camera to talk to his 11 million followers, as he had in countless campaign videos.

But now, Mr. Mamdani — Mayor Mamdani — was speaking from his new office at City Hall, sitting behind the freshly polished desk once used by Mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia, flanked by an American flag and striped drapes trimmed in gold tassels.

As Mr. Mamdani spoke about his plan to convene “rental rip-off” hearings to hold landlords to account, the pseudo-informercial’s treacly elevator music and fake television static blurring the screen kicked in.

Mr. Mamdani, in his first full week as mayor, seemed eager to bring the spark that had made his local campaign a global phenomenon into a considerably less freewheeling new gig.

[. . .]

Mr. Mamdani’s team seemed eager to hold onto the very-online-ness of his campaign.

The team documented every announcement, meme and meal on social media: the chicken and spiced potatoes he ate for dinner at a Bangladeshi restaurant in Astoria, Queens; his ride on the Q70 bus on the day transit fares increased to $3 a ride; his first night working late from his new office, illuminated by a semicircle of desk lamps.

[. . .]

Seven days into his term, he strode into the stately Blue Room at City Hall — a space typically reserved for the most formal announcements and events.

Mr. Mamdani took his place at a lectern emblazoned with the city’s official seal, under a portrait of Alexander Hamilton framed in filigreed gold. He looked up to find a sea of iPhone cameras staring back at him; the attendees were not mainstream media journalists but rather a group of content creators who had become a crucial part of Mr. Mamdani’s public relations strategy during his campaign.

“It is a privilege to be gathered here today in a building that belongs to the people of New York but has been too long withheld from the people of New York,” he said.

At the end of the news conference, Mr. Mamdani turned around, held his phone above the podium and smiled for a selfie with the group.

Who Is Writing This Stuff And Do We Really Have To Endure It For Another Three Years, Eleven Months And 21 Days?

The “eager debrief” sounds like something that happens on parents’ weekend at Summer Stock Junior:

New York City’s new mayor, Zohran Mamdani, was elected on an affordability agenda focused on free buses and child care. On Friday, he extended that agenda to the arts, handing out vouchers for free tickets to a long-running theater festival of experimental work and declaring that culture should be more accessible to the city’s residents.

Mamdani — the son of the filmmaker Mira Nair, a onetime rapper and a sometime patron of comedy, music and theater — this week prevailed upon the annual Under the Radar festival, which is running through Jan. 25, to make 1,500 free tickets available. And on his ninth day in office, he stood on Hillel Place in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn, handing out cards with QR codes for those tickets to anyone who wanted them.

“The shared laughter in a crowded theater, the eager debrief after a musical, the heavy silence that hangs over all of us in a drama — these are moments that every New Yorker deserves,” Mamdani said later, explaining the initiative during a news conference at one of the festival’s venues, Brooklyn College’s Leonard and Claire Tow Center for the Performing Arts.

Then again, maybe he’s just leaning into the theater kid tag . . .

“The Core Issue At Hand Here Is, What Are We Hiring This Person To Do?”

And the answer is “hiring them to stand up for tenants in a way that we haven’t seen before,” starting with recasting homeownership as a tool of white supremacy. But before we get there, first it emerges that “vetting” seems to mean hunting for gay slurs or the N-word in old Tweets. (Also, how common was that that they had to focus there? Can you imagine Bloomberg’s people feverishly Googling whether Dan Doctoroff used the N-word in his X account?):

Even before Zohran Mamdani, fresh off his successful mayoral run, found himself ensnared in controversy over a new hire’s antisemitic social media posts, his hastily convened transition team seemed to understand the risks of tapping activists who have been prolific on social media.

The team vetting potential City Hall appointees was asked to search for particular key words as they pored over social media accounts, said one person involved with the transition. Among them: homophobic slurs, variations of the N-word and references to Arabs and Jews.

Despite those precautions, a vetting debacle quickly exploded into the public domain. Mr. Mamdani named as director of appointments Catherine Almonte Da Costa, 33, who had, among other things, posted about “money hungry Jews” when she was 18.

[. . .]

Ms. Da Costa promptly tendered her resignation, and Mr. Mamdani promised to strengthen his vetting operation, only to run into another buzz saw of criticism weeks later, when he tapped Cea Weaver, a well-known tenant advocate, to run the Mayor’s Office to Protect Tenants. She had tweets that described homeownership as a “weapon of white supremacy” and said it was important to “impoverish” the white middle class. Unlike Ms. Da Costa’s posts, Ms. Weaver’s were known to Mr. Mamdani before she was hired.

And feel free to correct the impression here, but when the mayor says “we are hiring them to stand up for tenants in a way that we haven’t seen before and that’s exactly what they’re doing” that’s basically telling you, “Yes, and?” There’s no real disavowal here, much less an apology:

The mayor has vociferously backed Ms. Weaver, and several New York leaders have risen to her defense, arguing that her ideological comments bely a sharp — and more measured — political mind. Ms. Weaver, who like Mr. Mamdani is affiliated with the Democratic Socialists of America, is one of his closest political allies; Ms. Da Costa is not.

Asked this past week if he regarded the substance of their tweets as fundamentally different, the mayor replied: “The core issue at hand here is, what are we hiring this person to do? We are hiring them to stand up for tenants in a way that we haven’t seen before and that’s exactly what they’re doing.”

Dora Pekec, a spokeswoman for the mayor, said, “The conflation of these two is absurd.”

[. . .]

“We have been clear that we strengthened our vetting process in response to Da Costa’s resignation, and we continue to stand with Weaver and have full confidence in her ability to deliver for tenants in this administration,” Ms. Pekec said in a statement. “We are surprised and disappointed to see The New York Times amplifying right-wing hysteria.”

