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      Trump lawyer Kenneth Chesebro barred from practicing law in New York

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      Kenneth Chesebro, an attorney for Donald Trump, has been suspended from practicing law in New York and could be disbarred just days after pleading guilty in what prosecutors claim was an effort to overturn Georgia’s 2020 election results.Chesebro was charged in 2023, alongside Donald Trump and 17 others, with violating Georgia’s anti-racketeering law relating to alleged efforts by the defendants to “knowingly and willfully” join a conspiracy to change the outcome of the 2020 election in the state.In the decision this week to suspend Chesebro’s law license, a panel in New York concluded that he had been “convicted of a serious crime”. The order reads: “Having concluded that respondent has been convicted of a serious crime, we accordingly suspend respondent from the practice of law in New York on an interim basis.”It defers to a court determination of whether a judgment of conviction has become “final” in Chesebro’s Georgia criminal proceeding.Chesebro pleaded guilty to a single felony charge in October 2023: conspiracy to commit filing false documents. He was sentenced to five years’ probation and 100 hours of community service, and ordered to pay $5,000 in restitution, write an apology letter to Georgia’s residents and testify truthfully at any related future trial.Fellow attorney Sidney Powell separately pleaded guilty to six counts of conspiracy and will serve six years of probation, pay a fine of $6,000, and write an apology letter to Georgia and its residents.Last week, Rudy Giuliani, the former New York City mayor, who is also a defendant in the Georgia election interference case, was ordered by a judge in a separate defamation case to turn over his Manhattan apartment, a Mercedes and a variety of other personal possessions to two Georgia election workers who won a $148m judgment against him.Giuliani was previously disbarred in July 2024. More

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      Donald Trump at Madison Square Garden: the ultimate daddy projection screen | V (formerly Eve Ensler)

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      I went to the Trump rally at Madison Square Garden on Sunday. Or I tried to. I wanted to see it, to feel it, to know it. I spent two hours smushed in a crowd of thousands, waiting in the cold, unable to move, in the midst of belligerent conversations, alcohol consumption, rantings and racist posturings. There were older Jewish men, Black families, Asian couples and young Latina women. I heard south Asian men calling Kamala Harris hateful slurs, others saying women needed to just shut up and listen to men. I saw working men showing off their jackets with artistic renderings of Trump as bullfighter slaying the deep state dragon. What I mainly heard and felt was grievance.I’ve always thought America was a mean place. And what I mean by that is that it’s structured for meanness. It’s a place of winners and losers, people who matter and those who can be disposed of, a country built on violent theft of Indigenous lands and hundreds of years of enslavement of millions of Black people. It’s a place where when a person rises in status, they show it off to those who have less, rather than bringing them along. Where the rich and famous flaunt their wealth and clothes and fabulous lives every single day, and watching is a national past time. A place where most people get lost or abandoned, forgotten or judged. Where an ambitious few can turn that suffering into gold, but most get swallowed in self-hatred and despair.We’re almost 250 years into this American experience and I would say the one common thing that this patriarchal racist capitalism has wrought is a primal insecurity that what you have can easily be taken away and who you are can be suddenly and forever erased.And that insecurity is the rub.For when fascists come, when those narcissistic tyrannical daddy figures arrive looking bigger than life, they instinctively know how to manipulate that insecurity. They usually do it by creating a class of people or a group of people who are less, who are othered, making the majority feel special, superior and safe. It’s the oldest, but most effective trick in the fascist handbook. Externalize the abstract self-hatred and insecurity, turn it into a real enemy and blame everything on them.This demonization was over the top at Madison Square Garden. Whether it was a comedian talking about Puerto Rico “as a floating island of garbage” or suggesting Jews were cheap and Palestinians were rock throwers, or Tucker Carlson deriding Harris – the daughter of an Indian mother and Jamaican father – with a made-up identity saying she was vying to become “the first Samoan-Malaysian, low-IQ former California prosecutor to ever be elected president”. Or for that