Zohran Mamdani

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      Mamdani, Cuomo and Sliwa fling zingers in New York mayoral debate as they try to win over voters

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      New York City’s three mayoral contenders had a fiery debate on Wednesday night in their final televised face-off less than two weeks before voters decide the city’s next leader on 4 November.Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani, independent Andrew Cuomo and Republican Curtis Sliwa participated in a tense and often chaotic discussion. The current mayor, Eric Adams, who dropped out of the race weeks earlier, once again did not attend.“It’s us versus them,” Sliwa declared in his opening remarks, grouping Cuomo and Mamdani together despite their mutual disapproval of one another.Mamdani opened by accusing both rivals of focusing more on urging each other to drop out than on offering new ideas. The former governor’s allies have urged Sliwa to withdraw to consolidate anti-Mamdani votes, though it is unclear how many conservatives would back Cuomo.Cuomo claimed Mamdani “has no new ideas” and merely rehashed ideas from former mayor Bill de Blasio, prompting Mamdani to fire back: “I have plans for our future, my opponents only have fear.”Beginning with the topic of ICE raids in New York, Cuomo said federal immigration agents should not focus on quality-of-life offenses like street vending, calling those a police matter. He added he would have personally called Donald Trump to rein in ICE.Sliwa countered that, unlike Cuomo and Mamdani, he would “negotiate with Donald Trump and try to get the best deal possible”. Mamdani hit back, calling Cuomo “Donald Trump’s puppet”.The two then sparred over which candidate Trump preferred. Cuomo claimed Trump wanted Mamdani elected so he could “come in and take over the city”, calling the progressive “Trump’s dream”.The debate later turned to the city’s record 150,000 homeless students. Mamdani spoke about plans to double a program pairing shelter families with city workers for regular check-ins. Cuomo said the “homeless rate has more than doubled” since he left office, without clarifying his figures.Sliwa quipped, “You didn’t leave. You fled from being impeached,” earning one of the night’s loudest rounds of applause.On housing, Mamdani said he would “freeze the rent” but also help landlords. Cuomo defended past rent hikes as needed and insisted Mamdani could not freeze rents because he doesn’t control the city’s rent guidelines board.“If you want a candidate for mayor who tells you everything he can’t do, then Andrew Cuomo is your choice,” Mamdani replied, clarifying that the mayor appoints board members.When the “City of Yes” zoning reforms came up, Sliwa opposed them while Cuomo and Mamdani voiced conditional support. Pressed further, Mamdani said: “I have not yet taken a position on those ballot amendments.”Questions about Mamdani’s support for Jewish New Yorkers dominated the middle portion of the debate. Cuomo cited a letter from 650 rabbis claiming Mamdani threatened “the safety and dignity of Jews in every city”. He accused the Muslim candidate of helping “stoke the flames of hatred against Jewish people”.Sliwa went further, alleging Mamdani supports “global jihad”. Mamdani replied, “I have never, not once, spoken in support of global jihad,” and suggested this attack was being fabricated because he was the first Muslim on the verge of leading the city.He added that he would ensure the safety of Jewish children and expand a new public-school curriculum on Jewish history “so that children in this city learn about the beauty and the breadth of the Jewish experience”.All three candidates said they would retain Jessica Tisch, the city’s police commissioner.Things heated up even more between Cuomo and Mamdani nearly halfway through the debate after the