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    5 Takeaways From the Hochul-Zeldin Debate

    In their only scheduled debate, Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York and her challenger, Representative Lee Zeldin, quarreled intensely on Tuesday over divisive issues such as rising crime and abortion access, while accusing each other of corruption and dangerous extremism.Mr. Zeldin, who has spent his campaign trying to appeal to voters’ dissatisfaction with the status quo, went on the attack from the get-go, frequently raising his voice as he channeled a sense of outrage, especially around crime. Ms. Hochul, a Buffalo-area Democrat vying for her first full term, took a more measured approach that fit her insistence that the state needs a steady hand to lead it.Scenes outside the debate.Hilary Swift for The New York TimesThere was no live audience, but some New Yorkers expressed their views.Hilary Swift for The New York TimesBeyond trading barbs, neither candidate appeared to have a major breakout moment or gaffe that could reshape the race, which, according to recent polls, may be tightening just two weeks before Election Day. But both staked out starkly different positions on substantive matters from crime to vaccine mandates and the migrant crisis ahead of the general election on Nov. 8.Here’s a recap of some of the most memorable moments.Zeldin repeatedly pivoted to crime.Mr. Zeldin, a Long Island congressman, has for months made crime the central focus of his campaign for governor, and Tuesday’s debate was no different. From the start, he attacked Ms. Hochul, charging that she was not doing enough to stem an increase in serious offenses in the state and especially New York City, and blamed her policies for fueling fears.New Yorkers, Mr. Zeldin said in his opening statement, were “less safe thanks to Kathy Hochul and extreme policies.”Mr. Zeldin largely stuck to tough-on-crime policy points that he honed during his primary campaign. He forcefully criticized Ms. Hochul for opposing further revisions to the state’s bail law and called for changes to laws that reformed the juvenile justice system and the parole system in the state.Mr. Zeldin also doubled down repeatedly on a vow that, if elected, he would immediately remove the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg, from office, accusing Mr. Bragg of failing to enforce the state’s criminal code.Ms. Hochul sought to redirect attention to her efforts to stem the flow of illegal guns and noted that she had already tightened the bail reforms earlier this year. Those efforts, she said, had already proven fruitful.But Mr. Zeldin argued that the governor was overly focused on gun crime and had not focused enough on other offenses of concern to New Yorkers, including a rise in violent incidents in the subway system.Mr. Zeldin repeatedly turned the debate back to the topic of crime.Hilary Swift for The New York TimesIn New York City, the number of murders and shootings both dropped by about 14 percent through Sunday compared with the same time period last year, though other serious crimes, including robbery, rape and felony assault, have increased, according to police statistics. Though she largely kept her cool during the hourlong debate, Ms. Hochul appeared frustrated with Mr. Zeldin’s insistence on discussing crime when moderators were asking about other topics, something he did even during a discussion of abortion.Hochul says abortion is ‘on the ballot.’Throughout the debate, Ms. Hochul sought to criticize Mr. Zeldin’s anti-abortion stance, saying that he couldn’t run from his long record in Congress opposing access and funding for abortions.“You’re the only person standing on this stage whose name right now — not years past — that right now, is on a bill called ‘Life Begins at Conception,’” Ms. Hochul said.Ms. Hochul cast herself as a bulwark against a potential rollback of abortion protections in New York, warning that Mr. Zeldin, if elected, could appoint a health commissioner who is anti-choice — as he once pledged to do — and shut down health clinics that provide reproductive care.“That is a frightening spectacle,” said Ms. Hochul, the first female governor of New York. “Women need to know that that’s on the ballot this November as well.”Ms. Hochul said Mr. Zeldin could appoint a health commissioner who is opposed to abortion rights.Hilary Swift for The New York TimesReiterating a pledge from earlier this month, Mr. Zeldin vowed that he would not seek to unilaterally change the state’s already-strict abortion protections, which are enshrined in state law. Mr. Zeldin said that doing so would be politically unfeasible and that Ms. Hochul was being disingenuous by suggesting he would do so, given that Democrats control the State Legislature in Albany and are likely to retain control this election cycle.Mr. Zeldin, however, raised the prospects of potentially curbing funding for abortions for women traveling to New York from other states where abortions are banned.“I’ve actually heard from a number of people who consider themselves to be pro-choice, who are not happy here that their tax dollars are being used to fund abortions, many, many, many states away,” he said.Zeldin dances around his ties to Donald Trump.For months, Ms. Hochul has emphasized Mr. Zeldin’s close relationship with former President Donald J. Trump, focusing particularly on the congressman’s vote to overturn the results of the 2020 election hours after the riot at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.Though Mr. Zeldin has scoffed at Ms. Hochul’s focus on that day, when asked by debate moderators if he would repeat his vote, he stood by it.“The vote was on two states: Pennsylvania and Arizona,” he said. “And the issue still remains today.”Sarah Silbiger/ReutersMr. Zeldin walked a delicate line as he was questioned about his relationship to the former president. When asked if he wanted to see Mr. Trump run in 2024, he waved away the question as irrelevant. When Ms. Hochul asked if he thought Mr. Trump — who lost New York by 23 percentage points in 2020 — was “a great president,” he refused to give her a simple “yes or no” answer.Yet Mr. Zeldin did not denounce Mr. Trump, who remains popular with many of the Republicans that he needs to draw to the polls if he hopes to defeat Ms. Hochul. He said he was proud to have worked closely with the former president on a laundry list of issues ranging from local crime to international politics.Ms. Hochul appeared satisfied with the reply. “I’ll take that as a resounding yes,” she said. “And the voters of New York do not agree with you.”Questioning Hochul’s ethics.Mr. Zeldin wasted little time impugning Ms. Hochul’s fund-raising efforts, accusing her of orchestrating “pay-to-play” schemes because of the large sums she has raised from people with business before the state.In particular, Mr. Zeldin referenced a $637 million contract that the state awarded in December to Digital Gadgets, a New Jersey-based company, for 52 million at-home coronavirus tests. The founder of the company, Charlie Tebele, and his family have given more than $290,000 to Ms. Hochul’s campaign and hosted fund-raisers for the governor.The Times Union of Albany has reported that the company charged the state about $12.25 per test, similar to the retail price for many tests, and that the company did not go through a competitive bidding process.“So what New Yorkers want to know is what specific measures are you pledging to deal with the pay-to-play corruption that is plaguing you and your administration?” Mr. Zeldin asked.Ms. Hochul vehemently denied any connection between the campaign donations and the contract, saying the company helped the state obtain an extraordinary number of tests at a time of huge demand when tests were relatively scarce nationwide. The company has also previously said that it never communicated with Ms. Hochul or her campaign about any company business.“There is no pay-to-play corruption,” the governor said. “There has never been a quid pro quo, a policy change or decision made because of a contribution.”Thalia Juarez for The New York TimesMs. Hochul, clearly expecting the attack line, used the opportunity to underscore the millions of dollars that Ronald Lauder, the heir to the cosmetics fortune of Estée Lauder, has steered into super PACs supporting Mr. Zeldin’s campaign, saying, “What worries me is the fact that you have one billionaire donor who’s given you over $10 million.”Only a glancing focus on the economy.Despite public polls showing that inflation is a top-of-mind concern for voters, the economy and rising costs of living received less attention than anticipated during the debate.Mr. Zeldin promised to slash taxes across the board if elected, saying that “New York is going to be back open for business on January 1.” He also vowed to block the congestion-pricing plan that would charge drivers a toll for entering part of Manhattan, which he believes would burden middle-class New Yorkers during a precarious economic moment.Mr. Zeldin questioned what Ms. Hochul has done as governor to try and stem New York’s recent population loss. The state has lost 319,000 people since mid-2020, a decline of 1.58 percent that is higher than any other state, primarily as a result of residents moving away, according to an analysis by the Pew Charitable Trusts.In response, Ms. Hochul turned to a turn of phrase she deployed several times during the debate, saying that Mr. Zeldin was more fixated on “sound bites” than “sound policy.” She challenged him to detail which social programs he would reduce spending on if he cut the state’s corporate and personal income tax rates, which are among the highest in the nation.And she highlighted her own record of economic investments. She mentioned the tax rebates she had enacted for the middle class, as well as a recent agreement to persuade Micron to build a semiconductor facility near Syracuse, a deal that the company said could generate more than 50,000 jobs. More

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    New York’s Governor’s Race Is Suddenly Too Close for Democrats’ Comfort