matter almost every speaker mispronouncing Kamala’s name.Then there was Trump rambling on and on for almost an hour, calling those seeking refuge and survival savages, animals, horrible people occupying America, invading it, as if he’d forgotten that except for the Indigenous people who were here and the African Americans who were dragged here in chains, every single other person is an immigrant who came in search of survival, safety and a new life.I’ve always somehow understood the banal evil of Donald Trump. It goes back as far as 1989. That was around the time he was turning a 14-story apartment building in New York City into luxury condos for the rich, attempting to force tenants out of the building by turning off hot water and heat in the middle of winter. We organized an event called Brunch at the Plaza and invited Trump, who at the time owned the hotel. We bussed in hundreds of homeless people and served them brunch on the Plaza lawn. The demand was simple. Give 1.3% of your net income to specific organizations developing housing for the poor. Trump did not attend. Cut to 2015. Months before he declared he was running for office, with a few activists, we invited people to my apartment to see if we could launch Stop Hate Dump Trump. A campaign to stop him from getting traction running for president. Many told us we were crazy and extreme, they told us that no one would ever take that buffoon seriously.Perhaps my own childhood with that same kind of narcissistic, abusive, seductive father was what gave me eyes to see Donald Trump, to understand that he was not necessarily dangerous in what he was (if you emptied that piggy bank nothing would be inside), he was dangerous for what he wasn’t – a shiny American hologram, an all too familiar dream or daddy just out of reach, totally disassociated except when he suddenly exploded with disappointment and rage. This daddy has come home indeed, home to roost, home to turn the house into chaos and terror, home to compare his children with one another so there’s always someone on top and someone stuck on the bottom, creating violent competition and hatred among his children so they never learn cooperation and solidarity, but fight instead with each other for his approval.All night long Trump’s surrogates spun us into an opposite world. They spoke of Trump as a man of peace and love, you know, one of the flawed ordinary people like most of us, an endless victim who has survived lawsuits and impeachment, being thrown off Twitter with no mention of a reason why any of this might have happened. Truth that night was as dispensable as the lives of immigrants, pregnant women, trans kids, critical race theory and our nation’s history. There’s plenty of blame to go around for how we got here. A racist colonialist history that has never been reckoned with, the Democrats settling for the most rudimentary approach to identity politics rather than seeing it as an entryway to an intersectional analysis of race and class. The list goes on.We are a nation of the lonely and abandoned, desperate for belonging and worth. Many have been seduced by Trump. They can’t believe this rich mogul and TV celebrity would actually care about them. And they’re right because there is absolutely no indication that he would ever invite most of the people in the New York crowd to his mansion or golf club. Remember reports of him talking of his followers as “basement dwellers”. He told the packed house on Sunday night that he could be sunning himself on the beach or playing golf at Turnberry in Scotland, but he chose to be there with them as if the act of running for president was the highest form of altruism and not a total power grab. Oh dear generous daddy.But there’s always the real story lurking on the edges, always the corruption and theft and dirty deals, always the sexual violence. A man told a woman I was with that she didn’t look like a typical Trump type. She was an older woman, he said, and most older women don’t like Trump. My friend asked him why he thought that was and he said something about it having to do with sexuality and my friend asked: “You mean because Trump’s a rapist?”But in a land of mirages and heroin dreams, he’s the daddy projection screen. Terror and protector. Killer and fixer. Longed-for object and rapist. In the end thousands of us didn’t get into the Garden. In hindsight I realize I wouldn’t have lasted a minute before getting found out. I wouldn’t have been able to handle the metastasized energy of a nationalistic, racist, misogynist mob in service of its daddy lord.As we walked away, Rudy Giuliani, a major felon and disgrace, barking madness on the jumbotron, a young woman doing an enthusiastic cheerleading act for “daddy Don” with red pompoms, I know more deeply than ever that it’s not enough to get rid of Trump, although that will be a very good thing. We have to devote ourselves to changing the conditions that gave birth to him.

