Less than three weeks after Democratic Socialists of America member Zohran Mamdani won the New York City mayoral election, garnering over 1 million votes, the mayor-elect is quickly revealing himself to be nothing more than a standard capitalist politician. In the last 72 hours, it has been revealed that Mamdani reached out to Trump for a meeting; publicly pleaded for and accepted as his police commissioner current police chief Jessica Tisch; and lobbied against a “socialist” challenge to New York Representative Hakeem Jeffries.

On Sunday night, Trump announced that Mamdani’s team had reached out to him in hopes of setting up a meeting. Trump declared, “The mayor of New York, I will say, would like to meet with us, and we will work something out.” He added that Mamdani “would like to come to Washington and meet, and we will work something out. We want to see everything work out well for New York.”

When Trump speaks about things “working out well,” he is referring not to the working class of New York but to the real estate dynasties, private equity parasites and financial oligarchs that dominate the city.

In an interview with Dan Mannarino of Pix11 published on Wednesday, Mamdani confirmed that his team made the initial appeal to Trump. “We’ve reached out to set that meeting up. I don’t have any more information on the dates or time of it as of yet, but I will be sure to share that as we do.”

Mamdani justified the outreach by invoking affordability and safety, declaring that what happens to New Yorkers “has to do with how the federal government approaches this city.” In other words, Mamdani seeks accommodation with a fascist administration rather than mobilizing the working class in New York and nationally against it.

As part of his ongoing assurances to the ruling class that his administration will defend private property and capitalism, Mamdani has for months lobbied for Jessica Tisch to stay on as police commissioner. Before Trump’s remarks, Mamdani told local media, “I do want her to stay. I made that commitment during the election, that’s something I continue to believe.”

Tisch comes from the 43rd richest family in the United States and enjoys the confidence of the corporate and financial elite. Fox News host Brian “euthanize the homeless” Kilmeade praised her this week, saying Mamdani “has to keep Jessica Tisch, one of the most popular police commissioners in the country.”

A longstanding favorite of the Zionist Anti-Defamation League, after graduating from Harvard Tisch joined the NYPD in 2008 and rose through the Bloomberg and de Blasio administrations. Eric Adams appointed her commissioner in November 2024. Under her leadership, the NYPD has continued to violently suppress the working class and anti-genocide protests.

In May, Tisch confirmed that the NYPD complied with a records request from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to hand over an internal report about a Palestinian woman, who was arrested by the police while protesting the genocide at Columbia University. Leqaa Kordia, 32, has been in an immigrant concentration camp since March of this year after she was kidnapped at the ICE Newark Field Office while appearing for a voluntary meeting. Over 175 members of Kordia’s family have been killed in the ongoing Israeli genocide, backed by the United States.

In his interview Wednesday with Mannarino of Pix11, Mamdani said he and Tisch have been engaged in “active conversations” since he won the election, with those conversations focused on the “shared goal of delivering public safety for New Yorkers.”

Presenting the NYPD as a neutral institution rather than the armed detachment of capital assigned to protect wealth and suppress opposition, Mamdani praised Tisch for supposedly rooting out corruption and producing “historic drops in crime across the five boroughs.” He added, “That is what we are looking to build on under a Mamdani administration.”

Asked whether he agreed with Tisch that the NYPD should hire more officers, Mamdani replied that the department faced a “retention crisis” due to the “amount of work” officers were being asked to do, particularly “200,000 mental health calls.” He promised to create a “department of community safety” to offload non police tasks from officers.

Mamdani emphasized that he wanted to keep Tisch “because of the work she has done,” He stated, “It’s about building that together. This is a commissioner that has shown she is interested in accountability, in taking on corruption, in reducing crimes. Those are three things that I am very much interested in fulfilling and building upon.”

He concluded, “As much as we talk about differences of opinion, there is a real shared alignment.”

After noting that Tisch has previously been tipped off when ICE conducted kidnapping operations in New York, Mannarino asked Mamdani how he would like the NYPD to react under his administration with Tisch still at the helm.

Mamdani sidestepped the question before promising the NYPD would “deliver public safety, not assist ICE.” In reality, many Democratic leaders formally forbid direct cooperation with ICE, yet Democratic governors like Gavin Newsom of California and JB Pritzker of Illinois continue to deploy police to protect ICE agents. There is no doubt Mamdani, like Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, would likewise deploy the police against anti-ICE protesters.

To further signal that he is no threat to the Democratic Party establishment, Mamdani refused to support DSA member Chi Ossé’s primary challenge to Hakeem Jeffries. Ossé, previously endorsed and campaigned for Mamdani and filed his paperwork to challenge Jeffries on Monday.

Mannarino noted that Mamdani had previously indicated that Ossé “should remain a councilman.” He asked, “Are you saying he should not run against Hakeem Jeffries?”

Mamdani replied, “I’m saying that I think the focus should be right here on New York City. ... I respect the work the councilman Ossé has done.”

Mannarino interjected: “But what does that mean? Should he not run?”

Mamdani confirmed, “I think that right now is not the time to be engaging in that kind of a primary. I think the focus should be on delivering on this affordability agenda.”

On Monday, fellow DSA Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez likewise downplayed any attempt to challenge Jeffries, a staunch supporter of Israel and Wall Street. “I certainly don’t think a primary challenge to the leader is a good thing right now,” Ocasio-Cortez told Axios.

Mamdani’s defense of Jeffries, the New York Police Department and entreaties to Trump confirm the class character of his administration and the futility of all attempts at “reforming” the Democratic Party, the oldest capitalist party in the world.

As the World Socialist Web Site explained following his election:

Mamdani will bow to the demands of the financial and political establishment. Whatever he claims, the ultimate purpose of his campaign is to preempt and contain the growing movement of the working class.

The way forward for workers in New York and throughout the country lies not in pressuring the Democratic Party or placing hopes in Mamdani’s administration but in the independent mobilization of the working class in struggle.