Freshly sworn-in New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani signed a number of executive orders on his first day in office Thursday, including one to revoke most executive orders issued by former Mayor Eric Adams after he was indicted in September 2024.
“We speak about this day as a new era. And in order to fulfill that hope, we have to reckon with why so many New Yorkers have turned away from politics over the last few months, the last few years, the last few decades,” Mamdani said on Thursday at City Hall.
Mamdani’s executive order would rescind all directives issued by Adams after Sept. 26, 2024, the same day he was indicted by a federal grand jury on corruption charges.
“That was a date that marked a moment when many New Yorkers decided politics held nothing for them,” Mamdani said.
Adams became the first New York mayor to be indicted, accused of taking money from Turkey in order to help facilitate a Turkish consulate in the Big Apple.
The case was eventually dropped by the Justice Department in February, early into President Trump’s second term, in a move that elicited howls of corruption from Democrats and a string of resignations from the prosecutors who had worked on the charges.
Adams, one such attorney wrote, was being “rewarded” for “an improper offer of immigration enforcement assistance in exchange for a dismissal of his case.”
“The only expectation I seek to reset is that of small expectations,” Mamdani said in his address. “Beginning today, we will govern expansively and audaciously. We may not always succeed, but never will we be accused of lacking the courage to try.”
He also signed three executive orders to tackle New York City’s housing crisis. Two of them would establish task forces — Land Inventory Fast Track and Streamlining Procedures to Expedite Equitable Development — to speed up housing developments.
The newly sworn-in mayor would also named Cea Weaver to be director of the Mayor’s Office to Protect Tenants, which would focus on protecting tenants’ rights.
Mamdani signed an order to have five deputy mayors, fewer than his predecessor.
“We will govern without shame and insecurity, making no apology for what we believe,” the mayor said. “I was elected as a democratic socialist, and I will govern as a democratic socialist. I will not abandon my principles for fear of being deemed radical.”