      V (formerly Eve Ensler) is a playwright and activist and the founder of V-Day, a global movement to end violence against women and girls More

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      Trump fills Madison Square Garden with anger, vitriol and racist threats

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      Anger and vitriol took center stage at New York’s Madison Square Garden on Sunday night, as Donald Trump and a cabal of campaign surrogates held a rally marked by racist comments, coarse insults, and dangerous threats about immigrants.Nine days out from the election, Trump used the rally in New York to repeat his claim that he is fighting “the enemy within” and again promised to launch “the largest deportation program in American history”, amid incoherent ramblings about ending a phone call with a “very, very important person” so he could watch one of Elon Musk’s rockets land.The event at Madison Square Garden, in the center of Manhattan, had drawn comparisons to an infamous Nazi rally held at the arena in 1939. Tim Walz, Kamala Harris’ running mate, said there was a “direct parallel” between the two events, and the Democratic National Committee projected images on the outside of the building on Sunday repeating claims from Trump’s former chief-of-staff that Trump had “praised Hitler”.There was certainly a dark tone throughout the hours-long rally, with one speaker describing Puerto Rico, home to 3.2m US citizens, as an “island of garbage”; Tucker Carlson mocking Harris’ racial identity; a radio host describing Hillary Clinton as a “sick bastard”; and a crucifix-wielding childhood friend of Trump’s declaring that Harris is “the antichrist”.The Puerto Rico comments, made by Tony Hinchliffe, a podcaster with a history of racist remarks, were immediately criticized by the Harris-Walz campaign. Ricky Martin, the Puerto Rican popstar who has more than 18m followers on Instagram, wrote in a post: “This is what they think of us. Vote for @kamalaharris.”Trump campaign spokesperson Danielle Alvarez in a statement said “this joke does not reflect the views of President Trump or the campaign.”View image in fullscreenBut that could prove problematic in Pennsylvania, where the majority of the swing state’s 580,000 eligible Latino voters are of Puerto Rican descent. Both campaigns have been trying to appeal to Latino voters in the final weeks of the campaign, and Harris had visited a Puerto Rican restaurant in Philadelphia earlier on Sunday, where she outlined plans to introduce an “economic opportunity taskforce” for Puerto Rico.The pugnacious mood didn’t change once Trump began speaking, as the former president quickly repeated his pledge to “launch the largest deportation program in American history”.Trump continued his frequent rants about immigration and claimed that a “savage Venezuelan prison gang” had “taken over Times Square”, which will come as a surprise to anyone who has recently visited the New York landmark. The former president also stated, wrongly, that the Biden administration did not have money to respond to a recent hurricane in North Carolina because “they spent all of their money bringing in illegal immigrants, flying them in by beautiful jet planes”.Trump’s usual dystopian threats were on offer, as the 78-year-old expanded on his claims about “the enemy within” – a group of political opponents that he has said he will set the military on if elected.“We’re just not running against Kamala. I think a lot of our politicians here tonight know this. She means nothing, she’s purely a vessel that’s all she is,” Trump said.“We’re running against something far bigger than Joe or Kamala and far more powerful than them, which is a massive, vicious radical-left machine that runs today’s Democrat party. They’re just vessels.”Trump’s appearance at Madison Square Garden – home to the New York Knicks and Rangers, and venue for countless legendary acts including Elvis Presley, Michael Jackson and John Lennon’s last concert appearance before his murder – marks the culmination of his peculiar love-hate flirtation with his native city. Despite the fact that he has no chance of winning New York state – Harris is 15 points ahead in the Five Thirty Eight tracker poll – this was his third rally here this year.View image in fullscreenIn May he made an audacious attempt to woo Black and Latino voters in the south Bronx, just a few miles from his childhood home in Queens. Then in September, he pitched up in the New York City suburbs in Long Island.What Trump intends by staging this trilogy of seemingly pointless electoral appearances is unclear. He has used his rambling speeches to take a nostalgic walk down memory lane to what he sees as the golden days of his life as a New York real estate magnate.But he has also portrayed New York City in the most dark and dystopian terms, as a rat-infested haven for drug addicts, gangs and “illegal aliens” housed in luxury apartments while military veterans shiver on the sidewalks. His toxic language is perhaps a reflection of his bitterness towards the city of his birth, which in separate court cases has convicted him of 34 felonies, found his company the Trump Organization guilty of criminal tax fraud, and found him personally liable for sexual abuse.On Sunday Trump again criticized his home town, claiming that the Biden administration had forced “hundreds of thousands of really rough people” into the city and telling New Yorkers, despite police saying crime has declined: “Your crime is through the roof. Everything is through the roof.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe pugnacious tone had been set earlier in the afternoon, when several of the opening speakers made obscenity-laced and hate-filled remarks.Hinchcliffe’s comments about Puerto Rico – he also made lewd sexual innuendos about Latina women – were met with big laughs from the crowd. A comment from radio personality Sid Rosenberg that Hillary Clinton is a “sick bastard” was similarly well received, as was Rosenberg’s claim that “the fucking illegals get everything they want”.David Rem, a Republican politician who the Trump campaign described as a childhood friend of the former president, called Harris “the devil” and “the antichrist”, to loud cheers. Rem later took a crucifix out of his pocket and announced that he was running for New York City mayor.View image in fullscreenAs soon as Trump announced his intention to stage a rally at Madison Square Garden just days before the election, critics leapt to point out historical parallels with one of the most notorious events in New York history. On 20 February 1939, just seven months before Germany invaded Poland, the pro-Hitler German American Bund held a mass Nazi rally in the exact same arena.The organizers chose George Washington’s birthday as the date to parade their vision of an Aryan Christian country dedicated to white supremacy and American patriotism. They erected a giant portrait of Washington, which they flanked with swastika flags alongside the stars and stripes.More than 20,000 American Nazi sympathisers attended, many dressed in storm trooper uniforms and giving the Sieg Heil salute. The “Führer” of the American Bund, Fritz Kuhn, told the crowd that America would be “returned to the people who founded it”, and decried the “Jewish controlled press”.Hillary Clinton had noted the similarities between the two events in an interview with CNN last week, and at a rally in Nevada earlier on Sunday, Walz was happy to continue the comparison.“Donald Trump’s got this big rally going at Madison Square Garden,” Walz said.“There’s a direct parallel to a big rally that happened in the mid-1930s at Madison Square Garden. And don’t think that he doesn’t know for one second exactly what they’re doing there.”The Trump campaign reacted furiously to the accusations, describing Clinton’s comments as “disgusting”. One of the few people to reference the 1939 rally on Sunday was Hulk Hogan, who emerged to wrestling music, spent several seconds struggling to rip off his shirt, then claimed: “I don’t see no stinkin’ Nazis in here”.After a night of fire and fury, it will be up to the American voters to decide. More

