'I Have Little Talent But Lots of Passion': New Mamdani Appointee Called for Defunding Police in Since-Deleted Posts on X

New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani's (D.) new director of appointments—who says she has "little talent but lots of passion"—supported the Defund the Police movement on an X account she has since deleted, a Washington Free Beacon review of thousands of scrubbed posts found.

Stephanie Silkowski, whom the mayor introduced last week as his director of the Mayor's Office of Appointments, signed an open letter in 2020—titled, "Dear Speaker Johnson and Members of the New York City Council: #DefundTheNYPD—calling on then-council speaker Corey Johnson to "reduce the NYPD operating budget by at least $1 billion in Fiscal Year 2021." She later added that she "agreed" with a post saying that "$1 billion isn't enough" and that "the time for abolition is now."

Ahead of the 2021 City Council elections, Silkowski wrote favorably of then-candidate Shahana Hanif (D.) and her plans for "defunding police" and "abolition."

"She roots her community safety platform in abolitionist principles and then details the *specific* things the Council can do to reduce the police force to 0, work to close all prisons & jails, and invest in community-led supports," Silkowski posted.

Silkowski's position leading the appointments office will have her play "a critical, supportive role in the placement of candidates for senior leadership positions within the Administration," according to the office's website. She deleted her X account in the days leading up to the announcement of her new role, following the leads of other Mamdani appointees. The head of Mamdani's Office to Protect Tenants, Cea Weaver, caused controversy with deleted posts in which she denounced private property and homeownership as "weapon[s] of white supremacy" and shared her desire to "impoverish the *white* middle class." Another, Mamdani's chief equity officer, Afua Atta-Mensah, also disparaged white people in deleted posts. Like Silkowski, Weaver and Atta-Mensah purged their social media activity before joining the Mamdani administration, likely hoping to avoid the fate of Mamdani's original pick to lead the appointments office, Catherine Almonte Da Costa. Da Costa resigned after old posts bemoaning "Money hungry Jews" came to light in the days before Mamdani took office.

Silkowski, a longtime member of the Democratic Socialists of America, has been a fixture in left-wing New York politics for years. She served as chief of staff to far-left city council member Tiffany Cabán and as policy director to then-council member Brad Lander (D.), whom she once described as the "Tim Walz of the NYC political world."

During her time working for Cabán, Silkowski repeatedly demanded millions of dollars in taxpayer funding for illegal aliens. As the city suffered through its 2022 migrant crisis—with hundreds arriving every day—Silkowski helped fight for and win a $10 million concession in the city budget to care for them.

"WE WON $10M FOR UNDOCUMENTED CHILDREN TO ACCESS EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION & CARE," Silkowski blasted in an all-caps post from June 2022.

While working at the City Council, Silkowski offered her idea of an expansive socialist vision for New York.

"It has never been clearer that we need Medicare for All, a Green New Deal, tuition-free public college, public ownership of utilities, a Homes Guarantee, universal child care, and the elimination of student & medical debt (and lots more)," she wrote in April 2020. "And we must tax the wealthy to do it."

Student loan debt has been a recurring theme for Silkowski, who at one point said she owed $150,000 after receiving a B.A. in political science and government from Providence College and an M.P.A. in public policy analysis from New York University.

"There are a lot of reasons I am not patriotic but crippling student loan debt is close to the top of the list," she posted in November 2020.

Over the years, Silkowski has discussed another interest of hers: musical theater, noting that she was "always the chorus but never the star."

"I have little talent but lots of passion," she added in May 2022, this time referring to politics.

Neither Mamdani nor Silkowski responded to requests for comment.

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