Friday, March 13, marked the 72nd day of Zohran Mamdani’s time period as mayor. New York News is following Mamdani round his first 100 days in workplace. We’re intently monitoring his progress on fulfilling marketing campaign guarantees, appointing key leaders to authorities posts, and managing the town’s funds. Right here’s a abstract of what the mayor did Friday.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani acquired a heat welcome on Friday from one of many metropolis’s most influential labor leaders at a Manhattan luncheon hosted by the James Connolly Irish American Labor Coalition, the place he was praised as a real union ally.
John Samuelsen, the worldwide president of the Transport Employees Union and president of the James Connolly Coalition, launched Mamdani as “a trade unionist at heart,” pointing to his assist for nurses throughout their six-week labor struggle earlier this yr.
“He recognizes that the pathway to economic security for working people is through the trade union movement, it’s not through political parties,” Samuelsen stated. “Zohran is a trade unionist; he’s with us.”
Mamdani, in flip, leaned into the room and its historical past. Quoting Irish labor chief James Connolly, he stated, “The cause of labor is the cause of Ireland, and the cause of Ireland is the cause of labor.” He then tied that historical past on to New York.
“When I think about Irish Americans and the history of this city, it is the realization that the two are one and the same,” Mamdani stated. “You cannot tell the story of this city without the story of Irish Americans. You cannot tell the story of trade unionism in this city without the story of Irish Americans.”
The transit union’s founder, Michael Quill, was an Irish-born labor firebrand whose legacy nonetheless looms giant in New York politics. Quill grew to become a people hero to many union members through the 1966 transit strike, when he led a 12-day shutdown that paralyzed the town and helped win a 15% wage improve for greater than 30,000 staff.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani talking in Brooklyn on March 13, 2026, in asserting Taylor Brown as the primary director of the Mayor’s Workplace of LGBTQIA+ Affairs.Photograph by Lloyd Mitchell
Chatting with New York News on the occasion, Samuelsen stated he has been happy with Mamdani’s first 72 days in workplace, calling the mayor “excellent” up to now on affordability and different working-class considerations. However he stated Mamdani’s political future — particularly amongst blue-collar voters in elements of Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx — will rely on whether or not he retains that focus.
Samuelsen’s recommendation was blunt: keep out of the tradition wars and maintain the deal with what he referred to as “bread and butter, kitchen table issues, economic security issues.”
“The more Zohran interacts with people, and the more he focuses on economic security, the more his strength is going to grow,” Samuelsen stated.
Samuelsen additionally pointed to the horse-carriage struggle for instance of what he sees as Mamdani’s sensible method up to now. Requested concerning the difficulty, Samuelsen stated Mamdani understands that roughly “180 jobs” are at stake — “good jobs, immigrant jobs,” as he put it. He additionally stated Mamdani had dedicated to not enter workplace with a presupposition that the horses had been being mistreated and, in response to Samuelsen, has caught to that method up to now.
“Zohran committed to me that he wouldn’t go into this mayoralty with a presupposition that the horses are mistreated, that he wouldn’t buy into that narrative,” Samuelsen stated. “He’s honored that thus far.”
The difficulty grew to become a serious flashpoint close to the tip of the Adams administration, when former Mayor Eric Adams backed Ryder’s Legislation, a Metropolis Council invoice to part out horse-drawn cabs beginning June 1, 2026, and signed Govt Order 56 directing companies to organize for the business’s finish and determine new employment choices for affected staff. The transfer prompted an offended backlash from Samuelsen, who accused Adams of betraying carriage staff.
Rama drama: Mayor defends First Girl once more
Mamdani, on Friday, was once more pressured to come back to his spouse, first girl Rama Duwaji’s, protection, following stories that she had illustrated an essay by a author whose previous social media posts have drawn accusations of antisemitism.
Talking at an unrelated press convention in Brooklyn, Mamdani stated the rhetoric described within the posts of Susan Abulhawa was “unacceptable” and “reprehensible,” however stated Duwaji was commissioned as a contract illustrator by a 3rd social gathering, had by no means engaged with or met Abulhawa, and had not seen the posts in query.
The New York Publish reported that Abulhawa had described Jews in social media posts as “vampires,” “demons,” and “ghouls,” and had praised the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas assault on Israel as “a spectacular moment in history.”
The feedback got here simply days after Mamdani additionally defended Duwaji over criticism of her social media likes on posts tied to the aftermath of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas assault on Israel. In that earlier response, he stated she was not a part of his administration and was a personal particular person.
‘Disheartening’ week of Islamophobic assaults
Mamdani additionally addressed the anti-Muslim rhetoric directed at him this week, which he stated had been “disheartening” and mirrored a broader local weather of bigotry dealing with Muslim New Yorkers.
Mamdani stated the rhetoric was larger than a private assault on him as the town’s first Muslim mayor and as a substitute focused the town’s greater than 1 million Muslim residents. He stated New York must be “a city that’s free of bigotry.”
“Yesterday, I had the privilege of breaking my fast with hundreds of city workers who share the same faith as I do … and then for them to turn to their phone and open it up and see an elected official in that same city calling for their expulsion — it is not what those workers deserve, and it is not the kind of city that we want to build,” he stated.
Mamdani’s feedback got here after every week of anti-Muslim assaults from native and nationwide figures, together with Rep. Brandon Gill of Texas, who referred to as a photograph of the mayor at an iftar “stomach churning”; Sen. Tommy Tuberville of Alabama, who reposted a picture evaluating Mamdani’s Ramadan observance to the Sept. 11 assaults and wrote, “The enemy is inside the gates.”
Requested particularly about Queens Council Member Vickie Paladino, who this week filed a lawsuit to dam the Council from disciplining her over social media posts that led to an ethics case in opposition to her, Mamdani stated he was “heartened by the actions that the council has taken,” however stated the Metropolis Council ought to resolve what occurs subsequent.
Paladino has been accused of Islamophobia over social media posts that included a name for the “expulsion of Muslims from western nations” and a declare {that a} picture of Mamdani praying with Muslim sanitation staff was “part of Islamic conquest.”
Paladino is suing to dam the Council from disciplining her over social media posts that led to an ethics case in opposition to her. The Ethics Committee charged her with disorderly conduct tied to posts on X, together with one which stated New York was “under foreign occupation” after Mamdani appointed Faiza N. Ali as chief immigration officer. Doable penalties may vary from censure and fines to suspension or expulsion.