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      ‘Working-class New Yorkers are being pushed out of the city they built’: why Zohran Mamdani is running for mayor

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      In a quiet and unassuming coffee shop in Astoria, a once affordable, diverse neighborhood in Queens where rent is skyrocketing to the heights of other parts of New York, a man in a black jacket sits against the window.He doesn’t look the part of a large metropolitan city’s typical politician, but Zohran Mamdani represents this area in the state legislature as the assembly member for district 36 – the first south Asian man in the state assembly and only its third Muslim.On Wednesday, Mamdani, 33, announced his candidacy for mayor of New York.“There is a representation of sets of voters that typically, in the very best scenario, have been erased from the political fabric, and in the worst scenario, have been persecuted by the political system in the city,” Mamdani told the Guardian.“I represent Steinway Street – the same street that Michael Bloomberg created the demographics unit within the NYPD to illegally surveil Muslims on the basis of our faith [after 9/11]. And now the representative of that street is going to run for the same position that created that department.”Mamdani is a millennial who watches Love Island and Love is Blind. And before he was elected as a local representative in 2020, he assumed many identities, including a foreclosure prevention counselor and failed rapper – a career he said helped prepare him for this very moment.“I would stand and rap with this guy in the equivalent of a 14-seater public bus. As we waited for the bus to fill up, we would try and sell our CD,” Mamdani recounted.View image in fullscreen“Once you’ve done that, it’s a lot easier to ask people on the Broadway platform of the N/W train if they’ll sign your petition to get on the ballot.”Before moving to Queens at the age of seven and taking over local leftist politics, Mamdani was born in Kampala, Uganda, to parents Mahmood Mamdani, a Columbia University professor who specializes in study of colonialism, and Mira Nair, a director and producer of Mississippi Masala starring Denzel Washington and the film adaptation of the Reluctant Fundamentalist.When asked if he considers himself a nepo baby, Mamdani is diplomatic in his response.“I’ll leave that to others. There have definitely been opportunities that have been afforded to me,” Mamdani, who worked on the soundtrack for one of his mom’s films, Queen of Katwe starring Lupita Nyong’o, said.“But in local politics, I don’t think it has meant that much to the people of Astoria and Long Island City.”Though nearly a year away, the New York mayoral race is already crowded. The city’s comptroller Brad Lander threw his hat in the race in July; the Democratic primary, so far, includes two state senators, Zellnor Myrie and Jessica Ramos, as well as former comptroller and current assembly member, Scott Stringer.All of these candidates, including Mamdani, may also have to challenge incumbent mayor Eric Adams, who says he still plans on finishing his term and running for re-election – despite facing federal charges of bribery and fraud for allegedly accepting foreign campaign contributions and lavish gifts from Turkish nationals.A socialist, Mamdani distinguishes himself from the pack on political ideology – but it probably doesn’t hurt that he’s young, charming and often addresses large crowds with Obama-esque orations.“We are here to say these struggles are interconnected – whether it’s BLM or BDS, it’s all about justice. We are here to say you cannot disentangle this fight for freedom. You will not scare us away from this call for justice,” Mamdani said into a loudspeaker in Astoria Park during a 2021 protest against the Israeli occupation in the aftermath of violence against Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.Unlike many other politicians, Mamdani doesn’t avoid the topic of Palestine. He cofounded his college’s Students for Justice in Palestine chapter and has fought to make it a local issue.“I think Palestine has often been a glaring contradiction in our politics for many, many years. I could not understand why we would draw a line at universal beliefs when it came to Palestinians, why we thought that everyone deserved safety, everyone deserved justice, everyone deserve freedom, except for a certain class of people,” Mamdani said.“As we’ve seen over the past year with the genocide that our country has funded and continues to fund – an Israeli military bombing campaign that has expanded into Lebanon and Syria and Yemen – we are continuing in this country to find money to kill kids while we tell public housing tenants that we don’t have enough money to fix their boilers.”View image in fullscreenThe cost of living crisis plaguing New Yorkers is another issue Mamdani cares deeply for, which he said stems from his time as a foreclosure prevention counselor. During that time, he negotiated with lenders and the city on behalf of low- to middle-income homeowners in Queens who were delinquent on their mortgage payments and on the brink of eviction.“What I will bring to this race is an explicit and relentless focus to the number one issue of importance to New York City voters,” Mamdani said. “They can’t afford their rent. They can’t afford their childcare. They can’t afford transit. They can’t afford their groceries.“The mayor has an incredible set of powers to provide relief in each of those areas, and yet, at every opportunity that has been given is almost always taken the decision to exacerbate the cost of living crisis, and that’s why working-class New Yorkers are being pushed out of the city that they built, the one that they call home.”The young politician has built somewhat of a reputation for putting his body on the line for the causes he supports, sometimes literally. Mamdani is credited by hundreds of the city’s taxi drivers for helping secure life-changing debt relief for them.In 2021, Mamdani went on a 15-day hunger strike to protest of predatory loans that targeted the taxi drivers who purchased “medallions”, the physical certificate required to operate a yellow cab. The city eventually caved and struck a deal with medallion loan guarantors, securing $450m in transformative debt relief for these drivers.It was just one of the “handful of times” Mamdani was arrested for a cause.Mamdani was arrested again earlier this year at Hunter College, where the city’s rent guidelines board voted to increase the rents of rent-stabilized tenants 2.75% on one-year leases and 5.25% on two-year leases. If elected, Mamdani says he will immediately freeze these tenants’ rent upon assuming office.His policies have already garnered the support of one group: the New York City chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America. The organization, which helped elect fellow socialist US house representative Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, who also represents some of the same areas as Mamdani at the federal level, endorsed Mamdani on Saturday.“NYC-DSA has officially decided to endorse Zohran Mamdani in the June 2025 Democratic primary election for mayor of New York City,” the political organization told members after its annual convention. “Now, it’s time for us to get to work to replace our corrupt, autocratic mayor with a proven socialist and a cadre-member of NYC-DSA.”Mamdani said he plans to work – every day of his campaign – on making New York more affordable.“We all love this city, and yet it doesn’t mean much if we can’t afford to stay here. We don’t want New York to be a symbol. We don’t want it to just be something that is unattainable for so many. We want it to be where people live, grow old and raise families.” More

