{"id":501286,"date":"2026-01-08T12:12:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-08T12:12:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/501286\/"},"modified":"2026-01-08T12:12:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-08T12:12:10","slug":"nyc-mayor-mamdani-stands-by-tenant-appointee-as-white-supremacy-remarks-ignite-outcry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/501286\/","title":{"rendered":"NYC mayor Mamdani stands by tenant appointee as \u2018white supremacy\u2019 remarks ignite outcry"},"content":{"rendered":"

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani<\/a> is pressing ahead with a contentious housing appointment. He is offering full backing to a senior official whose past social media posts have ignited criticism from federal officials, media commentators, and political rivals.<\/p>\n

Cea Weaver<\/a>, a prominent tenant advocate, was named last week as executive director of the Mayor\u2019s Office to Protect Tenants, an agency Mamdani has pledged to dramatically strengthen as part of his broader crackdown on negligent landlords. Her appointment, however, has drawn sharp attention after old posts resurfaced that criticized private property ownership and linked homeownership policies to white supremacy.<\/p>\n

The messages, circulated online by opponents of the mayor in recent days, included arguments that private property should be treated as a \u201ccollective good\u201d and calls to \u201cimpoverish the (asterisk)white(asterisk) middle class.\u201d In one 2017 post, Weaver described homeownership as \u201ca weapon of white supremacy masquerading as \u2018wealth building public policy.\u2019\u201d The posts were later deleted.<\/p>\n

READ ALSO: Zohran Mamdani becomes New York City mayor following a midnight swearing-in<\/a><\/p>\n

The controversy has prompted rebukes from figures within the U.S. Department of Justice and from The Washington Post\u2019s editorial board, highlighting the intense scrutiny surrounding Mamdani\u2019s early days in office.<\/p>\n

Eric Adams<\/a>, New York City\u2019s former mayor and a fellow Democrat, was among those weighing in, saying the remarks reflected \u201cextreme privilege and total detachment from reality.\u201d<\/p>\n

When questioned about the issue on Wednesday, Mamdani reportedly<\/a> declined to engage directly with the content of Weaver\u2019s past statements. Instead, he pointed to her professional record, praising her for \u201cstanding up for tenants across the city and state.\u201d<\/p>\n

Weaver, for her part, acknowledged missteps. Speaking to a local television station, she said some of the posts were \u201cregretful\u201d and \u201cnot something I would say today.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to make sure that everybody has a safe and affordable place to live, whether they rent or own, and that is something I\u2019m laser-focused on in this new role,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n

The episode follows a similar controversy that emerged last month, when Mamdani accepted the resignation of another senior official, Catherine Almonte Da Costa<\/a>, after the Anti-Defamation League highlighted antisemitic tropes in decade-old social media posts she had written. In that case, the mayor said he had not been aware of the messages before her appointment.<\/p>\n

With Weaver, however, the administration had prior knowledge of her online history, according to mayoral spokesperson Dora Pekec<\/a>.<\/p>\n

READ ALSO: Zohran Mamdani schools immigrant New Yorkers on their right to say no to ICE<\/a><\/p>\n

Before joining City Hall, Weaver led the Housing Justice for All coalition, a tenant advocacy group credited with helping secure a major overhaul of state tenant protections in 2019. In her new role, she is expected to be central to advancing one of Mamdani\u2019s most divisive campaign promises: identifying repeat-offender landlords and compelling them to negotiate the sale of their properties to the city if they fail to pay fines tied to housing code violations.<\/p>\n

That proposal, often referred to by the administration as \u201cpublic stewardship,\u201d has alarmed landlord organizations and drawn skepticism from some corners of city government.<\/p>\n

Nonetheless, the mayor has signaled little appetite for retreat. At a press conference held immediately after his inauguration last week, Mamdani said the city would take \u201cprecedent-setting\u201d action against the owner of a Brooklyn apartment building that owes money to the city and is currently in bankruptcy proceedings.<\/p>\n

Moments later, he introduced Weaver as the new head of the tenant protection office, a move that was met with enthusiastic applause from members of a tenants\u2019 union gathered in the building\u2019s lobby.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is going to be challenging,\u201d Weaver acknowledged. \u201cNew York is home to some of the most valuable real estate in the world. Everything about New York politics is about that fact.\u201d<\/p>\n

READ ALSO: How Mamdani\u2019s New York City mayoral victory is inspiring Uganda\u2019s youth<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani is pressing ahead with a contentious housing appointment. He is offering full…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":501287,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,405,403,5226,5225,5228,5227,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-501286","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-new-york","10":"tag-new-york-city","11":"tag-newyork","12":"tag-newyorkcity","13":"tag-ny","14":"tag-nyc","15":"tag-united-states","16":"tag-united-states-of-america","17":"tag-unitedstates","18":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","19":"tag-us","20":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115859419741354110","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501286","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=501286"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501286\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/501287"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=501286"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=501286"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=501286"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}