And on the topic of “right-wing hysteria”:

Some have also questioned the decision to retain Ms. Weaver, who is white, while accepting the resignation of Ms. Da Costa, who is Latina.

“How can seemingly the same issue arise for a white woman and a Latina woman and the Latina woman be disqualified while the white woman is excused for her indiscretion?” said [the president of a New York City-based civil rights group], who said there was already concern among Black and Latino New Yorkers about what some see as a lack of diversity in the Mamdani administration.

Only Be Tazing Me, Mamdani

He should take care not to wear out the thesaurus too soon; it’s going to be a long four years and probably best not to deploy “shattered,” “destroyed” and “gutted” right away:

Fledgling Mayor Zohran Mamdani is already facing blowback for his tardy, halfhearted response to back-to-back police shootings — including friction with NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch, The Post has learned.

Mamdani — who backed off his ardent “defund the police” stance during the mayoral campaign — waited 16 hours before he released a statement addressing the bloody pair of police-involved shootings, despite being briefed by Tisch right after each unfolded roughly six hours apart Thursday.

The murky Friday morning statement further stoked fury by emphasizing an “internal investigation” would follow the shootings, which some insiders believed implied wrongdoing by NYPD officers, when such probes are par for the course, police sources said.

[. . .]

Details of both police-involved shootings were known to Mamdani for hours before he finally posted on X at 9:44 a.m.

“Last night’s shootings at Brooklyn Methodist Hospital and in the West Village are devastating to all New Yorkers,” he wrote without mentioning that one of the people shot was out of control after being repeatedly tasered and the other waved a real-looking gun.

He then continued: “I know many are eager for answers. The NYPD is conducting an internal investigation — I will work with Commissioner Tisch to ensure this is as thorough and swift as possible.

“These tragedies are painful, whether they take place steps from our home or miles away. They are a reminder of the immense work that must be done to deliver genuine public safety — work Commissioner Tisch and I are undertaking together every day,” he concluded, with no words of support for the officers.

Sources familiar with how the day unfolded bemoaned Mamdani’s delayed vagaries, pointing out that NYPD top brass had been in constant contact with City Hall — including Mamdani, First Deputy Mayor Dean Fuleihan and his staff, and the communications team — providing real-time updates with photos and readouts of how the events unfolded.

One source was baffled by Mamdani’s remark about “genuine public safety.”

“I don’t know what else would be ‘genuine public safety’ other than protecting an elderly patient and a security guard from a person with a sharp weapon,” the source said.

Mamdani’s emphasis on the internal investigation also drew befuddlement, as they are routine when it comes to police-involved shootings.

“When the NYPD holds a press conference for an officer involved shooting, we always provide preliminary information to make clear that the Force Investigation Division will be handling the investigation,” an NYPD spokesperson said. “FID always investigates these incidents and we always state this.”

Tisch’s own statement on the incidents Friday read as a backhanded rebuke to Mamdani’s weak-sauce response.

She emphasized the cops’ bravery saving innocent lives.

“Officers were engaged in two police-involved shootings, and there is every indication that their actions were nothing short of heroic,” the commissioner posted on X at noon, after her City Hall meeting.

To Be Fair, There Is Always An Adjustment Period When You Go From Grandstanding Assemblyman To Grandstanding Mayor

But who’s to say what kind of vibe we’re going for if and when ICE shows up:

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani claimed that the death of 37-year-old mother Renee Nicole Good at the hands of an ICE agent was the result of a “year of cruelty” from the Trump administration — as he doubled down on his incendiary declaration that it was a “murder.”

[. . .]

“We can all see that video and come to our own conclusions that that ICE agent murdered a woman in Minneapolis, and it is a glimpse into what has been a year full of cruelty.”

[. . .]

Collins then pressed Mamdani on why he once again chose to describe the fatal shooting as a “murder,” something that even Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey — who furiously told ICE to “get the f–k out” of his city — has refrained from saying.

“That was the conclusion I came to just in watching that video, and I think that’s the conclusion many Americans came to, that same conclusion, no matter how many times this is mischaracterized by others,” Hizzoner responded.

Mamdani has consistently promoted resistance against ICE, which he has described as a “rogue” agency, and, in his Democratic primary victory speech in June, promised to use his power as mayor “to reject Donald Trump’s fascism [and] to stop mass ICE agents from deporting our neighbors.”

Last month, he urged New Yorkers to “stand up” to ICE in a video message after a raid in Chinatown.

Even Bill de Blasio was more measured about *George Floyd*:

[WNYC host Brian] Lehrer: [. . .] First, can I get your reaction to the killing of George Floyd and the protest here in New York as well as elsewhere?

Mayor [Bill de Blasio]: Brian, horrifying, horrifying, the video. We, you know, we can ever get numb to this. What we saw in that video, it’s just painful, first of all, just horribly painful, humanly. But it was, you know, degrading of a man because of his race. I mean, there’s just no question he was killed because he was black. And there’s no way in hell that if that had been a white person, he would have been treated the same way. And just the absolute lack of concern by the officer, which goes against everything a law enforcement officer should be doing. It was extraordinarily painful. And look, the anger out there is real and unfortunately very justified. I wish people did not have to keep raising their voices when they see this injustice. But it’s become an epidemic in this country and it has to stop. So, you know, all of the changes, everything that we’ve tried to change in policing, everything that people have tried in other parts of the country, it all matters. All these reforms matter. But there also has to be consequences because no police officers should believe they could do that and get away with it. So we’ve got to understand that there’s lots of anger out there and it’s understandable and real anger. It’s based on a horrible history.