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      Giuliani ordered to turn over apartment and Benz to Georgia election workers

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      Rudy Giuliani must give control of his New York City apartment, a 1980s Mercedes-Benz once owned by Lauren Bacall, several luxury watches and many other assets to two Georgia election workers he defamed.Lewis Liman, a US district judge in New York, appointed Ruby Freeman and her daughter Shaye Moss as recipients of the property and gave the former New York mayor and Trump confidante seven days to turn over the assets.A jury ruled that Giuliani owes them around $150m for spreading lies about them after the 2020 election though Giuliani is appealing the ruling. Liman authorized the two women to immediately begin selling the assets.“The road to justice for Ruby and Shaye has been long, but they have never wavered,” said Aaron Nathan, a lawyer representing Freeman and Moss. “Last December, a jury delivered a powerful verdict in their favor, and we’re proud that today’s ruling makes that verdict a reality.”“We are proud that our clients will finally begin to receive some of the compensation to which they are entitled for Giuliani’s actions,” said Nathan. “This outcome should send a powerful message that there is a price to pay for those who choose to intentionally spread disinformation.”A spokesperson for Giuliani did not immediately return a request for comment.In addition to his apartment on the Upper East Side Giuliani was also ordered to turn over several items of Yankees memorabilia and around two dozen watches. The two women are also entitled to fees the Trump campaign owes Giuliani for his legal work in 2020.Giuliani first listed the three-bedroom apartment for $6.5m in 2023, but had cut the price to a little more than $5.1m this fall.Liman did not order Giuliani to turn over a separate Palm Beach condominium, for now, amid an ongoing legal dispute there. Liman instead entered an order barring Giuliani from selling the condo while that dispute is ongoing.After losing the defamation case last fall, Giuliani declared bankruptcy to try and avoid paying Freeman and Moss the money they were owed. A judge dismissed that bankruptcy case earlier this year.After the 2020 election, Giuliani amplified a misleading video and falsely accused Freeman and Moss of illegal activity while counting ballots in Atlanta on election night in 2020. He continued to do so even after Georgia election officials said the video showed both women doing their jobs with no issue. They have also been formally cleared by investigators of any wrongdoing.The video and lie about the two women became central to Donald Trump’s effort to overturn the election results in Georgia. The ex-president mentioned Freeman by name on a phone call in 2021 with Georgia secretary of state Brad Raffensperger, asking her to overturn the vote.Both women have rarely been seen in public since the incident, but have spoken about how it has upended their lives. They received constant death threats, were chased from their homes, and lost their jobs. During the defamation trial in Washington DC, they spoke about the depression they faced after the election.Giuliani, who lost his law license in New York and Washington DC, has shown little regret for his false statements. During the trial, he gave a press conference on the courthouse steps in which he insisted everything he said about Freeman and Moss was true.Freeman and Moss also recently settled a defamation suit with the Gateway Pundit, a far-right news site that was the first to publicly identify them and amplified the video. While the terms of that settlement were confidential, the site has deleted all articles mentioning the two women and posted a notice acknowledging they did not do anything wrong.Freeman and Moss have also settled a lawsuit with One America News Network, another far-right network, which broadcast an apology.All of those cases are being closely watched because they amount to the most significant accountability so far for those who spread lies about the 2020 election. Scholars are closely watching to understand how powerful a tool defamation law can be in curbing misinformation.Giuliani also faces criminal charges in Georgia and Arizona over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election. More

