New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani is firmly defending his newly appointed housing official amid growing controversy over her past social media posts that called for property seizure and linked homeownership to white supremacy.

Cea Weaver, a veteran tenant rights advocate, was appointed last week to lead the Mayor’s Office to Protect Tenants. Mamdani, a Democrat, has pledged to expand the office’s authority to take “unprecedented” action against negligent landlords. However, Weaver’s appointment quickly drew scrutiny when her deleted social media posts from previous years resurfaced.

The controversial posts, circulated by Mamdani’s critics, included calls to treat private property as a “collective good” and to “impoverish the white middle class.” In a 2017 tweet, Weaver described homeownership as “a weapon of white supremacy masquerading as ‘wealth building public policy.'”

These statements have triggered significant backlash, including condemnations from U.S. Department of Justice officials and The Washington Post’s editorial board. Former New York City Mayor Eric Adams, also a Democrat, criticized the remarks as showing “extreme privilege and total detachment from reality.”

When questioned about the controversy on Wednesday, Mamdani sidestepped addressing the specific content of Weaver’s posts, instead highlighting her track record of “standing up for tenants across the city and state.” A mayoral spokesperson, Dora Pekec, confirmed that the administration was aware of Weaver’s past social media activity before the appointment.

Weaver herself has attempted to distance herself from the comments, telling a local TV station that some of her past messages were “regretful” and “not something I would say today.” She emphasized her current focus, stating, “I want to make sure that everybody has a safe and affordable place to live, whether they rent or own.”

This controversy follows closely on the heels of another social media scandal in Mamdani’s young administration. Last month, the mayor accepted the resignation of Catherine Almonte Da Costa after the Anti-Defamation League revealed decade-old social media posts featuring antisemitic tropes.

Weaver brings substantial housing advocacy experience to her new role. She previously led the Housing Justice for All coalition, which was instrumental in securing landmark tenant protection legislation in New York State in 2019. Her appointment is strategically significant for Mamdani’s administration, particularly for implementing one of his most contentious campaign pledges: the “public stewardship” proposal.

This initiative aims to identify negligent landlords and, if they cannot pay fines for violations, force them to negotiate selling their properties to the city. The proposal has generated considerable opposition from landlord associations and skepticism from various city government officials.

Despite the pushback, Mamdani appears resolute in pursuing this agenda. Immediately following his inauguration last week, he announced plans for “precedent-setting” action against a Brooklyn apartment building owner who owed the city money and was in bankruptcy proceedings. When he announced Weaver’s appointment at the same press conference, members of a tenants union gathered in the building’s lobby responded with enthusiastic cheers.

Weaver acknowledged the challenges ahead, noting, “New York is home to some of the most valuable real estate in the world. Everything about New York politics is about that fact.”

The controversy highlights the intense scrutiny facing Mamdani’s progressive housing policies and appointments as he begins his tenure as mayor of the nation’s largest city, where housing affordability remains a critical and divisive issue.