latter was questioned on being evasive or unclear on his ideology.Mamdani initially said: “When it comes to our schools, I believe that every single child should have an excellent public education.” He then mentioned public school funding and a need for greater literacy levels, but did not further explain his plan for overhauling schooling in New York City. He switched gears and called out Cuomo specifically for taking so long during his tenure as governor to establish more housing.Cuomo immediately fired back to note that the governor doesn’t build housing, prompting Mamdani to interject: “Not if it’s you!”Things quickly escalated as the men talked over each other with increasingly louder comebacks. Cuomo, again, mentioned Mamdani’s inexperience while Mamdani took aim at Cuomo for his shortcomings as governor.“You don’t know how to run a government and you don’t know how to handle an emergency,” Cuomo said to Mamdani at one point.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionAfter being told by moderators to keep order, Sliwa weighed in and said his fellow candidates were “fighting like kids in the school yard”. Of Mamdani, Sliwa said, “Your résumé could fit on a cocktail napkin,” while of Cuomo he said, “Your failures could fill a public school library.”One moderator, Errol Louis, had to remind the candidates that “they know how this works”, warning them against talking over one another.Sliwa described his son’s experience with gang violence and said the perpetrators got only “a pat on the wrist” under juvenile law. Later, amid a discussion of psychiatric hospital capacity, Cuomo jibed that he’d “save one for Sliwa”.When asked whether they would accept a potential Eric Adams endorsement, Cuomo said yes while Mamdani and Sliwa said no.“Absolutely not – put that crook in jail!” said Sliwa.During candidate questioning, Mamdani confronted Cuomo about harassment allegations against the former governor, noting accuser Charlotte Bennett was in the audience: “What do you say to the 13 women who you sexually harassed?”Cuomo dismissed this, saying Mamdani was not “mature” and that the cases were dropped, though litigation is still ongoing.During the debate, one of Cuomo’s accusers – Lindsey Boylan – called out Cuomo on X and celebrated Mamdani for mentioning the allegations.“I am one of these women. I have been legally abused by Andrew Cuomo for years after being harassed as his staffer. Now he wants to be mayor. Shame on you Cuomo and thank you ⁦[Mamdani]⁩ for speaking out on this injustice,” she wrote.Speaking about Rikers Island, Sliwa and Cuomo opposed the mandated 2027 closure while Mamdani supported it, calling the jail a “stain on the history” of New York. Cuomo warned its closure would “release 7,000 criminals into New York City”. Mamdani said Adams has made it “nearly impossible” to meet the deadline but pledged to try.The exchange devolved again into bickering. Cuomo touted infrastructure projects such as the Second Avenue Subway and the Mario Cuomo Bridge to highlight his experience. Mamdani retorted: “You will hear from Andrew Cuomo about his experience as if we don’t know about it. We experienced your experience! The issue is your experience!”Discussing wages, Mamdani said New York was becoming “a museum of where working-class people used to be able to live”, proposing to phase in a $30 minimum wage.“Zohran Mamdani deals with fantasies, not reality,” Sliwa replied.The candidates also clashed over Mamdani’s plan for universal free buses. Cuomo said it would “subsidize the rich”.In a contentious debate full of quarrels and zingers, the night ended rather predictably, with all three mayoral candidates declining to name a candidate that they would like to see run for president in 2028.Election day for the New York City mayoral race is Tuesday, 4 November. Early voting begins on 25 October and runs through 2 November. More

