In the Ugandan newsroom where he appeared one day as an intern, Zohran Mamdani looked shy and unassuming. “He told me himself: He had to go every evening and have a conversation with his dad about the current affairs of the day,” recalled Angelo Izama, the journalist who was tasked with mentoring Mamdani in 2007 in the capital of his native Uganda, Kampala. Mamdani wanted to be a “top reporter,” which is how Izama recalled saving the young man’s number in his cellphone.