I spent eight years in the City Council. In all that time, I never woke up one morning confused about what level of government I worked for.

Apparently, Mayor Zohran Mamdani is having a little trouble with that.

New York City is an international city. We host the United Nations and one of the largest diplomatic communities in the world. During my time in office, I met with consuls, ambassadors, foreign ministers, and officials from many nations. My office had the privilege of hosting the President of Poland in our district at Christ the King High School, and we hosted the President of Lithuania during another visit to our community. I worked with the Mayor’s Office of International Affairs and saw firsthand the good that can come from these relationships.

That’s public diplomacy. You bring people together. You promote New York. You build cultural and economic relationships. You connect our ethnic communities with the countries they or their families came from. You show visiting leaders what America looks like at the neighborhood level.

What you don’t do is pretend you’re Henry Kissinger.

Mamdani seems increasingly fascinated by playing a role on the world stage while the city he was elected to run has more than enough problems demanding his full attention.

His International Affairs commissioner agreed to pursue a meeting with Iran’s representative to the United Nations, allegedly, without the mayor even knowing about it. Mamdani later admitted he learned about it from a press inquiry, said the meeting would not happen and acknowledged that his commissioner recognized it as a mistake.

Excuse me, but what kind of operation is this?

This isn’t arranging a cultural visit with a consul general. Iran is a terrorist state at the center of serious matters involving American national security and foreign policy. That’s why we have a President of the United States, a Secretary of State, and a federal government.

Then there is Mamdani’s obsession with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He spent his campaign talking about arresting a sitting foreign prime minister if he came to New York because of an International Criminal Court warrant that the U.S. isn’t even a signatory to. After becoming mayor, his own administration had to confront the rather important detail that New York City does not have some independent authority to carry out international arrest warrants. Yet weeks later, Mamdani was still publicly discussing his position on the ICC and Netanyahu.

Maybe spend that energy on New York.

We have mentally ill people roaming our streets and subway system. We have quality-of-life problems being ignored, an affordability crisis, traffic strangling our neighborhoods, businesses buried under costs and regulations, and a city government that still struggles to perform some of its most basic functions.

But we certainly have time for another video.

Mamdani has turned social media into a major part of his political identity and his mayoralty. There is nothing wrong with communicating with the public. I used social media plenty. But governing New York City is
not a TikTok series. You don’t get extra credit because the lighting was good, and the video went viral. You get judged on whether the streets are safe, whether the garbage gets picked up, whether people can afford to live here and whether city government works. His administration has already faced criticism that the performative politics are getting ahead of actual governing.

Frankly, Mamdani sometimes acts less like the mayor of New York and more like he is auditioning to become an international political superstar. He wants to lecture foreign prime ministers, weigh in on conflicts thousands of miles away and have City Hall engaging countries involved in disputes that belong squarely with Washington.

That’s not leadership. It’s a distraction.

I strongly support public diplomacy because I have done it. Done properly, it strengthens relationships and advances American interests. A mayor should welcome world leaders to New York and use our city’s international standing to create opportunities for the people who live here.
But there is a line between public diplomacy and conducting your own socialist foreign policy from City Hall.

Mamdani needs to learn where that line is and start concentrating on the job New Yorkers elected him to do.
We already have a President.

What New York desperately needs is a mayor.