NEW YORK — Even some of Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s allies are beginning to question his insistence that his wife is “a private person,” as scrutiny mounts over her social media history.
Mamdani has avoided addressing Rama Duwaji’s online past — which includes celebrating Hamas and using offensive racial language — arguing she holds no formal role in his administration. But allies and critics alike say that position is becoming harder to sustain — and that the mayor can no longer sidestep questions about her social media imprint.
“As the leader of New York City, he has to start addressing this. It’s his responsibility. It’s not good enough to just say she’s ‘a private person’ — she’s not,” said Tanesha Grant, who runs Moms United For Black Lives NYC and lobbies state and city lawmakers. “He can’t let things fester like that, and this is something that all his consultants should tell him. He can’t shield her from this, and when you fail to address something like this, it really can leave the wrong impression.”
Five people close to the mayor, including three local elected officials and a member of his transition team, said they consider Duwaji to be a public figure by virtue of her role as the city’s first lady. The people, granted anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter, told POLITICO it doesn’t make sense for Mamdani to invoke the “private person” label to avoid addressing her social media posts.
“She is the first lady of New York City. She has a police detail and a government staff,” said one of the elected officials, who believes Duwaji should explain herself publicly. “She would need to do an interview, better explain herself, and have her do some visits and meetings with key constituencies, like Jewish museums.”
The episode is reigniting concerns about antisemitism that have shadowed Mamdani since last year’s mayoral race and underscores a broader pattern of controversies tied to the online activity of people in his orbit. That even his allies are now questioning his response suggests the issue will continue to pose a political problem for the mayor — even as it remains unclear how much weight voters will ultimately place on his wife’s conduct.
Through a spokesperson, Mamdani and Duwaji declined to answer questions about her social media history and the growing backlash against it.
At least some previous first ladies have embraced the public-facing nature of their roles. Chirlane McCray, former Mayor Bill de Blasio’s wife, took on a formal role in her husband’s administration, with a policy portfolio focused on combating mental health. But McCray landed in hot water for her $1 billion mental health initiative, ThriveNYC, which critics said amounted to a costly boondoggle.
Former Mayor Eric Adams wasn’t married while in office, but his partner, Tracey Collins, came under scrutiny from the city’s Department of Investigation amid allegations she had been promoted to a “no show job” in the public school system. Donna Hanover, former Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s wife, faced scrutiny for holding on to her day job as a TV news anchor while first lady — and then drew more headlines years later when Giuliani filed for divorce while he was still in office.
Duwaji, a visual artist who at 28 is one of the city’s youngest first ladies, so far hasn’t taken on such responsibilities and largely stays out of the spotlight. Still, some of her recent media coverage and her past public statements don’t further her husband’s case that she’s a private person.
After Mamdani’s election in November, Duwaji sat down with New York Magazine’s The Cut for a photo shoot and cover story in which she was quoted saying she would use her new role “in the best way that I can as an artist.” Since his inauguration, Mamdani’s office has used the mayor’s official Instagram account to post photos tagging Duwaji’s profile, where she showcases her art.
“While it is possible to be a public figure and a private person at the same time, it is a very difficult balance to strike,” said the Mamdani transition team member, who believes it was an especially poor choice for Duwaji to do The Cut interview if she wanted to remain a private person.
Duwaji is among several people supportive of the mayor who have become a focal point of concerns about antisemitism threading through Mamdani’s base. Catherine Almonte Da Costa, Mamdani’s first appointments director, resigned before taking office after her social media posts about “money hungry Jews” emerged. Kaif Gilani, co-founder of the “Hot Girls for Zohran” group that drove grassroots support for Mamdani’s 2025 campaign, was fired from a political consulting job last month amid reports he had voiced support for Hamas online and claimed Israel had a hand in the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. And Mamdani himself weathered criticism last year for initially declining to condemn the term “globalize the intifada” and appearing on the podcast of Hasan Piker, who has described Jews as “inbred.”
Mamdani has repeatedly denied harboring anti-Jewish sentiments, contending claims to that effect conflate criticism of Israel with antisemitism. A longtime critic of the Jewish state, Mamdani says his opposition to its government is rooted in his belief that it has oppressed Palestinians and that its war in Gaza — which has left more than 70,000 people dead — amounts to a genocide.
His critics counter that his argument is undermined by his and his wife’s silence in the face of her newly unearthed social media posts, especially given the broader concerns about antisemitism.