    For months, Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York has trusted that the state’s strong Democratic majority would keep her in office largely on the strength of a simple message: Her Republican opponent was too close to Donald J. Trump and would roll back abortion rights.But just two weeks before Election Day, a rapidly tightening contest has Ms. Hochul racing to expand her closing argument as Democrats warily concede they may have misjudged powerful fears driving the electorate, particularly around crime.In just the last few days, Ms. Hochul stood with Mayor Eric Adams to announce a new flood of police officers into New York City subways; she visited five Harlem churches to assure stalwart Black voters she was “laser-focused” on safety; and she highlighted new statistics showing that authorities were seizing more guns under her watch.“We believe in justice, the justice that Jesus teaches us, but it’s also about safety,” Ms. Hochul said at one of her stops in Harlem. “We are laser-focused on keeping you, your children and your grandchildren safe.”Her campaign has begun recalibrating its paid message, too, shifting the focus of millions of dollars in ad spending to highlight the governor’s efforts to stoke the economy and improve public safety, notably including a package of modest changes to the state’s bail laws that has divided her party. The spots trumpeting her record will run alongside a new ad tying Mr. Zeldin to the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.Anxious Democrats are hopeful that the changes can stabilize the governor’s campaign after weeks of increasingly shaky polls that show Ms. Hochul’s lead dwindling to single digits over Representative Lee Zeldin, the Republican.The narrowing margin tracks closely with recent surveys showing that fears about public safety and inflation have eclipsed abortion and the former president as make-or-break issues for voters, eroding Democrats’ support even in liberal enclaves like New York City and its suburbs, while rewarding candidates like Mr. Zeldin who have made crime the visceral centerpiece of their campaign.“Maybe it was the right thing to do at the time,” David A. Paterson, the former Democratic governor, said of the decision by Democrats to spend precious time and money messaging on abortion rights this summer.“But these times, meaning September and October,” he continued, “really call for more conversation about what we do with convicted felons, what we do with the judges’ capacity to assess dangerousness, and obviously what we do with a significant number of people with mental illness walking the streets right now.”Ms. Hochul has used appearances with Mayor Eric Adams of New York City to highlight anti-crime initiatives.Yuki Iwamura/Associated PressThose issues are all but certain to figure prominently in the first and only televised debate between Ms. Hochul, 64, and Mr. Zeldin, 42, on Tuesday night.Certainly, Ms. Hochul remains the favorite in the race, and her campaign has tried to calm jittery allies. She has a vast fund-raising advantage, passable approval ratings and a two-to-one registration advantage statewide for Democrats over Republicans. While several polls last week showed a tight race, a Siena College survey from that period showed the governor still up by 11 points.“There is no question that the national environment has gotten tougher for Democrats in the last few weeks,” said Jefrey Pollock, Ms. Hochul’s pollster. “We are focused on making sure that every Democrat understands the stakes and votes. When Democrats vote in New York, we win.”But for Democrats who are not accustomed to close statewide races in New York, some level of panic appears to be setting in — that Mr. Zeldin could flip Black, Latino and Asian voters worried about public safety, but also that other rank-and-file Democratic voters may simply sit the race out because of apathy about Ms. Hochul and her low-key campaign.“It doesn’t feel like there’s a ton of groundswell from the bottom up,” Crystal Hudson, a left-leaning Brooklyn City Council member. “Perhaps Democrats are taking for granted that New York state is bluer than we think it might be.”In Manhattan, the borough president, Mark D. Levine, said he, too, had grown increasingly concerned in recent weeks that Democratic voters were missing the warning signs. On Sunday, he put together a rally with more than a dozen elected Democrats on the ultraliberal Upper West Side to “wake up Dems.” The event turned raucous when hecklers, some wearing Zeldin garb, tried to derail the speakers.“There hasn’t been a seriously competitive statewide election in 20 years and Democrats certainly in Manhattan and elsewhere have been taking November on autopilot,” Mr. Levine said afterward. “It’s not an exaggeration to say we can’t win statewide unless we get Democrats in Manhattan excited to vote.”The stakes have only grown in recent weeks amid a massive outside spending campaign by a handful of ultrawealthy conservative donors seeking to capitalize on the public safety debate to damage Ms. Hochul.Ronald S. Lauder, the billionaire cosmetics heir, put more than $9 million into a pair of pro-Zeldin super PACs at the start of September, almost single-handedly bankrolling statewide television ads that savage Ms. Hochul’s record on public safety. Just on Friday, one of the PACs reported new contributions totaling $750,000 — a sum that would take even Ms. Hochul, a prolific fund-raiser, days to raise from scores of donors — from a shell company that appears to be tied to Thomas Tisch, an investor from one of New York’s richest families.New York is not the only state dealing with increases in certain crimes since the onset of the pandemic, and the reality is more nuanced than Republicans would suggest. As Ms. Hochul likes to point out, the state remains safer than some far smaller, many run by Republicans.But a rash of highly visible, violent episodes on the subways and on well-to-do street corners around the state in recent months have left many New Yorkers with at least the perception that parts of the state are growing markedly less safe.In Ms. Hochul’s 14 months as governor, she has taken a nuanced approach to public safety issues. She has meaningfully tightened the state’s gun laws. She and Mr. Adams have pledged more money for mental health services for disturbed people who commit crimes. And she has initiated plans to put cameras in every subway car. Under pressure from Mr. Adams, a former police captain, Ms. Hochul used the state’s annual budget to strengthen bail restrictions and tighten rules for repeat offenders, over the objections of some more left-leaning colleagues.“He doesn’t own the crime issue,” Ms. Hochul said in an interview on Sunday about Mr. Zeldin. “Saying that more people should have guns on our streets and in our subways and in our churches as a strategy to deal with public safety — that’s absurd.”But until very recently, she had relatively little to say about it in the general election campaign, outside of criticizing Mr. Zeldin’s opposition to many gun control measures, and a single Spanish-language ad focused on Ms. Hochul’s gun policies.That omission has left some moderate Democrats fearing that the party has ceded the terms of the debate to Republicans like Mr. Zeldin, who have decried legislative attempts by the Democrats to make the system fairer as “pro-criminal” laws.After Ms. Hochul and Mr. Adams announced on Saturday that the state would pay for more police officers in the subways, Mr. Zeldin pilloried the plan as little more than a political gimmick.His own campaign platform calls for firing the Manhattan district attorney and declaring a state of emergency to temporarily repeal the state’s cashless bail laws, and other criminal justice laws enacted by the Democrat-run Legislature.“For Kathy Hochul, it wasn’t the nine subway deaths that drove her to action. It wasn’t a 25-year-high in subway crime. It wasn’t New Yorkers feeling unsafe on our streets, on our subways and in their homes,” he said on Sunday. “For Kathy Hochul, all it took for her to announce a half-ass, day-late, dollar-short plan was a bad poll.”Lee Zeldin, right, has received endorsements from numerous law enforcement unions, including the Correction Officers’ Benevolent Association.Michael M. Santiago/Getty ImagesThe challenge for Ms. Hochul in shifting that narrative was on clear display on Sunday, as she shuttled up and down Harlem to speak at five different Black churches, usually a hotbed of Democratic support.At the first stop, Mount Neboh Baptist Church, the Rev. Johnnie Melvin Green Jr. gave a full-throated, personal endorsement of the governor from the pulpit, but he sounded alarmed about low turnout and the state of the race.Without naming Mr. Zeldin, the reverend warned that certain people had “hijacked” the public’s understanding of what was happening in the city, leading to “a race that shouldn’t be tight.”“I want to make something crystal clear because they aren’t going to explain it to you in the media,” he said, adding: “They want to make us afraid.”Jeffery C. Mays More

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    Four Takeaways From the DeSantis-Crist Debate in Florida’s Governor Race

    Gov. Ron DeSantis and Charlie Crist, his Democratic challenger, debated for the only time in the Florida governor’s race on Monday, a rowdy exchange featuring a raucous crowd and a slew of culture war issues that have dominated the state’s political discourse.Mr. Crist, a former congressman and governor with plenty of debate experience, gave a polished performance as he went on the attack. But no single moment from Mr. Crist seemed like it would upend the dynamics of the contest. Public polls show Mr. DeSantis, a Republican, comfortably ahead in the race, a rarity for Florida, which until recently had some of the tightest contests in the nation.The debate, initially scheduled for Oct. 12, was postponed because of Hurricane Ian, a destructive Category 4 storm that struck Southwest Florida on Sept. 28, killing more than 100 people.The moderator, Liz Quirantes of WPEC, struggled to keep quiet the audience in Fort Pierce, which regularly applauded, cheered, jeered and interrupted the exchanges. Some of Ms. Quirantes’s questions, which she said came from viewers, appeared to be leading the candidates toward conservative points of view. WPEC is a CBS affiliate owned by the Sinclair Broadcast Group.Here are four takeaways:The DeSantis White House speculation isn’t going away.Mr. Crist repeatedly cast Mr. DeSantis as more interested in running for president in 2024 than in governing Florida.“Governor DeSantis has taken his eye off the ball,” Mr. Crist said, accusing the governor of focusing on national issues and fund-raising outside the state. (Mr. DeSantis has far out-raised Mr. Crist.)Twice, Mr. Crist asked Mr. DeSantis point-blank if he would serve a full, four-year term if re-elected. Mr. DeSantis ignored the question as the moderator noted that the candidates had agreed not to ask each other questions.The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsBoth parties are making their final pitches ahead of the Nov. 8 election.A G.O.P. Advantage: Republicans appear to be gaining an edge in the final weeks of the contest for control of Congress. Nate Cohn, The Times’s chief political analyst, explains why the mood of the electorate has shifted.Ohio Senate Race: Tim Ryan, the Democrat who is challenging J.D. Vance, has turned the state into perhaps the country’s unlikeliest Senate battleground.Losing Faith in the System: As democracy erodes in Wisconsin, many of the state’s citizens feel powerless. But Republicans and Democrats see different culprits and different risks.Secretary of State Races: Facing G.O.P. candidates who spread lies about the 2020 election, Democrats are outspending them 57-to-1 on TV ads for their secretary of state candidates. It still may not be enough.