Mamdani Selects Infamous Biden Admin Official for Transition Team Co-Chair

Conservative News DailyNovember 6, 2025

Zohran Mamdani, recently elected mayor of New York City, has appointed former Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Chair Lina Khan as one of four co-chairs on his all-female transition team. Khan, who led the FTC during the Biden administration, is recognized as a prominent antitrust advocate but faced criticism from conservatives who accused her of using the agency as a partisan tool against corporations, particularly targeting major tech companies like Meta and Amazon. During her tenure, Khan expanded the FTC’s regulatory powers but was also accused of restricting details flow within the agency, leading to the resignation of a Republican commissioner who cited abuses of power. Mamdani, a democratic socialist who campaigned on taxing wealthy neighborhoods and limiting corporate influence in politics, praised Khan as a leading champion against monopoly power. Khan, alongside other transition co-chairs, will help guide the new mayor’s policies moving forward.

After securing the New York City mayoral race Tuesday night, Democrat Zohran Mamdani announced that former Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan will serve as one of four co-chairs on his transition team.

Khan, who led the federal antitrust and competition agency under the Biden administration, has been accused by conservatives of turning the FTC into an anti-capitalist partisan weapon during her tenure.

Mamdani’s transition website hails the former regulator as the “nation’s leading antimonopoly champion.”

Khan will serve on an all-female transition team appointed by Mamdani, a self-described democratic socialist who campaigned on raising taxes on corporations and on “richer and whiter” neighborhoods.
“What we saw last night was New Yorkers not just electing a new mayor, but clearly rejecting a politics where outsized corporate power and money too often end up dictating our politics,” Khan said Wednesday.

Like Mamdani, who was elected mayor of the nation’s largest city at just 34 years old, Khan was confirmed as FTC chair at just 32.

During her tenure, Khan expanded the FTC’s role, pushing to increase rulemaking authority, while allegedly curbing the flow of information to the agency’s staff and even to fellow commissioners.

One former Republican FTC commissioner, Christine Wilson, resigned in 2023, saying she would not help Khan and her “abuses of government power” by staying in her position.

Wilson had alleged Khan kept her in the dark in certain merger review cases, saying she had to ask the companies she was reviewing for documents related to the merger review, because internal FTC sources would not provide them.

Under Khan, the FTC took a generally hostile stance toward American technology companies, pursuing action against both Meta and Amazon.

Conservatives and tech executives criticized her for using the agency as a political tool, claiming her policies slowed major deals and created uncertainty in the private sector.

A House Judiciary report in October 2024 accused Khan of weaponizing the agency against Elon Musk’s X in an effort to “punish” Musk and his company for revealing the Biden-Harris administration’s censorship.

Khan will co-chair the transition alongside Grace Bonilla, president of United Way of New York City; Maria Torres-Springer, former deputy mayor; and Melanie Hartzog, president of the New York Foundling.

Mamdani did not respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.

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