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      Young men on being Republican in New York: ‘It caused all types of consternation among my friends’

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      In New York City, Republicans are something of a rarity. Only 10% of New Yorkers are Republicans, according to 2021 voter registration data, and the state is polling bright blue for Kamala Harris. But the Republican party has not called it quits.“You live in a blue city, but it’s going red very, very quickly,” Donald Trump claimed at a Bronx rally in May. Step into the suburbs, and Republican candidates have enough momentum to turn multiple House elections – and ultimately, control of the House – into nail-biters.It’s an interesting time for the New York Young Republicans Club (NYYRC). The club brings together conservative New Yorkers 40 and under to socialize, campaign and discuss policy; recent events have included debate watch parties and a self-defense course in light of “illegal military-age male immigrants flooding our country, the threat of World War III, and New York’s insistence on stripping our Second Amendment rights”. It’s using this momentum in New York to branch out to other Republican youth organizations around the country.This year, the photographer Paola Chapdelaine spent time with four male members of NYYRC and one male member of the nearby Connecticut Young Republicans, who represent a nationwide trend of young men increasingly embracing the right. Here, they explain how they found their way to the Republican party as young men in a liberal city and what they think of political polarization in America.Frank Filocomo, 27: ‘Community cannot be politically monolithic’View image in fullscreenWhen I was an undergrad, I saw a woman on the train with a button on her backpack that said “a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle”. I remember completely disagreeing with that. This move towards dissolving the family, or saying that we don’t need each other and we could just be these totally individualized, autonomous beings with no connection to family, with no connection to our history, I reject that idea. I think we’re all connected to something greater. I guess that’s what makes me a conservative.Recently, I thought I had a great rapport with a date – lots of laughter, great chemistry. Then, the morning of the second date, she [texted]: “Hey, I did some thinking, and never mind. I would not like to go on a date with you.” I immediately knew that she Googled me. I’m not a rightwing vigilante, but I write for conservative publications.If I start immediately in a relationship by saying: “Hi, I’m Frank, I’m a conservative,” then I’m setting myself up for failure. I say: “Hi, I’m Frank, I have a cat that I love. These are my hobbies. I play guitar.” That’s not to say you should be deceptive about your beliefs, but it is to say that you should be cognizant of the political polarization in this country. I think it was Muhammad Ali who said that he judges people based on how they treat waiters at restaurants. Similarly, how do you treat animals? I think squabbling over the tax code, or the right number of immigrants we should have per year, or how you feel about foreign policy ultimately mean nothing to me in a relationship. What I care about is how you treat me and how you treat others.I sound like a hippy, but I also totally believe in this idea of community, and that community cannot be politically monolithic. It has to have Democrats in it, has to have liberals. The second we go to the “me versus them” or “us versus them” mentality, we’re doomed.Born, raised and currently living in Brooklyn, Filocomo is program manager at the conservative non-profit National Review Institute. He serves as policy chairman of NYYRCJude Somefun, 41: ‘My politics caused all types of consternation among my friends’View image in fullscreenIt was 2008 and I was a political free agent. This was when everybody was like, “Obama, Obama, Obama.” He was the hope and change guy. But he was saying stuff like: “These billionaires and millionaires have made too much on American people. It’s time for them to spread the wealth” – like socialists. And I was like: “I can’t vote for this guy.”That’s when I leaned on biblical faith and started researching the political parties. Growing up in New York, most Black people are implicit Democrats or explicit Democrats. My friend Ben, who was a socialist, illustrated to me what it takes to be courageous and not fall into the trend, to express your opinion. I don’t necessarily agree with socialism, I just felt like he was very courageous.I felt like the Republican party was more in alignment with freedom, more in alignment with business, more in alignment with marriage, more in alignment with life in the womb. I was like, “OK, I could get down with that.” It caused all types of consternation amongst my friends, my girlfriend at the time. People were having interventions. My dad kind of renounced me as a son. It was very, very tough.In this election, I believe we should promote the interests of America first. A lot of people are hurting now economically. I don’t see the benefit in sending money over to Ukraine, a bunch of foreign aid, a border that’s open, when we have to take care of our citizens.Somefun is philanthropy chairman of NYYRC. He was born and raised in Harlem and currently lives there. He is a life insurance agentMatthew Carrier, 22: ‘From the outside, I’m a raging conservative, but biodiversity concerns me’View image in fullscreenI got started with the College Republicans my sophomore year. There were four of us, so, like, something had to change. So we made it a very conversation-centric group. Our first topic was the Afghanistan pullout, because that was timely. Veganism was a recent [topic] we did, but the conversation was very good. We had a transgenderism and athletics meeting that was probably our most contentious.The club is College Republicans, there’s no hiding from that, and still, we’ve gotten a very dynamic group of people that are willing to have conversations. We have respect for ourselves. We have respect for the campus, but we don’t take ourselves too seriously. It’s something I see where other college Republican groups falter.From the outside, I’m a raging conservative, but biodiversity concerns me [as a farmer]. Still, I don’t share the same concerns [as environmental activists] with GMOs and stuff, because I see there’s a need when you have a world of 8 billion people to feed. I try not to criticize farmers that are at a much larger scale than me by saying: “Just let there be more ladybugs and your crops will be fine.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion

