{"id":194084,"date":"2025-12-20T02:00:15","date_gmt":"2025-12-20T02:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/194084\/"},"modified":"2025-12-20T02:00:15","modified_gmt":"2025-12-20T02:00:15","slug":"nyc-mayor-elect-zohran-mamdani-faces-new-questions-after-top-appointee-resigns-after-resurfaced-social-posts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/194084\/","title":{"rendered":"NYC Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani faces new questions after top appointee resigns after resurfaced social posts"},"content":{"rendered":"

NEW YORK CITY (WABC) — Catherine Almonte Da Costa resigned after criticism of antisemitic posts on her social media<\/a> when she was young.<\/p>\n

“This is not indicative of who I am,” she said.<\/p>\n

Da Costa is married to a Jewish man and she is the mother of two Jewish children.<\/p>\n

Mamdani, before and during the election strongly apologized for some of the statements he made when he was young.<\/p>\n

In a press conference Friday, Mamdani told reporters that New Yorkers have a right to expect better and apologized, claiming he did not adequately vet her.<\/p>\n

“Our administration will operate under a standard of excellence. And setting that standard is not only about fulfilling it. It’s also about holding yourself accountable when you are not doing so,” Mamdani said.<\/p>\n

It was barely 48 hours ago that Mamdani appointed Catherine Almonte Da Costa as his director of appointments.<\/p>\n

“Cat will oversee our talent recruitment efforts and help us build a team as hardworking as the city we are seeking to represent,” Mamdani said.<\/p>\n

Back in 2011 and 2012, Mrs. Almonte Da Costa made a series of antisemitic posts on social media referring to “money hungry Jews,” and “rich Jewish peeps,” and calling the Far Rockaway train “the Jew train.”<\/p>\n

She was barely 20 years-old at the time, and later married a Jewish man, and served in the De Blasio Administration.<\/p>\n

“As the mother of Jewish children,” she said in a statement, “I feel a profound sense of sadness and remorse at the harm these words have caused,” Da Costa said.<\/p>\n

“These comments were reprehensible. She expressed a deep sense of remorse. She offered to resign, and I accepted that,” Mamdani said.<\/p>\n

Mamdani’s transition team is hiring an outside firm to further vet potential candidates to join the administration. The firm will also review those who have already been hired, focusing on the top jobs.<\/p>\n

“This unacceptable oversight in the vetting process does not meet the mayor-elect’s standards for this transition or the incoming administration. We’ve taken swift action to bring on an independent firm for additional support,” a spokesperson with the administration said.<\/p>\n

Mamdani said he was unaware of the posts and would not have appointed Da Costa if he had been.<\/p>\n

The posts were tracked down by the Anti-Defamation League, which has vowed to scrutinize the incoming administration.<\/p>\n

“The question is, to what extent was she vetted? And, you know, if she was, were these excused by whoever vetted her? We have stated very clearly that ADL is going to be watching that ADL is going to be doing whatever research is necessary, to shine a bright light on this administration and hold them accountable,” Scott Richman, ADL Region Director said.<\/p>\n

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Copyright \u00a9 2025 WABC-TV. All Rights Reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK CITY (WABC) — Catherine Almonte Da Costa resigned after criticism of antisemitic posts on her social…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":194085,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[110608,42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-194084","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-110608","9":"tag-headlines","10":"tag-news","11":"tag-top-news","12":"tag-top-stories","13":"tag-topnews","14":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194084","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=194084"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194084\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/194085"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=194084"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=194084"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=194084"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}