Free Republic

Zohran Mamdani repeatedly told people who he was during both the NYC mayoral primary race and the general election campaign season, whether it was on the subject of the Israel-Hamas war, 9/11, his soft-on-crime stances, his desire for "free" stuff for New Yorkers - which of course would be paid for by the "rich," or his race-based approach to "solving" the city's housing crisis.And on other issues, past tweets and videos dug up by internet sleuths gave us an even more complete picture of the man who eventually was elected mayor of the Big Apple, with perhaps the most revealing...

The mother of Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s new renters’ rights honcho — who has come under fire for dubbing homeownership “a weapon of white supremacy” — is a professor at a prestigious college and has a $1.6 million home. Office of Tenant Protection Director Cea Weaver’s mom, Celia Applegate, teaches German studies at Vanderbilt University and owns a pricey classic Craftsman home just south of the main strip in Nashville, Tennessee. Appelgate bought the property with her partner, David Blackbourn, during July 2012 for $814,000 and real estate websites now list the pad’s value at more than $1.6 million, records show....

Mayor Zohran Mamdani stood by his new top tenant advocate Tuesday after her past inflammatory social media posts sparked a firestorm — and a warning shot from the Trump administration. Longtime housing activist Cea Weaver, the new director of the Office to Protect Tenants, received a boost from Mamdani even as controversy engulfed his administration over her recently unearthed posts branding homeownership “a weapon of white supremacy” and declaring, “Seize private property.” “We made the decision to have Cea Weaver serve as our executive director for the mayor’s office to protect tenants, to build on the work that she has...

Resurfaced tweets from Cea Weaver, who was appointed by Zohran Mamdani as director for the newly revitalized Mayor’s Office to Protect Tenants, shows the tenant organizer and housing advocate comparing homeownership to “a weapon of white supremacy.” In a post published in August 2019 on the social media platform then known as Twitter, Weaver wrote: “Private property including and kind of ESPECIALLY homeownership is a weapon of white supremacy masquerading as ‘wealth building’ public policy.” The post was shared by the MAGA X account “Libs of TikTok,” known for its scalding commentary on left-wing politicians and liberal users on the...

Resurfaced tweets from Cea Weaver, who was appointed by Zohran Mamdani as director for the newly revitalized Mayor’s Office to Protect Tenants, shows the tenant organizer and housing advocate comparing homeownership to "a weapon of white supremacy." In a post published in August 2019 on the social media platform then known as Twitter, Weaver wrote: "Private property including and kind of ESPECIALLY homeownership is a weapon of white supremacy masquerading as ‘wealth building’ public policy." The post was shared by the MAGA X account "Libs of TikTok," known for its scalding commentary on left-wing politicians and liberal users on the...

Since he dropped the news around the year-end holidays and his inauguration, you may have missed how Zohran Mamdani saved many of his most radical appointments for last. On Friday, the new mayor named Ali Najmi to chair his Advisory Committee on the Judiciary, which picks judges for family and civil courts and interim appointees for criminal courts; Najmi is big on making the bench more “diverse.” Mamdani outright ordered the committee to find more diversity picks and to get public defenders and other anti-prosecution types more involved in judicial selections: Expect the city’s courts to become even more eager...

One of the classic definitions of antisemitism is insisting on one standard of morality and/or legality for the Jewish people, but a very different one for everyone else. For example — and I’m pulling this silly, unrealistic example out of a hat — if an American politician vowed to arrest the duly-elected Israeli leader but decried the arrest of the illegitimately elected Venezuelan leader, your Antisemitism Detector should start beeping. Especially when the Venezuelan leader was a wanted fugitive under American law — and the Israeli leader was not. Welcome to the manic mind of New York City Mayor Zohran...

In New York, officials elected in November take office on January 1. And thus, on New Year’s Day 2026, we had the inauguration of our new Mayor Zohran Mamdani. Can you feel the excitement? For myself, not so much. The best I can say is that this too shall pass. Hopefully without too much destruction in the meantime, but we have no assurance of that. And yet it seems that plenty of people really do feel excitement. I’m not making this up. For example, here is the big piece on the inauguration from the New York Times. Excerpt: The message...

I was briefed this morning on the U.S. military capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, as well as their planned imprisonment in federal custody here in New York City. Unilaterally attacking a sovereign nation is an act of war and a violation of federal and international law. This blatant pursuit of regime change doesn’t just affect those abroad, it directly impacts New Yorkers, including tens of thousands of Venezuelans who call this city home. My focus is their safety and the safety of every New Yorker, and my administration will continue to monitor the situation and issue...

She’s the power behind the red curtain. Zohran Mamdani’s secretive, newly named chief of staff, Elle Bisgaard-Church, is a Democratic Socialists of America true believer who convinced the far-left group to back him for mayor and helped craft his “Department of Community Safety,” insiders said. The two 34-year-olds forged similar paths to the heights of New York City political power — cutting their teeth in antiwar and pro-Palestinian college campus activism and toiling in lefty nonprofits before making the leap into state government. “Few have played a more central role in this movement, or in every victory we have achieved...