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      Republicans are very much a party of clean air, clean water. When you want to talk about global warming and such, that’s where you lose us. I’m much more appreciative of the climate change conversation if folks I’m talking to are willing to rank their issues. That’s a hard thing to do, and maybe a very cold way of thinking. But what’s the biggest issue, carbon in the atmosphere or plastic on the ground? Biodiversity? I think there’s a lot of benefits to nuclear [power], but no one wants to be the guy that stakes a claim to nuclear out of concern that things go bad.Carrier is the former president of College Republicans at University of Rochester and current statewide chairman of the Connecticut Young Republicans, as well as a political consultant and small scale farmer and beekeeper. He is from Enfield, ConnecticutLucian Wintrich, 36: ‘We’re in an economically terrifying situation’View image in fullscreenSo many younger people in New York are conservative, but they’re scared to actually come out and say that they’re conservative. [There’s also] a quarter of the party, and it tends to be these younger, reactionary kids, who will regurgitate whatever certain conservative influencers say, rather than reading and thinking for themselves.I was the only gay guy and the only pro-Bush guy in fourth grade. To me, conservatism is about actual individuality and autonomy and the understanding that the only real authority that we should appreciate and look towards is God, versus the government and elected officials. I mean, I fully believe in community. Most public schools, before the [federal government] took over and established the failing Department of Education, were run by communities. The more you involve the [federal government], the less control communities have, individuals have, and the worse off we are.[In 2024], I think we need to stop funneling all this money to Israel and Ukraine and honestly, every other country that we’re funneling money to. Actually, Israel is a little trickier than Ukraine. I do think it’s a stabilizing country [in the Middle East], but still we’re hemorrhaging money while our debt is going up. We’re in an economically terrifying situation right now.Wintrich lives in New York’s East Village. He is a media strategist and PR consultant and serves as press chairman of NYYRCKwasi Baryeh, 24: ‘It seems like political violence is becoming normalized’View image in fullscreenOne of the biggest problems I see with New York and other cities that lean liberal is that there’s a degradation of property rights. There’s potential for squatters. Tenants have the right to not pay and stay within the property. It’s also landlords abusing their position by not following their legal responsibilities. When people don’t pay rent or don’t abide by their contracts, that’s probably a gateway to people refusing to obey laws, refusing to follow established norms and conventions. It prevents people from living as moral people.I support the party. I support Trump. Trump did the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. A couple months ago, I filed my tax return, and I saw I got a little extra money from that. He also [signed a bipartisan bill] funding HBCUs, which my mother, who’s a college professor, was really grateful for. He met with Kanye to see what could be done to remedy the injustice of more Black people being in prison – reducing the incarceration problem. The First Step Act, allowing the formerly incarcerated to re-enter society, was bipartisan, and it was passed. But with the [current] political environment, it doesn’t seem feasible that anyone is going to get much done.[I’m also concerned about the] two recent assassination attempts on Trump. It seems like political violence is becoming more normalized in our society, which makes things much more unstable as things get close to election day.Baryeh is a financial analyst. He lives in the Bronx and is a board member of the NYYRC Catholic caucus

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      Trump plan for Madison Square Garden rally compared to infamous Nazi event