“The only worn-out old donkey I’m looking to put out to pasture is Charlie Crist,” Mr. DeSantis said.The governor frequently turned his attention to President Biden, the Democrat he would most likely challenge if he were to seek the presidency, and tried to tie him to Mr. Crist. Mr. Biden’s approval rating is underwater in Florida, though the president still plans to travel to the state to rally for Mr. Crist and other Democrats next week.“Charlie Crist has voted with Joe Biden 100 percent of the time to give us these inflationary policies and to drive up the costs of everything that we’re doing,” Mr. DeSantis said.The partisan crowd was raucous inside the debate on Monday night, as well as outside the theater beforehand.Marco Bello/ReutersThe death toll from Hurricane Ian became a sticking point.At least 114 people died because of Hurricane Ian in Florida, making it the deadliest storm in the state in almost 90 years. Many of the dead were older or vulnerable people who became trapped in their homes or cars and drowned. The New York Times found that Lee County, home to the hard-hit city of Fort Myers, did not follow its own plans for evacuating people ahead of the hurricane.Mr. Crist accused Mr. DeSantis of not using his bully pulpit to encourage people to get out before the storm made landfall — and noted that more than 82,000 Floridians have died during the coronavirus pandemic under Mr. DeSantis’s watch.“Whether it comes to Covid or it comes to the hurricane, Ron ignored science,” Mr. Crist said.Mr. DeSantis countered that evacuations are mandated by county officials and not by the state. “Our message was, ‘Listen to your locals,’” he said. “It’s ultimately a local decision. But I stand by every one of our local counties.”Neither Mr. DeSantis nor Mr. Crist answered the question about whether there should be limits on construction along the Florida coast given the increase in the frequency and intensity of hurricanes. Mr. Crist blamed Mr. DeSantis for allowing the state’s property insurance market to fray; Mr. DeSantis countered that insurance rates had risen because of excessive lawsuits.DeSantis made false and misleading statements about abortion.It was clear from the start that Mr. Crist was eager to talk about abortion, one of Democrats’ preferred topics in an otherwise unfavorable election cycle. The first question was about housing policy, but he began by saying the election was “a stark contrast between somebody who believes in a woman’s right to choose” and Mr. DeSantis, who signed a 15-week abortion ban that, Mr. Crist emphasized, includes no exceptions for rape and incest.Later, asked whether abortion should be banned after a specific week in pregnancy, Mr. DeSantis made a number of false or misleading claims.He accused Mr. Crist of supporting abortion “up until the moment of birth.” That is a common Republican claim, but abortion until the moment of birth doesn’t exist, even in states without gestational limits. He also said Mr. Crist supported “dismemberment abortions,” a pejorative term for procedures performed later in pregnancy that, when they do happen, are often prompted by medical emergencies or severe fetal abnormalities. (More than 92 percent of abortions in the United States are performed much earlier, in the first trimester.)‘Culture war’ issues took up a lot of bandwidth.More than perhaps any other sitting governor, Mr. DeSantis has used issues like race and transgender rights to stir up his conservative base.That was on display in Monday’s debate, in which he gave a graphic and inaccurate description of gender-affirming care for transgender children, suggesting falsely that doctors were “mutilating” minors. In reality, gender-affirming care — which major medical associations, including pediatric associations, endorse — primarily involves social support, nonpermanent treatments like puberty blockers (which Mr. DeSantis also denounced), and hormonal treatments.Mr. Crist responded by bringing the topic, once again, back to abortion: “This reminds me of your position on a woman’s right to choose,” he said. “You think you know better than any physician or any doctor or any woman in a position to make decisions about their own personal health.”In a segment on education, Mr. DeSantis also repeated his frequent claims that Democrats like Mr. Crist want to teach white children to view themselves as oppressors because of their race. He acknowledged that it was important for history curriculums to include “all of American history,” including slavery and segregation, but said: “I’m proud of our history. I don’t want to teach kids to hate our country.”Mr. Crist scoffed at the idea that children were being taught to hate themselves or each other, saying, “I don’t know where you get that idea” — and then accusing Mr. DeSantis of focusing on the issue to avoid talking about abortion. More

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    DeSantis and Crist Will Debate

    The first and only debate between Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, a Republican, and Charlie Crist, his Democratic challenger, will go forward on Monday as in-person early voting begins in some of the state’s biggest counties.The debate, initially scheduled for Oct. 12, was postponed because of Hurricane Ian, a destructive Category 4 storm that struck Southwest Florida on Sept. 28, killing more than 100 people. The hurricane led Mr. DeSantis to ease election rules for the three hardest-hit counties — Lee, Charlotte and Sarasota — to allow large polling places, extend early voting and permit voters to request that mail-in ballots be sent to different addresses from the one kept on file, actions that contrasted with his overall push for more rigid voting policies in Florida.Mr. DeSantis, whose national profile has turned him into a 2024 Republican presidential contender in waiting, has far out-raised and outspent Mr. Crist in television ads. Public opinion polls have consistently showed Mr. DeSantis leading the race.Mr. Crist, a former governor and U.S. lawmaker, has cast his opponent as a divisive culture warrior and campaigned hard against the 15-week abortion ban that Mr. DeSantis signed into law in April. But he has struggled to shake up the contest in his favor.The debate, in Fort Pierce, Fla., is scheduled to begin at 7 p.m. Eastern. It will be live streamed on C-SPAN. New York Times reporters will offer live updates and analysis. More

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    This Wasn’t the Vibe Shift Democrats Had in Mind

    Gail Collins: Bret, as you know, I always try to avoid discussing foreign affairs — never been my specialty — but I do want to ask you about the British, um, situation.Bret Stephens: You mean the country that seems to have switched places with Silvio Berlusconi’s Italy, politically speaking, and Cristina Fernández de Kirchner’s Argentina, economically speaking, and Groucho Marx’s Freedonia, comically speaking? Go on.Gail: The Tory prime minister, Liz Truss, set a record for failure before she slunk out of office last week. She came into 10 Downing Street promising to cut taxes on the rich, and she did, and she … nose-dived.Any message there for the rest of us?Bret: When Margaret Thatcher was pressed on whether she would switch course on her free-market policies, she famously said, “The lady’s not for turning.” She went on to be one of the longest-serving prime ministers in British history. Truss turned against her own policies almost immediately and wound up being turned out of office almost immediately.So the first lesson is that if you announce a policy, have the guts to stick to it or face political destruction.Gail: Well, in this case I think we’d have seen political destruction either way. The tax cut idea was disastrous.Bret: I’d say it was the execution, not the idea: Tax cuts usually stimulate a sluggish economy. The second lesson is that Britain’s economic mess isn’t the result of a month and a half of Truss but 12 years of big-government Toryism under David Cameron, Theresa May and Boris Johnson. Britain just isn’t an attractive country to live or invest in anymore, particularly after it made the foolish decision to leave the European Union.Bottom line: Have the courage of your convictions and the wit to defend them. Your take?Gail: That cutting taxes on the rich isn’t the magic answer to economic problems. I believe in a lot of what you’d call big government, but sooner or later, you’ve gotta pay for stuff.Bret: Gail Collins, fiscal conservative …Gail: Speaking of debt, President Biden’s plan to start his program of canceling student loans to poor and middle-class borrowers is facing a slew of Republican court challenges.I’m rooting for him to win the fight — a matter on which I believe we disagree.Bret: Totally against loan forgiveness. We’ve increased the national debt from $20 trillion to $31 trillion in barely five years and now higher interest rates are going to make it more expensive to service that debt. And we are supposed to write off $400 billion in college loans — including to couples making up to $250,000 — without even giving Congress an opportunity to weigh in? It’s bad policy and worse politics.Gail: Let me quickly point out that many of the folks who are spending their lives paying off big student loans signed up for the deal when they were little more than kids, some not ready for the programs they were recruited into, and some who were assured that their major in medieval history would lead to high-income jobs that would make it easy to pay off the debt. The system did not work.Bret: I probably shouldn’t say this, but anyone who thought, at any age, that a degree in medieval history would lead to a life of riches needs stupidity forgiveness, not loan forgiveness.I guess we’ll find out soon enough if the courts even allow the plan to go through, though I did find it interesting that Amy Coney Barrett effectively sided with the administration on this issue. Nice to see a Trump nominee show some independence.Gail: Agreed. Meanwhile, I’ve been wanting to ask you about the Senate races. The whole world is watching! Or at least the politically obsessed part of America. Anything grabbing your interest?Bret: The most interesting Senate race is in Ohio. I really don’t see Tim Ryan beating J.D. Vance, but the fact that he’s even competitive in a state Trump won in 2020 by eight points suggests he’s found a formula for how Democrats win back white, working-class votes from the Republicans. Mainly that means running as far away as possible from Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi and the progressive wing of his party.How about you?Gail: Since Cincinnati is my hometown, I’ve been watching Ohio pretty intently. I think Ryan has a chance — he’s in a pretty red state, but one that’s elected Democrats before. Including the state’s other senator, Sherrod Brown, who’s considered