Mamdani’s Transition Team: A Reflection Of His Leftism

On Wednesday, New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani revealed the four members of his transition team. Examining their public comments, it is not difficult to see why the hard-leftist Mamdani would select them.

Mamdani, 35, named Elana Leopold — who served in several senior roles under former Democratic Mayor Bill de Blasio — as well as former FTC Commissioner Lina Khan, Maria Torres-Springer, former Deputy Mayor for Housing, Economic Development & Workforce in Eric Adams’s administration, and Melanie Hartzog, former Deputy Mayor for Health and Human Services under de Blasio.

Leopold helped run the Broad Room, “a political action training camp for young women and those who identify as nonbinary,” Fortune reported.

Khan, who was born in London to a family of Pakistani origin, served as Chair of the FTC from June 15, 2021, until January 31, 2025. She has slammed the Trump administration, saying at the 2025 James M. and Cathleen D. Stone Lecture in Economic Inequality at the Harvard Kennedy School, “As we look beyond the DOGE wreckage, we should figure out what a reformed approach to governing should look like, rather than assume we should go back to the way things have been.”

“We’re here to talk about what I think will be legacy-defining for this administration, and that is our support of minority and women-owned businesses across the city,” Torres-Springer stated in November 2024.

Speaking about the New York Democratic proposal to raise the age for teenagers who have committed crimes to serve time in adult prisons, Hartzog said, “It’s outdated. It’s unfair. … We need to keep youth out of adult prisons.” In 2021, when the De Blasio administration required all New York City employees to be vaccinated for COVID-19, she declared, “This mandate is a bold step that protects our families, friends, and communities, including those that are not yet eligible for the vaccine such as our City’s youngest residents. It builds on our continued leadership and innovative strategies to fighting this pandemic and bring us a step closer to a recovery for all.”