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      Donald Trump’s decision to hold a rally in the heart of Manhattan on 27 October, nine days before election day, has been slammed by New York Democrats, with one comparing the booking to an infamous Nazi rally held at the same venue in the lead-up to the second world war.But it has also triggered a backlash to such sentiments, with Republicans saying such rhetoric heightens tensions even more in a presidential election campaign which has already seen two attempts on Trump’s life.The Democratic state senator Brad Hoylman-Sigal, whose district includes much of the west side of Manhattan where a date on Trump’s “arena tour” rally has been booked at Madison Square Garden, called on venue owners to cancel the event.“Let’s be clear,” Hoylman-Sigal wrote on X. “Allowing Trump to hold an event at MSG is equivalent to the infamous Nazis rally at Madison Square Garden on February 20, 1939.”Hoylman-Sigal was referring to a pro-Hitler rally, organized by the German American Bund, that was attended by more than 20,000 people and featured a portrait of George Washington flanked by swastikas. Many attendees came from Yaphank, Long Island, where the Bund was headquartered and had a summer camp teaching Nazi ideology.In 2019, Hillary Clinton used a speech at the same venue to decry “an assault on the rule of law and the foundations of our democracy”, referring to the infamous Bund rally.But New York Republicans denounced the comparison.“Referring to a peaceful rally for the leading candidate for President of the United States as a ‘Nazi Rally’ is not only a disgusting comparison, it is a gross escalation of the dangerous rhetoric in the wake of two direct attempts on President Donald Trump’s life,” state senator Rob Ortt said in a statement.In his post, Hoylman-Sigal tried to downplay the comparison he had made. “I’m not calling anyone a Nazi,” he said. “I’m pointing out a historic similarity.”The state senator added: “I was talking about the venue and many of his followers who are white supremacists and have demonstrated hatred and vitriol toward minority groups, including Jews, people of color and the LGBTQ community.”Halie Soifer, the CEO of the Jewish Democratic Council of America, told Politico that Trump had refused to condemn white supremacy, incited rightwing extremists to engage in an insurrection, and aligned with and dined with Holocaust deniers and neo-Nazis.“If ever there was a moment to make such a comparison, it’s now, which is why the vast majority of American voters are opposing Donald Trump in this election,” Soifer said.View image in fullscreenThe dispute comes as the major political parties are locked in an expensive battle for control of New York’s suburban districts that flipped Republican in 2022, depriving Democrats of a majority in Congress.But it also comes as Jewish voters in New York City weigh their traditional Democratic alignment over the widening Middle East conflict. Trump has said Jews who vote for Vice-President Kamala Harris “should have their head examined”.Members of Democrats’ progressive wing have been accused of antisemitism over their statements criticizing Israeli actions and for their support of pro-Palestinian protests at university campuses across the city.Earlier this week, Trump held a remembrance event to mark the first anniversary of the deadly Hamas-led attack on Israelis on 7 October 2023. He called the attack on Israel a “nightmare” and went on to say that the rise of antisemitism in the US was a result of Democratic leadership.Trump has previously said he had hoped to hold a rally at Madison Square Garden, home to sports teams such as the New York Knicks and the Rangers, and the most prestigious rock venue in the country.“We’re going to be doing a rally at Madison Square Garden, we believe,” Trump said in April. “We think we’re signing Madison Square Garden to do. We’re going to have a big rally honoring the police, and honoring the firemen, and everybody. Honoring a lot of people, including teachers by the way.”The dispute over a Trump rally at the venue comes as Democrats have broadly toned down their comparisons between Trump’s “Make America Great Again” movement and Nazi ideology.In May, Joe Biden accused Trump of using “Hitler’s language” in May after the former president temporarily shared a video referencing a “unified reich” to Truth Social.The Trump campaign press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, said comments by Hoylman-Sigal “is the same type of dangerous rhetoric that led to two assassination attempts on President Trump’s life and has divided our country” and called on the senator to resign.The Republican state senate candidate Vito LaBella said on X that Hoylman-Sigal’s comments would alienate voters. “All polls show about half this country supporting this man. It’s OK that you hate Trump. You just called 150 million voters Nazies [sic]. Shame on you.” More

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      Former aide to Eric Adams arrested on charges of witness tampering

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      A former aide to Eric Adams was arrested Tuesday on charges of witness tampering and destroying evidence in relation to a federal investigation that has spawned FBI raids, a string of resignations and bribery charges brought against the New York mayor.Mohamed Bahi, who ran the mayor’s community affairs office, had already stepped down when he was charged on Tuesday with instructing multiple witnesses to lie to federal investigators about a December 2020 fundraiser for Adams’ victorious mayoral election campaign.Federal prosecutors in New York allege that Bahi, 40, deleted Signal, an encrypted messaging app that he used to communicate with the mayor from his phone, when he realized the FBI was on his trail.“The charges unsealed today should leave no doubt about the seriousness of any effort to interfere with a federal investigation, particularly when undertaken by a government employee,” Damian Williams, US district attorney for the southern district of New York, said in a statement.At least three federal corruption investigations are focused on Adams and his aides. Prosecutors charged the mayor in September with five counts of public corruption, including bribery and violating campaign finance laws.Adams has pleaded not guilty to the charges and has petitioned the court to drop the bribery count.“I am going to serve my term and run for the election,” Adams said Tuesday, adding: “I think when both sides of this come out, people are going to have a second look at this entire event that’s taking place.”The ongoing raids and resignations, including that of his chief legal adviser, have raised questions about Adams’ ability to simultaneously lead the city, run for re-election and defend himself from the allegations.The New York governor, Kathy Hochul, the only elected official with the power to remove Adams from office, has not called for him to step down. If he did, the city would be run by Jumaane Williams – a progressive Democrat who serves as public advocate for the city – until elections are held.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionBut with tight congressional elections in the suburbs of New York City on 5 November, and Hochul facing her own re-election in 2026, it is not believed that the governor is willing to risk political discord by removing Adams as mayor.Hochul has reportedly told Adams to clean house and to work to regain the trust of New Yorkers. “I’ve talked to the mayor about what my expectations are, and I don’t give out details of private conversations,” Hochul said recently. More