liberal.Bret: True. And just by outperforming expectations Ryan is forcing Republicans to pour a ton of money in the race just to hold the seat.Gail: Plus Ryan is running against a truly terrible candidate. Vance seems to have an unending supply of mini-scandals about his financial dealings.Bret: I thought Vance did fine in the debate last week. What bothers me about him aren’t his financial dealings. It’s the crass opportunism it took for him to flip almost overnight from Never Trumper to MAGA Republican. And the fact that he represents the isolationist wing of the conservative movement. Hard to overstate how dangerous that is in the face of the new axis of evil in Moscow, Tehran and Beijing.Gail: Also interested in New Hampshire, where the Democratic incumbent, Maggie Hassan, seemed doomed in a Republican-leaning year, given that she won her last election by only about 1,000 votes.But her opponent, the retired general Don Bolduc, has been another awful candidate — all over the map, trying to be a right-wing stalwart in the primaries and now metamorphosing into a moderate who wants to raise Social Security taxes on the wealthy.Who would you vote for there?Bret: Hassan, no question. She’s a good senator, willing to work across the aisle. I would have supported the Republican governor, Chris Sununu, if he’d decided to run, but apparently the sanity gene runs too strongly in his family so he stayed out of the race. And Bolduc isn’t just an election denier or even an election-denier denier — in that he retracted his denialism after he won the primary. It’s that he subsequently denied that he denied being a denier. Which means he should be denied the election.Gail: Bret, either you are the most fair-minded commentator in the country or this is yet another marker for how far the Republican Party has sunk. Even its defenders can’t defend many of this year’s candidates.I’m inclined to say both are true, by the way.Bret: Thanks! Can we switch to some of the races for governor? In New York the Republican candidate, Lee Zeldin, seems to be zooming up in the polls.Gail: Aauugh. If this was a New York Republican like your old fave George Pataki, I’d be unshocked — Gov. Kathy Hochul hasn’t exactly set the world on fire. But Zeldin is terrible! If you want to get a really good feel for this contest, read our editorial board’s very powerful Hochul endorsement.Bret: Zeldin is doing well because New Yorkers are doing badly. We have the highest overall tax burden in the country if you count income, property, sales and excise taxes, but we are very far from having the best school districts, the best infrastructure or the safest streets. The only area in which we lead the country is in losing people to other states. And one-party rule is bad for governance. There are things I don’t like about Zeldin, starting with his proximity to Donald Trump, but I’ll vote for him next month.Gail: Looking elsewhere — how about Arizona? The race pits Katie Hobbs, the Democratic secretary of state, against Kari Lake, a Republican TV personality. I certainly think Hobbs would make the better governor. But if Lake wins I could see her turning into a possible vice-presidential candidate on a Trump ticket.Bret: Our news-side colleague Jack Healy wrote a devastating report about Hobbs, whose personal strengths apparently don’t include campaigning. She refuses to debate her opponent on the grounds that Lake is an election denier, which seems to me like an especially good reason to debate. My bet is that the governorship stays in Republican hands — and that it might push Blake Masters to victory in his Senate race against the incumbent Democrat, Mark Kelly.Gail: It was a great piece, which did note that Lake refuses to answer any questions from the state’s major newspaper.Bret: Bigger picture, Gail, I suspect it’s going to be a pretty good November for Republicans, despite all of the lousy candidates they’ve put forward. Do you see this as just part of a natural cycle in which the incumbent party usually does badly in midterms? Or would you put some blame on the way Biden has handled the presidency so far?Gail: In a world full of war, energy shortages, health crises and political polarization, our president is doing a decent job of keeping things calm. Wish he had a more electric personality, but we’ve certainly learned there are worse things than a chief executive who isn’t great on camera.It is true that the incumbent party usually does poorly during the midterms. Fortunately, the Republicans under Trump have nominated so many terrible candidates that there’s a chance the results won’t be quite as dire for Biden’s side.What do you think? And more important, which side are you rooting for?Bret: I’m rooting for Biden to succeed because we can’t allow Trump to come back, Vladimir Putin to win or the country to come even more unglued and unhinged than it already is.Of course my way of rooting for success is to scold Biden nonstop whenever I think he’s screwing up. It’s a formula my mom has been using with me for nearly 49 years. She’s confident that in a few years more, she might even succeed.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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    Interview: Lee Zeldin Talks to the New York Times Editorial Board

    Lee Zeldin is a Republican congressman who has represented eastern Long Island since 2015.This interview with Mr. Zeldin was conducted by the editorial board of The New York Times on Oct. 19.Read the board’s endorsement for the governor’s race in New York here.Kathleen Kingsbury: So, as has been reported in our paper and others, the day before the 2020 election was called for Joe Biden, you texted Mark Meadows offering ways to promote allegations of voting irregularities as a fund-raising tool.Can you talk us through why you did that? Now there have been dozens of courts that have found that there was no actual basis in fact to those allegations. Do you accept that there was no widespread voter fraud?So, two parts to that.Kathleen Kingsbury: Yes.First, as you pointed out, it was the very beginning of November. And the reason why I sent that message was because I was seeing all of the allegations being thrown out as one. There was a vetted, confirmed concern mixed with an unvetted, unconfirmed concern or allegation.And it was undermining the ability for people to understand everything that was getting thrown at them. Every allegation of wrongdoing on social media was being slapped as absolutely true the moment it was being tweeted out. It’s true. There are some people who claim that, for the first time in the history of our country, we had the first perfect election.And I was coming out of an election where, even in the 1st Congressional District of New York, we had hundreds of ballots that were thrown out because of the Republican and Democrat election and commissioner agreed that the signatures didn’t match. There are people in our race in 2020 who were arrested for trying to get absentee ballots for dead relatives. There’s a lot of different things that happened just in my own congressional district on the east end of Long Island.[In 2020, New York State and county officials in Long Island found that there was virtually no evidence of election fraud.]I thought that it was very important to separate what was true and not true, or what was confirmed and not confirmed, vetted, unvetted. And everything was getting thrown together. And I would say, even still to this day, a lot just kind of got thrown together.[Dozens of courts across the country found that there was virtually no fraud in the 2020 election.]And I’m glad that, in your question, you pointed out that this was before the race was even confirmed. I don’t even — I would have to go back and look to see who was even ahead at that moment. I don’t remember. I would have to go back and check that out. With communications —Jyoti Thottam: But now that the courts have found that there was no basis in fact for any of those allegations?[In the days after the 2020 election, The New York Times spoke with election officials in every state, who said that no irregularities affected the results: “Top election officials across the country said in interviews and statements that the process had been a remarkable success despite record turnout and the complications of a dangerous pandemic.”]Well, I don’t think they — so I don’t think that the conclusion is that this was, in fact, the first perfect election in the history of the country. My concerns, what I have stated on the record, what I said on the floor of the House of Representatives —Jyoti Thottam: What do you believe now?Well, let me answer. What I stated then is what I still say today. My concern has been about a constitutional question. You have nonstate legislative actors who were, in the name of the pandemic, changing how an election is administered. You can’t do that under the United States Constitution. It’s a constitutional question.There will be more elections that will come up. There will be more natural disasters. There will be hurricanes. There might be a health emergency. The way the United States Constitution provides this is that the state legislature sets the election, the administration of elections. What you can’t do is, if you’re a governor, you’re a Secretary of State, you’re an elections commissioner, you’re someone else, say that in the name of that hurricane that just hit a week ago, this is how I am going to change the election on my own.Jyoti Thottam: OK. So you’re talking about the Covid rules for elections.The elections changes that were made in the name of Covid. That’s how it went.Patrick Healy: But in terms of the results, do you accept that there was no widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election?Jyoti Thottam: Now. Do you accept that now?Well, as I pointed out, in my own congressional district, there were all sorts of issues.Patrick Healy: The widespread, national —Well, you can multi —Patrick Healy: — voter fraud.See, you can multiply what happened in my district times whatever. I’m one of 435 congressional districts. If you’re asking me to quantify exactly how much of that happened across the country, none of us at this table know.Patrick Healy: But there have been repeated court cases that people have brought to bear making allegations of voter fraud, and courts have found no evidence of widespread voter fraud there across the board. So that’s what we’re trying to understand, is your view now in alignment with the courts.Listen, I really appreciate you asking, and I know that it’s important, and it’s important to all of you. I don’t know how to quantify nationwide what happened. All I know from the most personal of experiences was what we went through in the 1st Congressional District in New York. At no point have I ever called, have you ever heard the word come out of my mouth, have I ever said that the election of Joe Biden is illegitimate.There’s a reason why I don’t say that. I love our country. OK? I’m in my 20th year in the Army. I had Reserve duty this past Saturday. I was wearing that uniform, which is a lot better than wearing this uniform. What I saw in the Capitol that day, on Jan. 6, I was on the floor of the House of Representatives, the moment that I learned what happened, I instantly condemned it.I put out a statement. I wanted them out of the Capitol. We have a House of Representatives. You elect people to represent you. You have an objection that you want to have debated, you do that through your representatives. There’s no room for violence inside of that Capitol. Breaking windows, stealing things, absolutely none of it was welcome. I didn’t want to see it in the past. I don’t want to ever see it in a future for any purpose, red, blue, left, right, and whatever the year.Patrick Healy: But in terms of responsibility, that night, you — it’s been reported you made an equivocal statement saying, this isn’t just about President Trump. This is also about the left and about activists. Who do you see as to blame for that event?