When Jan. 1 rolls around, New York City will have its first self-avowed socialist mayor. As a New York resident and a keen observer of Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani’s rise to power, I thought it worthwhile to write what I expect of him in the new year. A lot is riding on Mamdani’s success for the Left. He’ been touted as the way of the future for the Democratic Party. He’s the Barack Obama for a new generation, just as the old Obama becomes passe. Whereas Obama carefully laid the groundwork for the radical turn in American government and institutions leading...

Mayor Zohran Mamdani opened his administration Thursday with an explicit pledge to govern the nation’s largest city as a democratic socialist, saying he would not soften his politics as he ushered in the “new era.” “I was elected as a democratic socialist, and I will govern as a democratic socialist,” Mamdani said in his inaugural address on New Year’s Day before a crowd of thousands gathered at City Hall and at a block party down the Canyon of Heroes. The declaration, made on the steps of City Hall, set the tone for a speech that framed his mayoralty as a...

New York’s far-left mayor-elect, Zohran Mamdani, will be sworn in to office using a Quran at an abandoned subway station. According to The New York Times, Mamdani will be sworn in at midnight on New Year’s Eve inside a decommissioned subway station beneath City Hall that once served as a turnaround for the No. 5 train. He said the unconventional setting was chosen for its symbolism, framing the ceremony as the start of what he called “inauguration of a new era.” “It was a physical monument to a city that dared to be both beautiful and build great things that...

On Tuesday, Socialist New York Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani announced the appointment of Ramzi Kassem as the city’s top attorney. Kassem gained notoriety for defending al-Qaeda terrorist Ahmed al-Darbi when he served as lead counsel. In 2014, al-Darbi pled guilty in connection with an al-Qaeda terrorist plot to bomb a French oil tanker near Yemen in 2002, leaving a civilian dead and several others injured. He was convicted in 2017 and ultimately transferred to Saudi Arabia in 2018. Al-Darbi’s brother-in-law was Khalid al-Mihdhar, one of the five hijackers on American Airlines Flight 77, which crashed into the Pentagon during the September...

The doubts about New York City Mayor-Elect Zohran Mamdani are already creeping in at the Intelligencer section of New York magazine. In fact those nagging doubts about Mamdani are more than just creeping. As the realization sets in that their hero Mamdani actually has little to no administrative experience, very noticeable flop sweat began streaming in the form of this story on Monday by David Freedlander, "The Making of Mayor Mamdani."Before you even read the body of the article you can detect the first drippings of the flop sweat in the subtitle: "He is a brilliant political talent with dizzying...

Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani has tapped a controversial lawyer who defended an al Qaeda terrorist and a radical anti-Israel campus leader at Columbia for a “high-ranking” position at City Hall, The Post has learned. Ramzi Kassem, who is also a law professor at City University of New York and a member of Mamdani’s transition team for legal affairs, is the top candidate for Chief Counsel, the most important advisory role in the mayor’s office, according to a source close to the transition team. Kassem, 47, was one of the attorneys who defended Mahmoud Khalil, a Syrian-born leader of the pro-Palestinian encampment...

Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani has picked a controversial rapper who did seven years in state prison for armed robbery to advise him on the criminal justice system. Mysonne Linen, 49, a Bronx convict-turned-activist who was found guilty of two felony heists in the late 1990s, was appointed by the democratic socialist to sit on a “criminal legal system” committee for his transition team as he prepares for the move to City Hall next month. “This is a testament to our decades of work advocating on behalf of black and brown communities and our expertise in gun violence prevention, legislative advocacy and...

New York City’s incoming mayor, democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani, released a video on X Sunday morning offering step-by-step advice to illegal immigrants on thwarting Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents. Standing in front of a flip chart labeled “Know your rights,” Mamdani positioned himself as the defender of NYC’s “more than 3 million immigrants,” vowing to protect them from federal raids amid President Trump’s aggressive deportation agenda. The video comes on the heels of a disrupted ICE raid in Chinatown last weekend, where nearly 200 protesters blocked agents from leaving a parking garage. “Last weekend, ICE attempted to raid Canal...

At a private home in the West Village on Tuesday evening, a cryptocurrency billionaire, a Qualcomm heir and a son of George Soros hosted a sold-out fund-raiser for Zohran Mamdani, New York City’s incoming mayor. The next morning, Mr. Mamdani was off to TriBeCa, where a Hunt oil fortune heiress and a major cryptocurrency advocate held another fund-raiser for the mayor-elect. Next week, he is slated to appear at a star-studded reception on the Lower East Side featuring Hollywood royalty, including Julianne Moore, Mark Ruffalo, Ramy Youssef, Tituss Burgess and the director Mira Nair, who is Mr. Mamdani’s mother. The...

Democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani, the frontrunner in the race for mayor of America's most populous city, on Thursday landed the endorsement of one of New York City's most influential politicians. Democratic Rep. Adriano Espaillat, arguably the city's most powerful Latino leader, is backing Mamdani, who, if elected in November, would become New York City's first Muslim mayor. "We're past the primary, and the people of New York City have spoken," Epsaillat said Thursday. "If there is a common denominator in every decision that I've made since I began to represent this district, in terms of supporting someone, it’s called the...