NEW YORK CITY—The Big Apple's avowedly socialist housing czar was heckled and jeered Tuesday evening by an activist who accused the Mamdani administration of forcing low-income residents of color out of public housing and of being a "white supremacist"
It's the latest example of Zohran Mamdani's young team of socialists discovering how hard it is to keep the far left happy.
Cea Weaver, the notoriously left-wing Mamdani official who leads the New York City Mayor's Office to Protect Tenants, was about halfway through a discussion of affordable housing in the city when she was interrupted by Rev. Kevin McCall, a frequent critic.
"You cannot demolish housing and talk about how you want to deal with affordability. You have to be able to deal with affordability," he jeered as organizers attempted several times to remove him.
"Don't touch me. Get your hands off me. Don't ever touch me. Don't you put your hands on me? You ask me. You don't touch me," McCall said, glowering over an event organizer who promptly retreated.
"As I was saying, that the mayor and also you, Cea Weaver, has decided to be able to kick out those residents in public housing."
The issue McCall was protesting deals with the city's plan to do a complete teardown and rebuilding of the blighted Fulton and Chelsea-Elliott Houses, a massive public housing complex in Manhattan's otherwise posh Chelsea neighborhood. Residents of the public housing units—which the city says have deteriorated beyond repair—have sued the city to halt the demolition and say they don't trust team Mamdani to keep them housed.
While Weaver insisted none would lose their homes, McCall told the Washington Free Beacon he was unconvinced.
"Cea Weaver and them don't have no respect, no regards for them losing their homes," McCall said after his disruption. "How you want to, in one breath, talk about affordability when you tear down the only affordability thing that we have?"
"She's becoming a white supremacist because she's not dealing with the black and brown people that's in NYCHA," McCall continued and vowed to continue chasing Weaver across the city.
Weaver, despite sterling progressive credentials and a history of critical remarks about white supremacy, has often faced protests from New Yorkers when she speaks on the subject of housing policy. She earned sustained heckling during the city's rental ripoff hearings over their original plans to exclude New York City Housing Authority residents from participating.
The far left has become increasingly restless with Mamdani as he approaches his tenth month in office. After an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer shot an illegal alien and career criminal, he faced growing calls from anti-NYPD and pro-Hamas agitators to move against his moderate Jewish police commissioner, Jessica Tisch. He's refusing to do so.
Weaver—a top Mamdani appointee who has called on New Yorkers to "elect more Communists," destroy property values, and "impoverish the white middle class"—was introduced by the event sponsor, New York Focus, as a "housing thought leader."
The event took place just before a debate between Gov. Kathy Hochul (D.) and her GOP opponent, Nassau County executive Bruce Blakeman.
What Hochul's relationship with Mamdani would be in a potential new term has been a subject of intense interest for Blakeman.
"She's lockstep with Zohran Mamdani. She endorsed him. He endorsed her. I firmly believe she has a secret plan, just like with congestion pricing, to raise taxes on the middle class once the election's over, if she should be successful," he told supporters in March.
Weaver seemed inclined to agree—saying the Empire State's governor has been largely on board with the mayor's priorities.
"I think we were generally successful in bringing the governor along into some of the mayor's sort of core agenda," said Weaver.
Weaver was specifically referring to discussions between team Mamdani and the governor's office during the mayor's first budget negotiation—which ultimately required billions in cash assistance from the state in May.
Weaver's comments raise questions about Hochul's past vows to pump the brakes on socialism from Albany.
"Mr. Mamdani and I don't see eye to eye on everything, and I don't expect us to. I will always reserve the right to disagree honestly and to argue passionately," Hochul said when she endorsed Mamdani in September 2025.
"I will say one energetic rally does not get me to change my positions. I assure you," Hochul added during a podcast appearance in October 2025.
Weaver offered her enthusiastic backing to Hochul during her 2022 race against former GOP Rep. Lee Zeldin.
"I'm voting for @GovKathyHochul on the @NYWFP line because Lee Zeldin would gut tenants' rights and with Hochul we stand a chance! #VoteWFP to make sure [she] wins and she delivers for ALL of us," Weaver said in an October 2022 post to X.
Weaver appeared on stage at the Downtown Community Television Center with housing activist Sam Stein, a self-described "high school anarchist" who has called for an "anticapitalist planning movement."
A consistent theme Weaver harkened back to was money—and how the city planned to raise and spend more of it.
"These buildings were built in the 1940s and the 1950s; they're well past their useful life. They're not going to last another 40 or 50 years without a huge infusion of capital," she said of NYCHA's housing stock.
In response to a woman named Miranda—who wore a mask with large "FUCK ICE" earrings and described herself as a "community organizer" who was disabled with a "chronic condition" she developed in 2021—Weaver committed the city to building "deeply subsidized affordable housing."
"That will be a combination of city and state resources. We need more money from the federal government for all of this, of course."
Many of the city's most ambitious plans will require federal cash—an issue which is broadly underlying Mayor Mamdani's charm offensive toward President Trump.
On the money front, Weaver also said that "property tax reform"—something which would have to come from Albany—was also an area which needed to be looked at.
When pressed by the event moderator on whether that would occur in the capital's next legislative session, Weaver demurred.
"That's not my area," she said to laughter.
In February, Mamdani floated a major property tax hike of 9.5 percent, though the idea was swiftly abandoned after coming in for broad public criticism.