[On the night of the Capitol riot, Mr. Zeldin appeared on Fox News and suggested that Democrats and “rogue state actors” were to blame for undermining election integrity.]Well, you’re referring to a statement that I was making referring to what was being debated on the floor of the House of Representatives, which is different than asking me to comment on someone breaking into the Capitol, breaking things and stealing things. My comment as far as violence and breaking things and stealing things has — from the very first moment that I learned of it — has always been condemning that.Now, every single time a Republican has won the presidency for the last few decades, on Jan. 6, people have stated objections. And that’s part of the constitutional process. If it’s Jan. 6 of 2025 and — well, listen, I was on the floor of the House of Representatives Jan. 6 of 2017. And there were debates that were had.There were objections being filed claiming that Russia decided this election, that it was because of Russian influence that Trump won. That was an objection that was filed. If on Jan. 6 of 2025, regardless of whether a Republican wins or a Democrat wins, if any member of Congress wants to stand on the floor of the United States Congress and submit an objection that they believe that Martians decided the November 2024 election, you can do that. That’s fine. Whatever —Kathleen Kingsbury: If you lose this race, will you concede?If I lose?Kathleen Kingsbury: Yes.Of course.Alex Kingsbury: Have you watched any of the Jan. 6 commission hearings?Very little.Alex Kingsbury: Very little? Do you think, given all that we know now, that what happened on Jan. 6 meets the definition of an insurrection?Well, legally? Well, as an attorney, no. If you were to get — if you were to look at an individual case with facts that — maybe you know more than I do — and there was evidence to meet the elements, then I might give you a different answer.As far as the event goes, the use of the word insurrection has been an evolution of the legal term into one that’s been perceived to be an insurrection. But if you’re asking me if it meets the legal definition of what an insurrection is, there’s a reason why the D.O.J. has not charged it.Kathleen Kingsbury: I want to move on to your role as, potentially, as governor. You’ve said that, if elected, you would declare a state of emergency and refuse to enforce criminal justice laws passed by the Legislature. How do you justify refusing to enforce the laws of the state that you want to lead?A few things. One is I come from a legislature. My Plan A is I want to work with anyone of any party. Georgetown University and the Lugar Center ranked — they have an annual bipartisan index. The last year that they ranked, I was 19 out of 435. Year before that, I was 12. We can debate. We can disagree. You all have strong opinions. You’re The New York Times editorial board. At the end of the day, there’s a job to try to find common ground however possible to move a state forward, a city forward, a country forward.My Plan A is I would love to be able to sit down with the New York State Legislature to try to figure this out. And this is not a Republican versus Democrat issue. The mayor of the City of New York says that judges should have discretion to weigh dangerousness. He wants to amend, raise the age, and he’s right. As far as a state of emergency goes, this isn’t anything that’s unprecedented. Right now there’s a gun violence state of emergency in the State of New York. It was declared by Andrew Cuomo. It was continued by Kathy Hochul.[Mr. Zeldin’s proposals to declare a state of emergency over crime and remove D.A. Alvin Bragg would almost certainly be challenged in the courts.]Governor after governor after governor have submitted these or declared these emergencies. Kathy Hochul declared a Covid emergency and utilized that power to suspend New York’s competitive bidding laws. And that’s a whole other question and a whole other conversation of what she did with that. I do not have the power to repeal a law by myself. But the way the law works — this is something that is a product of a process in the past, has given the governor the ability to suspend a law for 30 days.I want to bring the State Legislature to the table. Plan A is that they come to the table. Plan B is that I bring them to the table. And I would also add, with a very high level of confidence, that if you all did your own single issue survey right now of New Yorkers and you ask them what they think of what I’m saying that we need to do, you will find that the will of the people is that they want this to happen. What they want is Plan A, and what I say they want is Plan B.Jyoti Thottam: OK. So again, to the will of the people, you said that if elected governor, you would fire the Manhattan D.A., Alvin Bragg. How do you justify removing a public servant who’s been elected by the people of New York?The New York State Constitution. The New York State Constitution, we know in New York, we don’t have recall elections. But when they crafted the New York State Constitution, they specifically gave the governor the authority to remove a district attorney who refuses to enforce the law.[The New York State constitution gives the governor authority to initiate proceedings to remove some officials, with due process.]Alvin Bragg has chosen, from Day 1 that he’s been in office, to refuse all sorts of laws across the board and all sorts of other laws he wants to treat as lesser included offenses. He’s not doing his job. Now, will of the people, what I would do is go to the people of Manhattan, the mayor of the City of New York, the borough president. I’m not trying to make some power move where you’re replacing Alvin Bragg with some Republican or some conservative. This is Manhattan Borough.Jyoti Thottam: Why not let the people of Manhattan —100 percent. Yes.Jyoti Thottam: — another D.A. wins.They should. That would be —Jyoti Thottam: So isn’t it anti-democratic to just replace —I have a job to keep the people in New York safe as the governor of the State of New York. I would say, it’s not just a constitutional authority. It’s a constitutional duty. And it’s the first action the first day that I’m in office that I would do, would be telling Alvin Bragg that he’s being removed. He is refusing to do his job.I get an experience as a member of Congress or as just, you could say some average or random New Yorker or maybe as a candidate for governor, I spend a lot of time with the people of this state. I spent a lot of time in blue counties and red counties, Republicans, Democrats and independents. And if this editorial board took a field trip with me — by the way, this is total man on the street, man, woman on the street. We’ll see how it goes.But if we were talking to people out on the street right now, what is their top issue? What is most important to you? What do you want to — why does this race matter? Why does this moment matter? What do you want to see have happen? You’ll find that the issues that I talk about, the positions that I have, are more in tune to what the New Yorkers on the street are asking for. And if our field trip never made it outside, if we only spoke to your security guards on the first floor here, I would imagine that they passionately, passionately agree with me on these topics. And that’s without even talking to them about the topics.Eleanor Randolph: So your first day in office, you’re going to get rid of Alvin Bragg. Who are you going to replace him with? Do you know?I would be asking — there’s only one thing that’s absolutely necessary about who he gets replaced with. The person needs to do the job. Now, what I would do is go to the mayor of the City of New York, and this would start after the election. I would go to the mayor. I’ll go to the borough president. I’ll go to the local elected officials and community leaders. Give me names. The only thing that I care about is that they will do the job.Kathleen Kingsbury: And doing the job is bringing the crime rate down?Doing the job is enforcing the law. Enforcing the law, you work as a prosecutor. There’s a role working with a judge. There’s a role in working with defense counsel. If there’s a law on the books that you don’t agree with, you advocate to change the law. So the problem with Alvin Bragg, for example, is right now, there’s a debate over, how do you help the M.T.A.’s finances?I would offer that, if the M.T.A. was enforcing fare jumping, that there would be hundreds of millions of dollars more that the M.T.A. would have than they have right now. Now, the district attorney comes in and says, you know what? On Day 1, I’m just not going to enforce that fare jumping. And there’s all sorts of other crimes, by the way. We’ve seen the videos where that 16-year-old who gets released on a violent robbery then is trying to jump a fare. The officer tries stopping, and there’s a sense of entitlement now. You can’t.By the way, the sense of entitlement led to the fact that, when he got into the fight with the officer and he went in front of the judge, he asked whether or not he could press charges against the officer. And then he gets instantly released. So there’s all sorts of laws like this, where I believe that the D.A. wants to change a law. You don’t just say, across the board, I’m not going enforce it.What you do is you make your case to whoever set the law. Maybe it’s the New York City Council. Maybe it’s at the State Legislature, depends on the law. And you maybe can bring a few friends, other D. A.s who are like minded and others, and you advocate for that change. But what Alvin Bragg does is he comes in on Day 1 and he says, all across the board with all these different offenses, I’m just not even going to charge them. You don’t have that power. You do not have the right to do that.Mara Gay: Congressman, you’ve said that you would suspend New York’s no cash bail laws —Yes.Mara Gay: — in response to concerns about crime. There is no established and clear connection between bail reform and crime. So why do you believe that this will improve public safety?So two weeks ago today, Keaira Hudson just outside of the Buffalo area was with her three kids, fearing for her life. The day before, she had told everybody who would listen, you cannot release my husband from custody, Adam Bennefield.He was charged with a slew of domestic violence offenses, and the judge ended up releasing Adam Bennefield. And what’s been said is that the judge did not have the ability to keep Adam detained. Wednesday, the next day, two weeks ago today, Keaira Hudson was murdered in front of her three kids, and she was wearing a bulletproof vest.Now, just before that, someone named Scott Saracina was rearrested for another rape. He had been released for a prior rape, served a long prison sentence. He was out on parole. He was arrested this past February, released, rearrested in March, released. He was out on the street, and in August, he allegedly raped someone else.Jyoti Thottam: Those are terrible crimes. I think we all agree, but what Mara is talking about is an established connection between the overall rate of crime and that particular bail reform law.Yeah. I just answered. That is answering the question. That’s direct causality. But anyway —Mara Gay: I’m sorry —Here’s the other —Mara Gay: I’m sorry —Here’s the —Mara Gay: I just —Here’s the issue too is the way they do the law, and one of the issues with the law that — so Eric Adams says we need to overhaul cashless bail and give judges discretion to weigh dangerousness. Even if it’s a bail-eligible offense, the judge has to — is required by the law to — establish the least restrictive means to get that person to return to court. So you can’t weigh dangerousness, even if it is a bail-eligible offense.So the problem is it’s not — there’s a very simple view of, is it bail-eligible or is it not bail- eligible? And if it is bail-eligible, what the governor says is that the judge doesn’t know the law, that the D.A. doesn’t know the law, that the judge isn’t doing their job and they need some remedial training. And the judges out there are being — they’re pretty offended by what the governor is saying. The D.A. is out there being — they’re offended by what the governor is saying, because there is a job to set bail in the least restrictive means to get them to return to court. You’re not allowed to weigh dangerousness. So that’s the overhaul that we’ve been advocating for.Now, one other thing I would say about cashless bail, the argument in favor of cashless bail, that you commit a low-level offense, you have a clean record, you’re not a flight risk, you’re not a danger. The only reason why you would stay behind bars is because you cannot afford $100. Fantastic argument. That is the best argument you can make in favor of it, and everybody agrees.But if you’re two Mexican cartel drug smugglers busted in Inwood with $1.2 million worth of crystal meth and you don’t have enough money for bail, you’re a bad drug dealer. You’re a bad criminal. You’re a bad businessman.So there’s a need to overhaul cashless bail for — I can give a very long list of where the decisions are made. I’m just giving you two recent examples. Actually, those were three recent examples — of where if the law was overhauled, judges have discretion to weigh dangerousness, that you would have a different reality on the ground as far as who is getting released, who is put back out, and who’s being detained.Eleanor Randolph: Congressman, we only have a few more minutes here, and we wanted to talk to you about Roe v. Wade. It appeared that you had cheered the overturning of Roe v. Wade, and you’ve said it would be a “great idea” to appoint an anti-abortion health commissioner.You’ve said recently that you would not change abortion laws, and I think a majority of people in the state would agree with that. There’s strong protections for abortion rights. Will you commit now to, if elected, to preserve the state’s really strong protections for abortion rights?Yes.Mara Gay: You focused a lot on inflation —And I have, by the way. That’s not a new position. That’s —Eleanor Randolph: OK. What about the health commissioner? Sorry.So the heart of my statements — it’s on video — was —Eleanor Randolph: This is NY1?Well, NY1 pulled part — I’m talking about the actual video that NY1 pulled from — is that I made a comment about how it’d be great to have a health commissioner in New York who respects life. And I was taking a shot at what’s also been part of this campaign and what’s been part of this conversation. It’s connected to what was a — I believe that the health commissioner did not handle the nursing home order and the subsequent investigation correctly.It was a shot that I took with a group saying that it would be great for New York to have a health commissioner who respects life. Now, I want the best qualified person to serve as the health commissioner and all state agencies. I want somebody who is experienced, who is a good leader, who has good work ethic. They’re not going to be picking political favorites and it’s all based on connections to —Eleanor Randolph: Well, do you want a health commissioner who is anti-abortion?It’s not a litmus test for me.Mara Gay: All right. You focused on inflation, Congressman, before. In New York, housing is actually one of the biggest drivers of cost of living increases for New Yorkers. I don’t see that you’ve offered any plan, a comprehensive plan, to deal with those costs. Do you have a plan? Can you tell us about that?And by the way, just so you understand my last statement, when I say it’s not a litmus test, it’s not a litmus test that they have to be — their position on it doesn’t just qualify them or disqualify them. You have a law in New York. And if they are exceptionally well qualified, that’s what I’m asking them about.Mara Gay: I’d like you to answer my question please. Do you mind? Do you want me to ask it again?Yeah, sorry. I was —Mara Gay: It’s OK.I got — what’s the very end?Mara Gay: Sure. Do you have a housing plan? Since that’s actually the biggest cost of how cost of living increases for New Yorkers or among the biggest costs?Yeah, we need to build more affordable housing in New York. We have people who have capital they want to spend on the projects, and they’re deciding to spend it in other states. It takes too long to be able to build these projects. The math isn’t working out for people who are investing in these projects, where they’re choosing to invest the dollars elsewhere with a bigger return.There’s a need for more affordable housing inside of the five boroughs. There’s a need for more affordable housing outside of the five boroughs. Some view success with regard to tackling homelessness that you simply put somebody in a shelter. For me, I believe that success is being able to get somebody out of a shelter, where they’re living independently.Mara Gay: Do you have a plan to address this?Yeah. You need to — we need to build more —Mara Gay: How do you plan to do that as governor?Well, you have people who want to put their private capital in, but the government is making it — the government has put in restrictions that it takes just too long to build.Mara Gay: What kind of restrictions would you remove?Well, I believe let’s just — I mean, I can think of many examples. So one would be you want to do a project. You bring in an Article 78, and you just keep on stalling out a project indefinitely. I believe that if you’re bringing an Article 78 proceeding, that you should be required to post bond. Just giving you an example.Mara Gay: Go on.If you want to do a project in a local area, you’re applying for a zoning change, and the local town is requiring you to spend $5 million on some unrelated project nowhere near it in order to get the approval, you just got extorted by the town board. I have a problem with that.I believe that there are economic challenges that people face with regard to first-time home buyers, young families who want to have their first kid or can either have in the basement of mom and dad’s house or they can go buy their own home in Cary, North Carolina. First-time home buyer tax credits and access is something that needs to be enhanced.Mara Gay: Thank you.Eleanor Randolph: So you said that you were going to allow fracking. Where would that be? Where would you allow fracking? And —The people who — go ahead.Eleanor Randolph: And aren’t you worried about pollution, water pollution, methane pollution, other problems with fracking?Everyone wants access to clean air and clean water, regardless of whether you’re Republican, Democrat, Independent. I represent a congressional district almost completely surrounded by water. I have a record —Eleanor Randolph: I understand.From the Long Island Sound, the Plum Island to National Estuary, and far more.Eleanor Randolph: But they’re not going to have fracking.The area that is begging for it is the Southern Tier of New York. And they want the state to reverse the ban on the safe extraction of natural gas. That is their ask. And they look across their border into Pennsylvania, and they see that those towns on the other side of the border have been able to tap into it. And this isn’t a Republican versus Democrat issue.This has resulted in economic development, jobs, increased revenue, lower energy costs. But yeah, no, Broome County, go visit Binghamton. Go through the Southern Tier. They’re desperate for it. And by the way, on the other side of the border, they’re tapping into the same resource of the same shales. And what was claimed up in Albany in order to get that ban put in place is not actually happening like they were claiming.No, it’s not that, on the other side of the border, everyone’s turning on their water faucets and just fires coming out. So now you have research, data, science, of all of these other states tapping into the same resource of the same shales. Now you’re better informed. I don’t believe that we should be the state that is not allowing us to tap into that at all. Now, by the way, the same person who would say, well, you might lean left ideologically, maybe a strong fan of, a passionate fan of President Biden. OK, so we cut off Russian oil imports. What’s the next move?Do we go to Iran and Venezuela and Saudi Arabia to ramp up their production? Because I guarantee you what we would be doing in the Southern Tier of New York is safer than what we are running off to to get them to rely on us. While we’re here today, we’re tapping, once again, into our oil reserves.So I understand the goal. We want to be leaders with climate change. We care about our environment. That’s something that is very important. I’m a member of the Bipartisan Climate Solutions Caucus. I am all for having a conversation with anyone. I’m an all-of-the-above energy guy. I’ve helped lead the fight to get ARPA-E funding for Brookhaven National Lab.If Anne’s Pancakes