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      Experience, integrity and Trump: key takeaways from New York’s mayoral debate

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      Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic nominee and current frontrunner for New York City mayor, faced off with Andrew Cuomo, the former New York governor now running as an independent, and Curtis Sliwa, the Republican candidate, at the first New York mayoral election debate on Thursday night.Here are some key takeaways from the evening.1. Trump’s threats to New York City loomed largeThe Republican president’s threats to New York City dominated plenty of conversation during the debate.In response to the first question, which asked candidates to provide a headline on their legacy as mayor, Mamdani answered: “Mamdani continues to take on Trump, delivers on affordability.”All three candidates agreed they would not support Trump sending the national guard to the city. Mamdani repeated his assertions that he is the best candidate to “stand up to Donald Trump and actually deliver”, while Cuomo argued that Trump would try to take over the city and become “Mayor Trump” if Mamdani wins. Sliwa suggested it was better not to be “tough” with the president or risk goading him.Mamdani forcefully criticized Trump’s deportation efforts, but echoed his opponents by saying he would work with the president if elected. All three candidates were asked about the last time they spoke with Trump. Sliwa said that the last time spoke with Trump was “many years ago” when he was “praising him for saving the annual Veterans Day parade”. Mamdani said that he had never spoken with Trump, while Cuomo said that he believed he had spoken to him after the assassination attempt on the then presidential candidate last year. However, in August, the New York Times reported that Trump had recently spoken directly with Cuomo about the mayor’s race. On the debate stage on Thursday, Cuomo denied the report. 2. Two main weaknesses were under fire: Cuomo’s character and Mamdani’s inexperienceCuomo started the night by attacking Mamdani, calling him too unqualified and inexperienced to lead New York City.“This is no job for on-the-job training,” Cuomo said. “If you look at the failed mayors, they’re ones that have no management experience.”Mamdani, the 33-year-old state assembly member from Queens who is a self-described democratic socialist, pushed back on Cuomo and cited his years in the New York state assembly as well as his lived experience in New York City. Mamdani touted himself as “someone who has actually paid rent in the city” and “who has had to wait for a bus that never came, someone who actually buys his groceries in this city”.Cuomo shot back: “What the assemblyman said is he has no experience.”Mamdani fired back: “What I don’t have in experience, I make up for in integrity, and what you don’t have in integrity, you could never make up for in experience.”3. Tensions rose around Israel and the ceasefire in Gaza The candidates sparred over Israel and Gaza, with Mamdani once again facing questions about his past remarks on Israel. Cuomo tried to demand Mamdani denounce Hamas, prompting Mamdani to say: “Of course I believe that [Hamas] should lay down their arms … All parties have to cease fire and put down their weapons.”Mamdani also said that since the primary, he’s learned through conversations with Jewish New Yorkers more about antisemitism and how the phrase “globalize the intifada” could be hurtful.Cuomo repeated his usual attack lines on Mamdani, suggesting he was a danger to Jewish New Yorkers while Mamdani called out Cuomo for failing to visit mosques.After Cuomo was previously lambasted for being unable to name a mosque he visited as governor, Mamdani noted that the former governor had visited a single one and said on Thursday: “It took Andrew Cuomo being beaten by a Muslim candidate [in the primary] to set foot in a mosque.”4. Sliwa attempted to stand out, sans red beretSliwa, the Republican nominee and founder of the Guardian Angels, spent much of the night taking shots at both Mamdani and Cuomo. He dismissed Mamdani’s plans and ideas as “fantasies”, mocked Cuomo for losing the Democratic primary and went after the former governor over allegations of sexual harassment.Positioning himself as an outsider, Sliwa tried to distance himself from the political establishment.“Thank God I’m not a professional politician, because they have helped create this crime crisis in the city that we face,” he said at one point. When Cuomo argued that he was the only candidate on stage who could handle Trump, Sliwa responded: “You think you’re the toughest guy alive. You lost your own primary.”In another fiery moment from Sliwa during a discussion on policing, Sliwa said to Cuomo of his father: “I knew Mario Cuomo. You are no Mario Cuomo, Andrew Cuomo.”5. Mamdani evades having to endorse Kathy Hochul When the three candidates were asked if they supported the re-election campaign of New York’s Democratic governor, Kathy Hochul, none of them raised their hands.Mamdani’s response was notable, as the governor has publicly endorsed him for mayor. “I’m focusing on November, and I appreciate her support, and I appreciate her work,” the Democratic nominee said.  More

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      Mamdani, Cuomo and Sliwa spar in New York mayoral debate

