A senior hire in incoming New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s administration has abruptly resigned after a series of resurfaced social media posts revealed she had repeatedly expressed anti-white and anti-Semitic sentiments.
Catherine Almonte Da Costa, 33, had been appointed director of recruitment for the socialist mayor-elect.
The position is a key role that would have placed her in charge of screening and staffing City Hall as Mamdani prepares to take office on January 1, 2026.
But the appointment collapsed within 24 hours after civil rights groups highlighted a series of posts Da Costa made between 2011 and 2012, with additional entries stretching into 2016 and even 2020.
In one post made shortly after President Donald Trump’s 2016 victory, Da Costa wrote:
“It’s important that white people feel defeated.”
In another 2020 post during the George Floyd riots, she declared:
“For so long, power has been in the hands of men and/or white people.
“It has brought us ruin.”
Other posts were explicitly anti-Semitic.
In one message, Da Costa wrote, “money hungry Jews smh.”
In another post, she said, “Working alongside these rich Jewish peeps.”
A 2012 post read, “Far Rockaway train is the Jew train.”
Zohran Mamdani appointee made vile antisemitic comments in unearthed social media posts https://t.co/yaE4TcdTlT pic.twitter.com/KCHbNLSNPC
— New York Post Metro (@nypmetro) December 18, 2025
The posts remained online until Thursday afternoon, the New York Post reported.
Da Costa abruptly deleted her account after reporters and advocacy groups, including the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), demanded answers.
The ADL’s New York branch noted that her posts “echo classic antisemitic tropes and otherwise demean Jewish people.”
The group added, “Tweeting about ‘Money hungry Jews’ is indefensible.”
The ADL publicly pressed Mamdani’s transition team on whether they had vetted her past statements.
Facing rising backlash, Da Costa issued a resignation statement Thursday evening, saying she had become a distraction less than one day into her appointment.
“I spoke with the Mayor-elect this afternoon, apologized, and expressed my deep regret for my past statements,” she wrote.
“These statements are not indicative of who I am.
“As the mother of Jewish children, I feel a profound sense of sadness and remorse at the harm these words have caused.
“As this has become a distraction from the work at hand, I have offered my resignation.”
Mamdani claimed in a statement to the New York Times that Da Costa had apologized and confirmed that he had accepted her resignation.
Da Costa previously worked in former Mayor Bill de Blasio’s administration on the city’s census team.
She had been preparing to leave her position as head of culture at the communications and marketing firm Orchestra to help Mamdani bring “top talent” into the new administration.
Her departure marks the first major personnel crisis for Mamdani, whose election as a self-described socialist has already drawn national attention and now immediate scrutiny over vetting failures inside his transition team.
READ MORE – Elise Stefanik Doubles Down: Zohran Mamdani ‘Is a Jihadist’
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