New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani (D) announced Wednesday that former Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Chair Lina Khan will serve as one of the co-leads for his transition team.
Khan, who headed the FTC under President Biden, will join three longtime New York City Hall veterans in steering Mamdani’s transition efforts, according to a statement released by the mayor-elect’s office, The Hill reported.
“New Yorkers sent a clear message this week that it’s time to build a city that working people can actually afford. I’m excited to help Zohran build a team that will usher in a new era for New York City and set a new model for Democratic governance,” Khan said in a statement.
“Our transition leaders will help build a City Hall committed to excellence, integrity and a hunger to solve old problems with new solutions. Together, we will show the nation how government can deliver when we put the people, not billionaires, first,” Mamdani added in a statement.
Khan was a central — and highly controversial — figure in former Biden’s antitrust and consumer protection agenda. As head of the FTC, she launched sweeping crackdowns on corporate mergers and led efforts to target what the administration labeled “unfair business practices,” including so-called junk fees and mandatory arbitration clauses.
Progressives hailed her as a hero for taking on corporate America, but her heavy-handed tactics — particularly against Big Tech — backfired politically. Biden’s war on Silicon Valley helped drive a wave of influential tech leaders toward the political right, many of whom now see President Donald Trump’s pro-business agenda as the only real counterbalance to the left’s regulatory crusade.
Before joining the Biden administration, Khan taught at Columbia Law School in New York and served as a legal adviser to former FTC Commissioner Rohit Chopra, sharpening the left-wing, anti-corporate philosophy that would later define her tenure at the agency.
Regarding self-claimed socialist Mamdani’s rise to lead the one American city that defined capitalism, Trump pointed to “pollsters” who say the government shutdown — combined with the fact that his name wasn’t on Tuesday’s ballot — were key reasons behind the Republican losses on Election Day.
“‘TRUMP WASN’T ON THE BALLOT, AND SHUTDOWN, WERE THE TWO REASONS THAT REPUBLICANS LOST ELECTIONS TONIGHT, according to Pollsters,” Trump posted on Truth Social on Tuesday night.
Republicans lost major races on Tuesday, though the vast majority of them were in deep blue states and districts.
Mamdani defeated a rare bipartisan coalition that had rallied behind former Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who ran as an independent, in the mayor’s race.
“It was not expected to be a victory. I don’t think it was good for Republicans. I’m not sure it was good for anybody, but we had an interesting evening, and we learned a lot,” Trump said at a Wednesday morning breakfast with GOP senators.
In New Jersey, a race that many expected to be close turned into a decisive win for Democrat Mikie Sherrill, who defeated Republican Jack Ciattarelli by a double-digit margin — 56.2% to 43.2% — with 95% of ballots counted as of Wednesday morning.
In Virginia, Democrat Abigail Spanberger also scored a commanding victory, defeating Republican Winsome Earle-Sears by more than 15 points, 57.5% to 42.3%, with 96% of votes tallied.
For comparison, former President Donald Trump lost both states in the previous year’s election — by 5.7 points in Virginia and 5.9 points in New Jersey, the Washington Times reported.
House Republicans are exploring legal and constitutional strategies to block Mamdani from being sworn into office, citing the Constitution’s post–Civil War “insurrection clause.”
The effort, first reported by the New York Post, is being led in part by the New York Young Republican Club, which argues that Mamdani’s past statements calling to “resist ICE” and his ties to left-wing organizations could qualify as “giving aid or comfort to the enemies” of the United States — language drawn directly from Section 3 of the 14th Amendment.