This week’s biggest Winners & Losers

From one of the “mean girls” to one of “The Girls.” After frequent Fox News appearances trashing New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and other socialists, the right-wing network has now made Melissa DeRosa an official contributor. And she’ll be part of a rotating lineup of women on Fox’s new weekly podcast “The Girls.” Seems like a solid gig for the aggrieved Democrat and one-time face of women’s power in politics.

It’s official: Jay Jacobs is here to stay… at least for now. Party leaders this week reelected the longtime leader of the state Democratic Party in a landslide victory, with Jacobs receiving nearly 82% of the weighted vote and his first-ever challenger, Otsego County Democratic Committee Chair Caitlin Ogden, getting just under 14%. While there's a growing appetite to buck the establishment, Jacobs’ victory isn’t too much of a surprise since Gov. Kathy Hochul and legislative leaders still have his back.

You know what they say – try, try again and you just might succeed? After unleashing a flurry of lawsuits against Mayor Zohran Mamdani and his administration, former First Deputy Mayor Randy Mastro scored his first big legal victory when a judge ruled that the city must redo its rollout of the pied-á-terre tax. And he got another win when a different judge forced the city to reveal all communications between Mamdani’s administration and the NYC Rent Guidelines Board.

Brooklyn Party Boss Rodneyse Bichotte Hermelyn has proudly adopted the “Mother of Dragons” moniker – fitting, given how “Game of Thrones’” Daenerys Targaryen went bad and burned all of King’s Landing in a power struggle. The party leader’s dream of graciously stepping down and handing over power to her ally Nikki Lucas was foiled when a court ruled that her August power grab was illegal – and then foiled again when a judge blocked her from holding a meeting to formally elect Lucas.

If your crush rejects your advances, don’t threaten to call Immigration and Customs Enforcement on their family and then masquerade as an ICE agent and give them orders. Former NYPD sergeant Atickul Islam didn’t get the memo, and he’s now pled guilty to a single count of false impersonation of an officer of the U.S. He’ll have plenty of free time in prison to work on his application to join ICE for real.

Cornell University President Michael Kotlikoff – already under fire for running over a student’s foot and then banning him from campus – found himself in the middle of a new political firestorm after student journalists reported on the university’s lenient treatment of the alleged perpetrators of a 2024 gang rape at a frat house. Ithaca’s mayor called for a ban on all student events, while Gov. Kathy Hochul tapped AG Letitia James to lead an independent investigation into the school.