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      New York City’s three mayoral candidates faced off on Thursday night in the first of two televised debates, less than three weeks before voters head to the polls.On stage were Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani, former governor Andrew Cuomo – now running as an independent after losing the Democratic primary to Mamdani in June – and Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa. Mayor Eric Adams, who dropped out of the race several weeks ago, did not participate.During the two-hour-long debate, the candidates clashed over a variety of local and national issues, including crime, policing, affordability, housing and transportation, as well as how they would handle the Trump administration and the recent Gaza ceasefire deal.Mamdani and Cuomo, the race frontrunners, wasted no time and began sparring – with Sliwa between them – almost immediately.Cuomo is notably attempting a political comeback after resigning as governor of New York in 2021 in the wake of multiple allegations of sexual harassment. He started the night echoing his performance in the primary debates, painting Mamdani as too unqualified and inexperienced to lead the city.“This is no job for on-the-job training,” Cuomo said. “If you look at the failed mayors, they’re ones that have no management experience.”Mamdani, the 33-year-old state assemblyman from Queens and self-described democratic socialist, pushed back on Cuomo by citing his five years in the New York state assembly and his lived experience in New York City. He touted himself as “someone who has actually paid rent in the city” and “who has had to wait for a bus that never came, someone who actually buys his groceries in this city”.Cuomo shot back: “What the assemblyman said is he has no experience.”Mamdani fired back: “What I don’t have in experience, I make up for in integrity, and what you don’t have in integrity, you could never make up for in experience.”View image in fullscreenAt one point, Cuomo was pressed on the allegations that preceded his resignation and his handling of nursing home deaths during the Covid-19 pandemic. He was asked why voters should trust that he has the “character to be mayor”.Cuomo defended his record and denied the allegations, saying “none of that came to anything”.Throughout the night, Sliwa, the Republican nominee and founder of the Guardian Angels, took shots at both candidates, describing Mamdani’s plans as “fantasies” and mocking Cuomo for losing the Democratic primary. He also went after the former governor on the allegations of sexual harassment.Donald Trump was a major specter during the debate’s first hour, with each candidate addressing some of his policies and how they would engage with his administration if elected.Mamdani said he’d be willing to work with Trump “if it means delivering on lowering the cost of living for New Yorkers”, but warned that “if he ever wants to come for New Yorkers in the way that he has been, he’s going to have to get through me as the next mayor of this city”.Cuomo said he’d work with Trump but that he would fight the president if he tries to “hurt New York”, while Sliwa said he would “sit and negotiate” with him.“You can be tough, but you can’t be tough if it’s going to cost people desperately needed federal funds,” Sliwa said.All three candidates agreed that Trump should not send national guard troops to New York City.Sliwa pushed back when Cuomo suggested that he was the only candidate who could handle Trump: “You think you’re the toughest guy alive. You lost your own primary.”The recent ceasefire deal in Gaza was also addressed on the debate stage. Mamdani, who has been critical of the Israeli government and vocal about Palestinian rights, was asked about his views on Hamas.“Of course I believe that they should lay down their arms” he said. “A ceasefire means ceasing fire. That means all parties have to cease fire and put down their weapons, and the reason that we call for that is not only for the end of the genocide, but also an unimpeded access of humanitarian aid.”Cuomo went after Mamdani and claimed the latter was refusing to “denounce Hamas” and that he was speaking in “code” with his answer. Mamdani pushed back, calling Cuomo the Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s “legal defense team during the course of this genocide”.Mamdani also said that in talking to Jewish New Yorkers, he was discouraged from using the phrase “globalize the intifada”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“What I’m looking to do as the first Muslim mayor of this city is to ensure that we bring every New Yorker together – Jewish New Yorkers, Muslim New Yorkers, every single person that calls the city home. They understand they won’t just be protected, but they will belong,” he said, prompting Cuomo to call Mamdani “a divisive personality across the board”.Both Sliwa and Cuomo praised the Trump administration for its role in for brokering of the ceasefire deal, which many have said directly mirrored the deal Biden brokered during his administration.View image in fullscreenMamdani was also asked about past comments he made on social media, including comments he made in 2020 about the New York police department during the nationwide protests against police brutality sparked by the killing of George Floyd. Mamdani called the department “racist” and demanded the defunding of the the police in social media posts.Earlier this week, Mamdani appeared on Fox News and apologized to the police department for those remarks. He added that he has also apologized to officers in private meetings.On Thursday, Mamdani said that despite his previous calls for defunding the police, he no longer believed that should happen, and that he is “looking to work with police officers not to defund the NYPD, looking to ensure that officers can actually do one job when they’re signing up to join that department”.Mamdani touted his plan to create a department of community safety that would send dedicated mental health teams to handle relevant 911 calls.Cuomo pledged to hire 5,000 more officers and assign 1,500 of them to the subways, raise starting salaries, and “work on the relationship between the community and the police”.Sliwa called for hiring 7,000 officers and reinstating qualified immunity to officers.On mass transit, Mamdani described his plans for “fast and free” buses while Cuomo claimed such a program would be subsidized by wealthy bus riders and the buses would effectively become mobile homeless shelters.When the issue of affordability came up, and candidates were asked how much they spend per week on groceries. Cuomo said about $150, Sliwa said about $175 and Mamdani said about $125.Mamdani, who has made affordability the focus of his campaign, reiterated some of his longstanding pledges to increase taxes on the wealthiest New Yorkers, freeze rent increases on rent-stabilized apartments and build more housing.He also called out Cuomo for not addressing a pressing issue for most of the debate. “I just have to say it’s been an hour and 20 minutes of this debate, and we haven’t heard Governor Cuomo say the word ‘affordability’. That’s why he lost the primary,” Mamdani said.A poll released last week showed Mamdani leading, with 46% of likely voters supporting him, followed by Cuomo, at 33%, and Sliwa, at 15%.The final mayoral debate is scheduled for Wednesday 22 October.Election day is Tuesday 4 November. Early voting begins on 25 October and runs through 2 November. More

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      ‘He may be watching’: Mamdani on Fox News speaks directly to Trump

