New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani 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.
Cea Weaver, a prominent tenant advocate, was named last week as executive director of the Mayor’s 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.
The messages, circulated online by opponents of the mayor in recent days, included arguments that private property should be treated as a “collective good” and calls to “impoverish the (asterisk)white(asterisk) middle class.” In one 2017 post, Weaver described homeownership as “a weapon of white supremacy masquerading as ‘wealth building public policy.’” The posts were later deleted.
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The controversy has prompted rebukes from figures within the U.S. Department of Justice and from The Washington Post’s editorial board, highlighting the intense scrutiny surrounding Mamdani’s early days in office.
Eric Adams, New York City’s former mayor and a fellow Democrat, was among those weighing in, saying the remarks reflected “extreme privilege and total detachment from reality.”
When questioned about the issue on Wednesday, Mamdani reportedly declined to engage directly with the content of Weaver’s past statements. Instead, he pointed to her professional record, praising her for “standing up for tenants across the city and state.”
Weaver, for her part, acknowledged missteps. Speaking to a local television station, she said some of the posts were “regretful” and “not something I would say today.”
“I want to make sure that everybody has a safe and affordable place to live, whether they rent or own, and that is something I’m laser-focused on in this new role,” she added.
The episode follows a similar controversy that emerged last month, when Mamdani accepted the resignation of another senior official, Catherine Almonte Da Costa, 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.
With Weaver, however, the administration had prior knowledge of her online history, according to mayoral spokesperson Dora Pekec.
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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’s 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.
That proposal, often referred to by the administration as “public stewardship,” has alarmed landlord organizations and drawn skepticism from some corners of city government.
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 “precedent-setting” action against the owner of a Brooklyn apartment building that owes money to the city and is currently in bankruptcy proceedings.
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’ union gathered in the building’s lobby.
“It is going to be challenging,” Weaver acknowledged. “New York is home to some of the most valuable real estate in the world. Everything about New York politics is about that fact.”
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