on the Southern Tier wants to have access to gas because, when their electric goes out, they’re still able to make their pancakes, I am all in favor of Anne’s Pancakes doing that. If someone else wants to put solar panels on their home, God bless them. If they have a farm and they want to put up a windmill, go for it. But the idea that people who favor wind and solar are saying that Anne’s Pancakes can’t hook up into gas, I have a problem.Alex Kingsbury: I’d like to ask you about guns. You said that you’re in favor of repealing the SAFE Act, you’re against red flag laws and for concealed carry. I want to know where you draw the line. Would you like to see open carry? Would you like to see the AR-15s in Times Square? Where — in a state that is very pro-gun control — where do you personally go?So for example, you said red flag laws. The person who shot up Tops supermarket in Buffalo should have not had access to any firearm. The red flag was clear as day. The person shouldn’t have access to any weapon at all. He threatened to shoot up a school. The system needs to work that whoever becomes aware of that input is part of the process of making sure that law enforcement at every level, federal, state, local, local school district if they’re the ones coming in contact with the threat.That person should have not had access to any weapon. Now, two changes that can also be made at the same time to make sure you’re implementing a red flag law correctly is that, if you want to try to remove somebody else’s firearm, I believe that they have a right to be represented and that hearing has a place. And that when the appeal is done, that the burden should be clear and convincing evidence, which is a very high legal bar to be met, in order to prove that you’re worthy of getting it back when you weren’t even represented in the original proceeding.Secondly, is if someone is making up a fictitious claim just to try to get back at somebody, there’s no consequences in New York, and there should be. So what I have stated as it relates to red flag laws has been consistent with everything that I just told you. Now, New York’s concealed carry law that was recently enacted is going to be overturned by the federal courts. It was — everyone woke up on a Friday morning. It was the week after the Bruen decision. There was no bill. By that afternoon, there was a bill signing.Now, people who are politicians here in New York City, they’re used to having 1,700 amazing parks all throughout the city. You have a small little park on your street corner. Well, there’s this place called the Adirondack, and it’s a whole bunch of different counties and different regions. Now, you all know this. But there are state legislators who wrote their bill and included that. Now, they said, well no, it doesn’t include that. Well, that’s the problem with rushing a bill.I happen to believe that the best way to do a bill is not just talking to the people who you’re relying on to get their vote but also talking to other people who you’ll never get their vote. Because if you ask them, why do you oppose a bill, they’ll give you a good reason. So with the SAFE Act, for example, if I wanted to, if I was a gun manufacturer, I can create a SAFE Act compliant rifle that includes a whole bunch of features where, under the SAFE act, if you have a single one of those features, it’s illegal. Because it makes it look scary.So you take a rifle, and you add a single feature to it, a pistol grip, a thumb grip, a flash suppressor, a muzzle compressor, a collapsible butt stock. You add a single feature, and you say, OK, now it’s an assault rifle. But there are other firearms that are more lethal, but they don’t look as scary. And I can manufacture for you a firearm that includes a whole bunch of the features I just told you, and it’s perfectly legal the way that they wrote it. And that’s not the only piece of this effect. There are other problems with it as well.The new concealed carry law tramples all over First Amendment rights to trample all over Second Amendment rights. It might actually end up getting overturned first on just having to provide your social media accounts to prove to the government your good moral character or whatever they very vaguely defined it. They didn’t even say what they meant. They wrote the law without even saying what you have to prove to the government. So what? One county to the next is who’s a good person and who’s a bad person?So there was a problem with how they drafted the new law. They went even further than the past law, and it’s going to get overturned by the courts. And can I — one other thing too is there’s two different things between the law-abiding gun owner who wants to safely and securely carry a firearm solely for self-defense. And there are people with illegal firearms committing crime after crime after crime, and the system still has them on the street. So when Governor Hochul, a few day — a few weeks ago, she put out her tweet. She says that she demands that American Express and Mastercard and Visa flag every attempted purchase as a suspicious purchase.[An approved state measure would standardize credit or debit card transactions for gun stores and help credit card companies to flag suspicious activity.]I just had — two Sundays ago, I had a gang-related drive by on my front yard with my two girls at home. And I don’t know who the shooters were. I don’t know what the firearm was that they used. I don’t know what their motive is, but I guarantee you that however that person or persons acquired that firearm, it did not start with a swipe of the American Express card. The way that we approach this entire conversation should be one not going after, because too often, we just end up drafting a policy that goes after the law-abiding gun owner. We should be drafting policies going after the criminal committing crime after crime after crime, and they’re still out on the street.Alex Kingsbury: But actually, the reason New York has such a low gun death rate is because it has strict gun laws compared to states that don’t, both suicides and homicides. Relax the gun laws, you get more gun deaths. Are you content with that?When was the last time that a concealed carry holder committed any one of the offenses in New York?Mara Gay: Donald Trump endorsed you. Talk to us about your path to victory in a state that he lost by over 20 percentage points.I’m here today out of respect to all of you. OK? Listen, the editorial —If I was doing this based off of maybe like the last time you guys issued an endorsement and I got my feelings hurt, I wouldn’t have walked in the front door. And it is out of respect to you, and you can ask whatever questions you want. I’m happy to answer them. But the reason why we’re going to win this race is because outside on the street, when you go take that field trip and you ask people, what is your top issue? What are your top issues? What are you looking for in the race?I’m sitting here talking about rising crime and rising costs, and Kathy Hochul is talking about Donald Trump. So that’s — as far as a path to the victory, we are right on the issues that New Yorkers are saying are most important to them. We started 18 months ago. In my first six months, I campaigned at least twice in every county in the entire state. And we just continued campaigning hard, all across the state, to meet as many people as we can.But the reason why we’re going to win the race is because the people who are actually on the street right now feel like we need to save the state, and they want to restore balance to Albany. And they also realize, with some of the policies that we’re discussing, that there’s going to be a balance of power up in Albany, that we’re not — this isn’t an election of whether or not we’re going to go from one-party Democrat rule to one-party Republican rule. It’s not on the table, and the average person knows that.Mara Gay: It’s long been the case, unfortunately, that Black communities disproportionately suffer from violent crime. Given that and given your campaign is so focused on it, how do you expect to do with Black voters?We introduced our pathways plan. Some of the topics we talked about here today have been part of our campaign throughout, whether it’s upward economic mobility. We haven’t even spoken about the quality of education in our schools. I support lifting the cap on charter schools. I support school choice. I believe that we have kids trapped in multigenerational poverty.We spend two and a half times as much on kids — on education per pupil than you see in places, not just Florida, Mississippi, these other places where the kids who are Black, Hispanic, low income are actually performing at a higher level on the same exact tests than our kids here, even though we spend two and a half times as much. I think education is very important to the Black community. I believe in upward economic mobility. We’re talking housing.Crime is part of it, and there’s more to that. So all of this is part of it, but it’s important to show up. So when I was elected to the Third Senate District in 2010, I had Brentwood, Central, Islip and North Bellport. People would tell me, don’t go to those areas. They’ll never vote for you. And they’re right, but I still went there anyway, because it’s my job. What I find in going to areas where the Black community is most densely populated is that they’re getting ignored by everybody.Mara Gay: Why do you think more of them aren’t supporting you since you’re so focused on crime? And that’s something that disproportionately affects them.I haven’t gotten to everybody.Mara Gay: You haven’t asked every Black voter?Oh, I mean, generally, I’m asking every voter in the State of New York of every walk of life and every single background. I’m asking everyone to be supportive of my candidacy, but I’m talking about one on one. That’s why I was there for Harlem Week. I’ll be there for the African American Day.I met with community leaders multiple times in different community restaurants. I’ve been there for press conferences, whether it’s targeting Jose Alba nearby at his bodega. I remember having one of the primary debates that had took place on Juneteenth, and they asked a question somewhat similar to your question. It was a little bit different. I said, actually, I just came here from lunch in Harlem.I might spend four years going into Harlem over and over and over and over again. And I might increase my vote share by almost nothing. And I’ll still be proud that I did that, because it’s my job. At the end of the day, people can vote for whoever the heck they want. My message is this, though, to everybody, including right, left, whatever your background is: Don’t let anybody take your vote for granted.Kathleen Kingsbury: I think we should end there.Eleanor Randolph: Wow.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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    The Proud Boys Presented Dan Cox With a Gift. Now, He Says He Didn’t Keep It.