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      Zohran Mamdani, the leading candidate to be the next mayor of New York, stepped into the lion’s den on Wednesday when he sat for an interview with Fox News, the rightwing news organization that has spent weeks demonizing him and his democratic socialist goals.Speaking to host Martha MacCallum, Mamdani was asked about funding for his proposals, which include freezing increases on rent-stabilized apartments, providing free buses and offering free childcare – and whether other services would be cut to achieve those goals.“I don’t think we have to cut,” Mamdani said. “I’ve spoken about raising taxes on the wealthiest. And, frankly, this is an issue that we have here in New York City, and, frankly, even across this country.”Mamdani said he had spoken to people who voted for Donald Trump in New York who told him it was the “cost of living” that “drove them to vote” for the president.Mamdani said that, despite that, “what we’re seeing time and time again is we’re more focused on the question of billionaires and the most profitable corporations than we are on people who can’t even afford to make ends meet in the city”.Following his surprise victory over Andrew Cuomo in the Democratic primary, Mamdani has for months led the polls to be New York’s next mayor. A survey released by Quinnipiac last week showed Mamdani winning 46% of the vote to the former New York governor’s 33%. The Republican candidate, Curtis Sliwa, was at 22%.That rise has brought attention from outlets such as Fox News, which has closely covered Mamdani, sometimes publishing multiple news stories on him a day. Jesse Watters, the network’s primetime host, has been a frequent critic, describing Mamdani as a “communist”, which he is not, and calling him “Kamala Harris with a beard”, while Sean Hannity suggested that the rise of Mamdani, who is Muslim, is evidence that “an extremism is taking root right before your very eyes”.In an interview that rehashed several rightwing critiques of Mamdani, MacCallum suggested he may lack the qualifications for the role. “President Trump said that you never worked a day in your life,” MacCallum told Mamdani, before asking what qualifies him to run the city.In response, Mamdani spoke directly into the camera, alluding to how the outgoing mayor, Eric Adams, bowed to pressure from the Trump administration to cooperate on immigration crackdowns – before the Trump-led justice department dropped a federal corruption case against him.“I want to take this moment, because you spoke about President Trump, and he may be watching right now, and I just want to speak directly to the president,” Mamdani said.“I will not be a mayor like Mayor [Eric] Adams, who will call you to figure out how to stay out of jail. I won’t be a disgraced governor like Andrew Cuomo, who will call you to ask how to win this election. I can do those things on my own. I will, however, be a mayor who is ready to speak at any time to lower the cost of living.“That’s the way that I’m going to lead this city. That’s the partnership I want to build, not only with Washington DC, but [with] anyone across this country.”The interview came as Mamdani prepared for a debate with Cuomo and Sliwa on Thursday night. Adams suspended his re-election campaign in late September.Cuomo, who has centered his campaign on reducing crime, will likely seek to contrast his decades of experience in politics with Mamdani’s newcomer status. The former governor, who resigned in 2021 after he was accused of sexual harassment by multiple women, has run numerous ads attacking Mamdani.The issue of the Israel-Hamas peace deal is likely to come up, given Cuomo’s strong support for Israel and Mamdani’s opposing stance. Mamdani has criticized Israel’s war in Gaza and called the bombing of the territory a “genocide”. Mamdani was asked questions about the region on Wednesday, including whether he would give credit to Trump for the fledgling deal.Mamdani, stressing that his focus would be on New York rather than international politics, said he was thankful for the ceasefire, adding: “I have hope that it will actually endure and that it will be lasting.”“I think it’s too early to [give credit],” Mamdani said. “But if it proves to be something that is lasting, something that is durable, then I think that that’s where you give credit.” More

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      Republican in New York’s mayor race: eccentric street vigilante who could secure Mamdani’s win