“As the first lady of New York City, she must understand that the safety of New Yorkers is compromised when she cheers on terrorists, uses racial slurs, and gives cover to bigots by not distancing herself from her previous statements,” said Moshe Davis, a rabbi who served as executive director of the Mayor’s Office to Combat Antisemitism under former Mayor Eric Adams. "The accusations of antisemitism against Mayor Mamdani have often centered on his close affiliations with those who support Palestinian terror groups. The mayor's silence after it was revealed that his wife posted messages celebrating terrorists only exacerbates that charge.”
Duwaji is originally from Syria, but grew up in Texas and Dubai. A visual artist, she graduated from Virginia Commonwealth University in 2019 and then moved to New York City, where she has done freelance work for media outlets like The New Yorker and The Washington Post. She met Mamdani in 2021 on Hinge, a dating app, and they married in February 2025, after Mamdani launched his mayoral campaign.
In the aftermath of Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 attack, which left more than 1,200 people dead in Israel and sparked the war in Gaza, Duwaji affixed heart emojis to Instagram posts that celebrated the massacre, including comments describing it as a form of “resistance” from Palestinians “wanting freedom from apartheid.” She also liked a post claiming that it was a “hoax” to say members of Hamas raped Israelis during the attack. A United Nations special representative concluded that Hamas militants gang raped Israeli hostages.
Duwaji’s own off-color social media posts date back to at least 2013, when she was 15.
In those tweets, Duwaji, who isn’t Black, used the words “n---a” and “gay” in derogatory ways. She fawned over Leila Khaled and Shadia Abu Ghazaleh, members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine who were involved in attempted hijackings and bombings in Israel. “If it does good for my cause, I'll be happy to accept death," read the caption for a photo of Khaled that Duwaji reposted on Tumblrin 2017.
Most of the posts in question were first reported by Jewish Insider and The Free Beacon, conservative outlets that have been critical of Mamdani.
Following their reporting, Duwaji’s X account was deleted last week, but POLITICO obtained screengrabs showing she has also made questionable comments about Japanese people. “Dem Japanese sure are kinky,” she wrote in a March 2014 post, the context of which is unclear.
On March 6, after Duwaji’s Instagram likes emerged, Mamdani called her “the love of my life” and said she’s “a private person who has held no formal position on my campaign or in my City Hall.” He did not address the substance of the posts and hasn’t spoken about her online activities since then.
The Free Beacon also reported that Duwaji provided an illustration for a book co-edited by Palestinian author Susan Abulhawa, who has called Israeli Jews “parasites,” “cockroaches” and “vampires.” Mamdani called Abulhawa’s rhetoric “reprehensible,” but said his wife wasn’t aware of the author’s comments before accepting the illustration job — a claim critics like former mayoral candidate Jim Walden have called into question.
Since becoming first lady, Duwaji has mostly avoided public appearances, and little is known about how she spends her days. In a 2019 podcast interview, she suggested social media was an important part of her life: “It's been a great great tool to talk to people, collaborate, exchange ideas, so I would never cancel social media.”
A political consultant who’s supportive of Mamdani said the mayor has good reason not to address Duwaji’s online presence, given that right-leaning outlets broke the initial stories.
“This is part of the coordinated money trying to organize against the mayor. I don’t think it makes sense to give it any oxygen whatsoever,” the consultant said. “We can debate the definition of private person … but she’s not involved in admin policymaking or seeking some kind of special project or sinecure.”
Fabien Levy, who served as Adams’ deputy mayor of communications, countered that, in dodging the questions, Mamdani is ensuring they will only continue to mount.
“It would be much easier for him to get past these controversies if she put out a statement saying she does not believe in antisemitism or homophobia,” he said. “They’re choosing not to do that.”
How much all this ultimately impacts the mayor in the long-term is unclear. As hate crimes against Jews soar in the city — the NYPD reported 31 antisemitic incidents in January, a 182 percent spike compared to the same month in 2025 — antipathy for Israel continues to mount. A Gallup poll from last year found that 60 percent of Americans disapprove of Israel’s military actions.
Jon Paul Lupo, a Democratic strategist who served in former Mayor Bill de Blasio’s administration, said Mamdani is making a politically sound choice by avoiding discussion about his wife’s online imprint.
“The mayor is betting New Yorkers care more about rent and child care than the tweets and cartoons,” he said. “You can quibble with the strategy, but you can’t argue with the results: He’s won two elections and has a sky high approval rating. Seems like it’s working.”
Given that Mamdani’s administration has now landed in several social media scandals, one of the elected officials who spoke to POLITICO said it’s perplexing that the first lady’s Twitter profile was still active as recently as this month.
“They really should have wiped that shit a long time ago,” the official said.
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