    After a video emerged on Friday of the Trump-backed candidate for Maryland governor, Dan Cox, accepting a gift from the Proud Boys, the Republican sought to distance himself from the extremist group connected to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.The encounter took place on July 19 in Frederick County, Md., as Mr. Cox, a state legislator, was basking in the afterglow of his resounding victory in the Republican primary for governor, according to the video, published by The Washington Post.A young man in a black polo shirt with the extremist group’s insignia on it approached Mr. Cox and shook his hand, the video showed. In his other hand, he was bearing a token of appreciation for Mr. Cox, who has made a litany of false claims about the 2020 election.“Here, this is a present from the Maryland Proud Boys to you,” the man said, drawing a quizzical look from Mr. Cox. “It’s a comb. Proud Boys comb.”In the video, which The Post reported had been publicly accessible on Mr. Cox’s Vimeo account but vanished later on Friday after the newspaper inquired about it, Mr. Cox asked the man his name and said that it was nice to meet him. The man gave only his first name: Henry.In a statement on Friday, Mr. Cox — whose far-right credentials were highlighted by Democrats in the primary, hoping they would become a liability in the blue state’s general election — played down the exchange.“In the noise of the victory celebration, it was hard to hear what was being said,” Mr. Cox said. “I was a surprised by him handing me something, and frankly, I did not even keep the comb. I had never seen him before, and I have not seen him since. I have no affiliation with anyone involved in violence on January 6th, period.”Mr. Cox’s campaign did not answer follow-up questions about the video’s disappearance.In a poll conducted in late September by The Post and the University of Maryland, Mr. Cox trailed his Democratic opponent, Wes Moore, by 32 percentage points in the open-seat race for Maryland’s governorship.As Donald J. Trump’s supporters stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, Mr. Cox wrote on Twitter that Vice President Mike Pence was a “traitor” because of his refusal to overturn the election of Joseph R. Biden Jr. as president. In a letter to the Maryland General Assembly’s legislative ethics committee, Mr. Cox later expressed his regrets about what he described as a “poor choice of word.”On the day of the Jan. 6 attack, Mr. Cox chartered three buses from his home county to the pro-Trump rally in Washington, but he has said that he did not march to the Capitol.Last year, Mr. Cox said that Mr. Trump was “the only president that I recognize right now” and argued that Mr. Biden had been “installed” in the White House. He has also made false claims about voter fraud in Frederick County.Dozens of members of the Proud Boys, a far-right group, have been indicted in connection with the assault on the Capitol. Several of the group’s leaders are facing charges of seditious conspiracy. Their role in the siege has received major attention from the congressional committee investigating the attack. More

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    In a Race Rife With Antisemitism Concerns, Mastriano Adviser Calls Shapiro ‘At Best a Secular Jew’

    A senior adviser to Doug Mastriano, the Republican nominee for governor in Pennsylvania, on Friday seemed to openly question the faith of Mr. Mastriano’s Democratic opponent, Josh Shapiro, who is Jewish, in a contest that has been shaped more by concerns over antisemitism than perhaps any other major race in the country.“Josh Shapiro is at best a secular Jew in the same way Joe Biden is a secular Catholic,” Jenna Ellis, a former lawyer for the Trump campaign who worked to overturn the 2020 election, wrote on Twitter, commenting on a headline that noted Mr. Shapiro’s faith. Ms. Ellis branded the two Democrats as “extremists,” pointing to gender surgery for minors and distorting their positions on abortion rights.“Doug Mastriano is for wholesome family values and freedom,” wrote Ms. Ellis, who is not Jewish.Mr. Shapiro, 49, the state’s attorney general, is an observant Jew whose faith is a central part of his public identity. He keeps kosher, prioritizes Sabbath dinner with his family and is a Jewish day school alum. “These attacks on Attorney General Shapiro and on all people of faith are another reminder of the stakes of this race,” said Manuel Bonder, a spokesman for the Shapiro campaign. “Our campaign is staying focused on bringing people together to defeat Mastriano’s dangerous extremism.”Mr. Mastriano, a far-right Republican who promotes Christian power and disdains the separation of church and state, has alarmed a broad swath of Pennsylvania’s Jewish community with his rhetoric and his associations.The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsBoth parties are making their final pitches ahead of the Nov. 8 election.Where the Election Stands: As Republicans appear to be gaining an edge with swing voters in the final weeks of the contest for control of Congress, here’s a look at the state of the races for the House and Senate.Biden’s Low Profile: President Biden’s decision not to attend big campaign rallies reflects a low approval rating that makes him unwelcome in some congressional districts and states.What Young Voters Think: Twelve Americans under 30, all living in swing states, told The Times about their political priorities, ranging from the highly personal to the universal.In Minnesota: The race for attorney general in the light-blue state offers a pure test of which issue is likely to be more politically decisive: abortion rights or crime.He has attacked Mr. Shapiro for attending and sending his children to a Jewish day school that Mr. Mastriano called a “privileged, exclusive, elite” school and said it evinced Mr. Shapiro’s “disdain for people like us,” remarks that seemed to be a dog whistle.His campaign also paid $5,000 to the far-right social media platform Gab, on which the man accused of perpetrating the October 2018 Pittsburgh synagogue shooting — believed to be the deadliest antisemitic attack in American history — had posted antisemitic screeds. In defending Mr. Mastriano and responding to backlash, the platform’s founder, Andrew Torba, deployed antisemitic language.Mr. Mastriano, after a bipartisan outcry, released a statement saying that he rejected “antisemitism in any form.” But a late September campaign finance report showed that Mr. Mastriano had accepted a $500 donation from Mr. Torba in July. Jonathan Greenblatt, the chief executive of the Anti-Defamation League, wrote on Twitter that “the Mastriano campaign that repeatedly has employed anti-Jewish stereotypes and engaged with antisemites has no grounds to comment” on Mr. Shapiro’s level of observance.The Mastriano campaign did not respond to questions about why it was important to question Mr. Shapiro’s faith or how he practices it, or what it means to be “at best” a secular Jew or Catholic. Efforts to seek comment from Ms. Ellis were not immediately successful, but on Twitter she rejected criticism of her remarks. Mr. Biden often referenced his religion on the campaign trail, and he is a regular churchgoer who once memorably defended the Democratic Party as one of faith.“The next Republican that tells me I’m not religious, I’m going to shove my rosary beads down their throat,” Mr. Biden said in 2005, according to The Cincinnati Enquirer.Mr. Biden supports abortion rights. But his views on the matter have evolved over his decades in public life and he has been open about his struggles to reconcile the teachings of his faith with the complexities of the abortion issue.Separately, the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia released a statement in response to a “false and hurtful statement” from Mr. Mastriano, without mentioning him by name.Mr. Mastriano recently made false claims that the hospital “is grabbing homeless kids and kids in foster care, apparently, and experimenting on them with gender transitioning.”The hospital, responding to a question about Mr. Mastriano’s remarks, said in the statement that “providing the best and most compassionate care to all children, inclusive of their gender identity, is central to the mission and values of Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.” It added: “We stand in complete support of our colleagues and the patients and families they serve. We admire their strength and resilience during this ongoing period of difficulty.” More