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      With less than a month to go, the race to be New York City’s mayor is continuing to fascinate and bemuse: and in an election that could have political ramifications across the country, it’s a beret-wearing, cat-loving vigilante who seems like he could have the final say.Curtis Sliwa, the founder of the crime-fighting group the Guardian Angels and the Republican candidate to run the largest US city, has little chance of winning the election in November. But his presence may be the thing that helps confirm Zohran Mamdani, the 33-year-old democratic socialist, as New York’s next mayor.Polling shows Mamdani, who was little known a year ago but has arguably become one the most talked-about politicians in the country, leading Andrew Cuomo, the former Democratic governor running as an independent, by as much as 20 points. With Sliwa attracting up to 18% of the vote, an emerging theory popular among some of Cuomo’s wealthy backers is that Sliwa should drop out, allowing his voters to flock to their man.There’s just one problem. The 71-year-old isn’t going anywhere.“Curtis Sliwa never dropped out of anything in his life,” Sliwa told the Wall Street Journal, the Rupert Murdoch-owned, rightwing newspaper that has made it pretty clear it wants Cuomo to triumph, last week.Asked by others if he will exit the race, Sliwa has offered more visceral rebuttals.“A Mack truck hits me and I get turned into a speed bump, and they can’t recover me in the ICU. That’s the only way,” Sliwa said in an interview with amNewYork.It is an attitude that comes as no surprise to anyone who has followed Sliwa’s decades in public life. His role with the Guardian Angels – Sliwa wears the group’s distinctive red beret almost permanently – led to him being shot several times in 1992 after he criticized a mafia boss, and he stubbornly stayed in the mayoral race in 2021, winning 30% of the vote.Sliwa has never faced the pressure he has now come under, however, with Donald Trump and billionaire mega-donors calling for him to quit. According to Sliwa, some of the pressure has been of an illegal nature, with wealthy figures connected to Cuomo offering him money to drop out.View image in fullscreen“They all think that everybody has a price, that’s the way they talk. ‘Come on Curtis, everybody has a price,’” Sliwa told reporters recently. “Curtis Sliwa doesn’t have a price. I came into this world with nothing, I’m going to leave with nothing, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.”Sliwa has avoided naming names but insists he has been offered “bribes”.“Seven different people, a total of $10m when you bifurcate it out over the years,” he told Fox5 New York.“Car, Jeep, chauffeur, headquarters to operate out of, helping the Guardian Angels, helping animal welfare – and you know something? If you’re watching out there, you can’t bribe me, buy me, lease me: I’m not for sale.”Sliwa accompanied his words with a chin-flicking gesture, which the New York Post translated as meaning “fuck outta here”. Cuomo’s campaign denied the claims and pointed to Sliwa’s track record with the truth, which has, at times, been patchy: in the 1990s Sliwa admitted he had faked some of the Guardian Angels’ crime-fighting exploits.That hasn’t stopped Sliwa from talking about the alleged bribes – and last week he began campaigning with a private security detail after he said he had received “very credible” threats against him and his wife.Whether Sliwa’s claims are true or not, the pressure on him to quit is undeniable.John Catsimatidis, the billionaire Republican mega-donor and a close friend of Sliwa’s, recently said he should drop out “if he reaches a point that he feels that he’s not turning it around”. In a separate statement last week, Catsimatidis said: “In two weeks from now, if he hasn’t shown any progress, how did Sgt Schultz say it? Machine kaput!”Joe Lhota, who was deputy mayor under Republican Rudy Giuliani, endorsed Cuomo, describing Sliwa as a “fruit loop” to the New York Post. Anthony Carbonetti, Giuliani’s former chief of staff, was more diplomatic, but said “the numbers aren’t there for him to win”. Bill Ackman, the billionaire who backed Trump in 2024, called out Sliwa directly on social media on Thursday.View image in fullscreen“A vote for Curtis Sliwa is a vote for Zohran Mamdani. Curtis Sliwa, it is time for you to leave the race,” Ackman wrote. “Every day you wait to leave the race reduces the probability of stopping Mamdani. I know you don’t want to hand the City to him.”Sliwa has responded to the attempts at coercion as one might expect.“I believe the people have a right to vote and determine who the next mayor is,” the Guardian Angels founder added. “They don’t get picked by billionaires or the professional political class. That’s not how our elections work.”Ackman claimed in his social media post that Cuomo could beat Mamdani in a “one-on-one election”. But it’s not a given that Sliwa’s Republican voters would automatically flock to Cuomo, who has criticized Trump and resigned as New York governor under a cloud after being accused of sexual harassment by multiple women. Head-to-head matchups show Mamdani comfortably beating Cuomo in November.Still, national Republicans want Sliwa gone. Asked about his fellow Republican in an interview with Fox and Friends, Trump described Sliwa as “not exactly prime-time”.In a typically chaotic answer, Trump said Sliwa “wants cats to be in Gracie Mansion”, referring to the mayor’s official residence.“The magnificent home of the mayor, it’s beautiful. Gracie Mansion, to me, is like a fabled place if you’re in New York. No, we don’t need to have thousands of cats living in it,” Trump said.Sliwa has not said he wants thousands of cats living in the Gracie Mansion, although he has suggested using some of the 11 acres the building sits in to house sheltered cats and dogs that would otherwise be put down. Cats hold a particular place in Sliwa’s heart – he and his wife, Nancy, have rescued and fostered hundreds of cats. When the Guardian visited the couple’s studio apartment in 2021 they were sharing the tiny space with no less than 16 cats.Given New York is an overwhelmingly Democratic city, Sliwa is very unlikely to see his Gracie Mansion plans come to fruition. But his willingness to defy the billionaires, and the president, could see him have a big impact on the identity of the mansion’s next resident. More

