Behind the scenes with Mamdani

By Gloria Pazmino, CNN

(CNN) — New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani spent weeks before the Jan. 1 inauguration day in a bit of a sprint.

During the campaign, Mamdani – a former state assemblyman – battled criticism that he lacked the experience needed to lead the city’s massive bureaucracy.

Mamdani’s transition tried to swat away that criticism even as it has slow-rolled some of its appointments, leading critics and political insiders watching from the sidelines to wonder if the pace of the transition was an indication of what the Mamdani era of government will bring.

The appointments made by newly-elected mayors are closely watched affairs.

Still, several members of the transition granted anonymity to speak freely about confidential proceedings acknowledged the transition indeed moved slower than previous administrations, in part due to Mamdani’s limited network of seasoned government hands and a struggle to appease competing constituencies inside the transition.

“He wants to broaden his coalition,” said one Mamdani transition member granted anonymity to discuss confidential proceedings. “But he also has a lot of very hard left people internally who are less interested in compromising.”

Another member described the effort as a “careful managing of everyone’s political feelings.” And while some had been quick to focus on the delays, members of the transition have also praised some of Mamdani’s picks, describing them as “sane, sober choices” that should put at ease anyone worried Mamdani would place a “bunch of radical kids” in charge.

“I feel confident about the team we’re putting together,” Mamdani said in December when asked about the pace of his appointments. “We are going to be building out a team that New Yorkers will see being the ones who will help to make the decisions that will shape their lives and their ability to afford living in this city.”

A massive bureaucracy

Since winning the general election in November, Mamdani didn’t quite stop running.

He held a series of quasi-campaign events: Rallying alongside independent Sen. Bernie Sanders and Starbucks workers on strike, distributing hot chocolate to tenants in the freezing December temperatures to highlight his proposal to freeze stabilized rents, meeting with daycare workers to talk about his universal childcare pitch and traveling to Washington, D.C., for an Oval Office meeting with President Donald Trump.

New York City’s municipal gears turn with the help of more than 300,000 public workers and dozens of agencies, mayoral offices and boards. They’re tasked with everything from picking up the more than 10,000 tons of garbage the city produces daily, to leading the city’s public hospital system, helping small businesses, and awarding city contracts, to name a few of their collective responsibilities.

Mamdani named leaders to the city’s largest core service agencies – including the New York Police Department, the Fire Department, the Sanitation Department and the city’s office of Emergency Management. For the last two posts, Mamdani is relying on holdovers from the administration of outgoing Mayor Eric Adams who will stay in their jobs.

Mamdani has also named the city’s corporation counsel and his director for the Office of Management and Budget – a key appointment as the city’s budget season begins in January. And he has appointed deputy mayors for housing and planning and health and human services, in addition to creating a new office for deputy mayor for economic justice – a nod to Mamdani’s affordability agenda.

The inner circle

Mamdani jumped into action after election day, appointing a transition committee led by Grace Bonilla, a seasoned non-profit leader who previously served in de Blasio’s administration, and Lina Khan, the former Federal Trade Commission chair under President Joe Biden best known for her work in antitrust and consumer protection.

Days later, Mamdani named Dean Fuleihan as his first deputy mayor. The veteran of state and local government most recently served in the de Blasio administration. Mamdani also named Elle Bisgaard-Church, who ran his primary campaign, as his chief of staff.

The mayor-elect’s inner circle is made up of the same core group of people who helped lead his campaign to victory, with Bisgaard-Church leading the effort to form Mamdani’s Cabinet and senior aide Morris Katz and Fuleihan helping move the process along.

Mamdani is also relying on Patrick Gaspard, the former ambassador to South Africa and aide to President Barack Obama. Gaspard first met Mamdani when the then-rapper was on a promotional tour for the film “Queen of Katwe,” which was directed by Mira Nair, the mayor-elect’s mother.

Gaspard has also acted as a bridge between Mamdani and Obama and has been providing advice on everything from hires to communication strategy.

The transition was not without controversy: Catherine Da Costa resigned as Mamdani’s director of appointments less than 24 hours after she was named to the role after a series of antisemitic social media posts she made more than a decade ago surfaced. Da Costa expressed “deep regret” for the statements and said she felt “a profound sense of sadness and remorse at the harm these words have caused.”

Mamdani was forced to acknowledge his team had missed the postings during the vetting. After accepting Da Costa’s resignation, he said “clear changes” needed to be made to the vetting process, adding he would not have hired Da Costa if he’d been aware of the posts.

The transition has since brought on an outside legal firm to vet potential hires. Before that, vetting of candidates was led by an internal team and paid lawyers. Now, that team partners with the outside firm, which the transition has so far declined to name.

The work will be paid for by the transition, which has raised $3.7 million dollars from more than 32,000 donors, a majority of whom gave less than $250 dollars, according to the transition.

A secretive process

Mamdani’s transition – a group of more than 400 people split into 17 committees dedicated to different policy areas – met a handful of times since the election, kicking off with an all-hands meeting in mid-November.

That gathering was followed by Zoom meetings and smaller committee working groups, giving transition members a chance to discuss inner government workings and submit suggestions for potential hires. After those meetings, participants were asked to submit forms back to the transition team, according to several members of the transition who spoke with CNN, who said they were more an opportunity to submit ideas and the names of job candidates, and less of a chance to weigh in on policy.

Then came the job interviews: Some candidates sat for meetings with members of the transition, sometimes over Zoom and in a handful of cases without a clear idea of which job they were interviewing for, according to two members of the transition who spoke about the process. That led to frustration among government wonks and public servants who wondered if they would need to inform their current employer that they were leaving to work in Mamdani’s City Hall.

Indeed, much of the work has taken place in secret. Members of Mamdani’s transition were asked to sign non-disclosure agreements and were discouraged from speaking with the press.

Mamdani faced shorter transition timeline, allies say

Several of Mamdani’s allies pointed out Mamdani and his team were working under a much shorter timeline than his predecessors: In previous years, the winner of New York’s Democratic primary was considered a shoo-in for the general election, allowing them to shift focus to the work of the transition and start vetting dozens of candidates for high-stakes posts.

But the 2025 race for mayor was hard-fought until the last minute. Former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo mounted an independent general election bid despite his primary loss to Mamdani, and Adams, the incumbent, declined to drop his bid until just days before the election.

“They had to do a job very quickly on something that usually can be spread out over months,” New York state Sen. Gustavo Rivera, a member of Mamdani’s advisory committee, said of the transition process.

“The north star is finding people who are committed to the job – public servants, first, who can do the job they’re being asked to do,” Rivera said. “Zohran has a vision, and he is also smart and humble to know what he doesn’t know.”