New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani and NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch have a meeting on the books, according to sources, as questions have mounted as to why the two haven’t spoken in months — despite his stated desire to have her continue leading the city’s police department.
Sources close to Mamdani’s transition team said the meeting is scheduled “soon,” and that teams for the commissioner and the mayor-elect have been in regular contact.
The information may quell concerns about why Tisch has not yet accepted Mamdani’s offer and whether she is conflicted about serving in his administration.
While leaving an Urban League ribbon cutting ceremony in Harlem on Wednesday, Mamdani told reporters he had not yet spoken to Tisch about the job offer.
“I look forward to that conversation and telling you exactly how it went,” he said.
Mamdani has stated since the final mayoral debate in late October that he would like to keep Tisch as commissioner of the nation’s largest police department, but she has declined to say whether she would accept the job.
At the debate, Mamdani said Tisch “took on a broken status quo, started to deliver accountability, rooting out corruption and reducing crime across the five boroughs.”
Asked about how the two might resolve their differences of opinion about policing during an interview with NBC New York a week after the election, Mamdani said “I continue to be confident in the decision I’ve made to retain her. The reason for my confidence is that I see — amidst whatever disagreement there may be — there’s a common shared goal of delivering on public safety.”
Mamdani and Tisch have expressed opposing views on policies including bail reform. People close to Tisch, who is Jewish and well-respected as a capable manager, say that for her, being police commissioner is her “dream job.” She was named a year ago at the urging of Gov. Kathy Hochul, as Mayor Eric Adams and the NYPD were dealing with corruption allegations.
The soon-to-be sitdown comes after Mamdani started filling positions for his administration earlier in the week. The mayor-elect appointed Dean Fuleihan, a veteran budget official, to be his first deputy mayor on Monday. Fuleihan is a seasoned hand of city and state government, and will lead operations of City Hall as Mamdani embarks on his ambitious agenda that skeptics have skewered as financially unrealistic.
Mamdani also appointed Elle Bisgaard-Church, a top campaign adviser and his chief of staff in the state Assembly, to be his City Hall chief of staff.
At a Monday news conference, Mamdani, who will be city’s youngest mayor in generations when he takes office next year at the age of 34, pledged to “create a new City Hall.” But he added that he will need both experienced leaders and fresh faces to do so.
“It is important when we are undertaking the work of transforming politics in our city, that we do so both with a relentless imagination as to what politics could be, and a fluency of what politics has been,” he said while standing next to Fleihan and Bisgaard-Church. “And what I so appreciate about both of those standing next to me is that they have displayed those two skills in spades.”
Mamdani won the New York City mayoral race last week, capping a stunning ascent for the progressive state lawmaker who ran on restoring power to the working class. Since then, Mamdani has appointed a team of former city and federal officials to lead his transition into City Hall, surrounding himself with an experienced team that included faces from the previous two mayoral administrations.
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