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      The populist playbook: Democratic US Senate candidate seeks to replicate Mamdani’s success

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      During Vermont senator Bernie Sanders’s Fight the Oligarchy tour stop in Michigan, Democratic US Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed hit on bold populist policies like Medicare For All and taxing the rich.But he drew among the loudest cheers from the crowd in Kalamazoo, when he bellowed his updated reversal of an Obama catchphrase that signified a new pugilistic tactic when dealing with Maga attacks. “When they go low, we don’t go high. We take them to the mud and choke them out,” he said.El-Sayed’s fiery speech and his populist campaign in Michigan’s Democratic primary for the Senate race comes on the heels of Zohran Mamdani’s stunning June win in New York City’s mayoral primary, which has generated momentum on the left-wing of the party.The Sanders-endorsed, anti-establishment El-Sayed, 40, follows a similar blueprint as Mamdani, and Michigan in some ways offers favorable terrain for the leftwing populist playbook. But at the same time a repeat of Mamdani’s success in the more conservative, upper midwest swing state is far from certain, and the race is viewed as a possible bellwether on leftists’ electability in statewide campaigns across the US.“This is a time when that call for new politics is resonating beyond the places one would expect it to resonate, like in the far reaches of Michigan’s rural communities,” said Yousef Rabhi, a former Michigan House Democratic floor leader who has endorsed El-Sayed. “Abdul and Mamdani are speaking to this moment.”Like Mamdani, El-Sayed eschews partisanship in favor of leftwing populist economic ideas, sharply criticizes Israel, and leans heavily on a sense of authenticity. In New York City, that formula resonated with younger people, activated disaffected voters and attracted support for Mamdani from across the political spectrum. Mamdani remains strongly ahead in the New York mayoral raceUsing that style in Michigan is a break from the moderate Democratic politics that for decades have dominated in the state, and which defeated El-Sayed in 2018 when he lost to now governor Gretchen Whitmer in a gubernatorial Democratic primary.But since then, El-Sayed has run health departments in Detroit and Wayne county, and touts accomplishments like helping to eliminate $700m in medical debt for local residents.The economic playing field has also shifted since 2018, and El-Sayed thinks his message is more likely to resonate now than seven years ago. “People now understand Donald Trump was not the cause, but the symptom,” he said during an interview with the Guardian at a Detroit coffee shop.Moreover, Democratic voters’ frustration with the party is near all time highs, and the left believes there is appetite for outsider candidates, populist economics and criticism of Israel’s war in Gaza. It has boosted El-Sayed, especially in a state that’s home to the uncommitted movement and large Arab-American and Muslim populations.But there are some crucial differences between El-Sayed’s and Mamdani’s races.El-Sayed’s opponents are not damaged like Mamdani’s main competitors, mayor Eric Adams and former New York governor Andrew Cuomo. In the August 2026 primary election, El-Sayed faces US congresswoman Haley Stevens, and state senator Mallory McMorrow. The latter is similarly young and critical of party leadership, and has styled herself as an outsider. But McMorrow largely shares the establishment’s economic policy positions and brought on political insiders, like controversial former Cuomo consultant Lis Smith.Educated, middle-class voters who wanted to vote for an outsider were key to Mamdani’s win. El-Sayed also needs those votes, but they may be split among him and McMorrow, even if the two candidates have substantially different policies and El-Sayed is more truly an outsider, said Josh Cohen, a progressive political analyst who writes the Ettingermentum newsletter.“The race is not the ideal feel and circumstance in the way that New York was for Mamdani,” Cohen said. An El-Sayed win would suggest voters are concerned with policy, he added. “It would be a very meaningful sign that people’s desire for a shift isn’t superficial.”Another key difference between McMorrow and El-Sayed lies in Israel policy. El-Sayed calls for an end to “blank check” military aid to Israel and other countries, and uses the term “genocide”. McMorrow, by contrast, has tried to walk a tightrope, calling for humanitarian relief while not using the term “genocide” until October.El-Sayed’s populist economic proposals include a ban on tax incentives for companies like Amazon, new taxes for billionaires, the elimination of medical debt and a strengthening of anti-monopoly laws to address corporate price gouging.Though those are leftist ideas, El-Sayed said he avoids the “left-right” label, which might help thread a needle in places like the rural, conservative upper peninsula. Financial pain and its cause are the same everywhere, El-Sayed added, so his focus is on the economic divide, not the cultural or political one.“It’s the divide between the people who have been locked out and those doing the locking out,” he said. He added that his solutions have broad appeal no matter what they are labeled, and that explains why some Trump voters surprisingly show up for “a guy named Abdul”.“They didn’t vote for Donald Trump out of a sense of hate for Muslims. They voted for him because of a sense of frustration with the way the system has locked them out,” El-Sayed said. Indeed, the Trump-to-Mamdani voter was a key piece of the story in New York City.But Mamdani also had built-in help from politically aligned groups who in recent years laid dow campaign and issue infrastructure that was key to his win. No such infrastructure to push these ideas exists in Michigan.Even if El-Sayed wins the primary, Republicans will try to make the general election about social wedge issues instead of economics, said Jared Abbott, a political scientist and director of the Center for Working Class Politics.Mamdani and El-Sayed have so far been “very disciplined” in focusing on the “working class’s bread and butter economic issues”, Abbott added, and that would be essential to his overcoming GOP general election attacks.A win in the general could have an outsize impact on national politics – just as the Squad members’ 2018 midterm wins reverberated into the presidential primary and Biden’s domestic policy, El-Sayed’s election in a swing state could help pull the 2028 presidential race and next president to the left.“It would be a massive proof of concept that progressives do not [currently] have,” Abbott said. More

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      If a four-year-old can pronounce a name correctly, so can a politician | Arwa Mahdawi

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      Zohran Mamdani, the democratic socialist who is likely to be New York City’s next mayor, became a household name this year – but that doesn’t mean Andrew Cuomo knows how to pronounce it. The disgraced former New York governor, who is running as an independent candidate against Mamdani in the mayoral election next month, has repeatedly mispronounced “Mamdani”, even causing Zohran to spell it out for him during a debate in June. And Cuomo isn’t alone: Kathy Hochul, the current governor of New York, has also butchered Mamdani’s name, and White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt has called the politician “Zimdami”.I’ve mispronounced plenty of people’s names; struggling with an unfamiliar word is perfectly understandable. During a recent chat with Zeteo founder Mehdi Hasan, Mamdani said as much himself, noting he isn’t bothered if someone initially gets his name wrong. “What’s inexcusable, however, is the repeated intentional mispronunciation,” Mamdani stressed. More importantly, he said, his experience is far from unique: “This is the experience of so many … There are so many of us who are seen as if we are forever others.”Kamala Harris, who gave Mamdani a half-hearted endorsement last month, would certainly know what he means. Conservatives have long taken great pleasure in othering the former vice-president. “Kamala? Kamala? Kamala-mala-mala? I don’t know. Whatever,” David Perdue, who was then a Republican senator, said during a campaign rally in 2020. Perdue is now Trump’s ambassador to China, a job he’s clearly earned through diplomacy and respect for other cultures.Of course, Trump himself repeatedly mispronounced “Kamala” while running against her. Although, to be fair, he does have trouble getting his mouth to work properly and has botched basic words like “origins” (oranges in Trumpspeak) and “suspected”. Still, hard to give Trump the benefit of the doubt when, at a campaign rally last July, he said: “I couldn’t care less if I mispronounce [Kamala], I couldn’t care less.”As someone with a “difficult” name, I’ve met plenty of Trumps in my lifetime. People have no trouble pronouncing names like Tchaikovsky but act as if “Arwa Mahdawi” is beyond them. You know what’s funny, though? None of my four-year-old daughter’s friends have any trouble with it: they call me “Arwa” with zero issue. Pretty sure they could all pronounce Mamdani as well. It’s a sad state of affairs when preschoolers are more respectful than politicians. Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian columnist

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