Jenna Amatulli
After addressing Trump and the war in Gaza, among other topics, New York City-specific issues finally made their way to the forefront of the mayoral debate nearly halfway through.
Candidates were asked about the NYPD, grocery costs, rent prices and how they travel within their home town.
Zohran Mamdani clarified that despite his previous calls for defunding the police, he no longer believed that should happen. He then touted his public safety plan, saying he would work to ensure that police don’t have to respond to mental health crises. Andrew Cuomo lauded the NYPD and declared that they are not racists or anti-queer and not a threat to public safety.
Curtis Sliwa pushed back on Cuomo’s remarks, alleging the former governor was responsible for the release from prison of 43 people convicted of killing police officers. (The claim appears to be a reference to reports that the state parole board in the last eight years had released 43 “cop killers”.)
On grocery costs, all three candidates claimed they spent between $120 and $175 a week.
The conversation then took a hard pivot to rent prices. Cuomo attacked Mamdani for living in a $2300/month rent-stabilized apartment, saying it should be given to a person with lower income. (Notably, rent-stabilized apartments in New York City usually have no income-requirements to inhabit; they are regulated to limit rent increases.)
Mamdani then volunteered his housing plan which includes a proposal to freeze rent for millions of rent-stabilized city residents, building more units and making it easier for the private sector to build housing. Sliwa said he wants to expand rent stabilization while Cuomo discussed his controversial proposal called “Zohran’s law,” which would make it so that many renters would have to spend at least 30% of their income on rent.
Key events
Jenna Amatulli
In an effort to end the New York City mayoral debate with some levity, candidates were asked two questions.
One pertained to their bodega breakfast sandwich orders and another on legalized marijuana.
Sliwa said his order was eggs and cheese on a roll with no salt, which Cuomo echoed, while Mamdani said his was an egg and cheese on a roll with jalapeños.
On marijuana, Mamdani was the sole candidate to admit to purchasing marijuana in a legal shop in New York. Cuomo said he never had, while Sliwa said that he had in fact used medical marijuana after being shot at in 1992.
Jenna Amatulli
The second hour of tonight’s mayoral debate touched on a wide array of the many issues plaguing New York City residents.
On mass transit, Zohran Mamdani described his plans for “fast and free” buses while Andrew Cuomo pushed back to say that such a program would be subsidized by wealthy bus riders and effectively become mobile homeless shelters.
On taxes, Curtis Silwa noted that some of the largest property owners in the city, including Columbia University and New York University, are exempt from paying taxes on their properties because they are nonprofit universities. His proposal includes having those universities pay taxes and eliminating a tax break for Madison Square Garden, which he claims would send $1bn back into the city.
Mamdani stood out as the only one of the three candidates who could adequately identify what regular New Yorkers are actually concerned about. On 311, the city’s non-emergency number, the three men were asked what was the most common complaint. Sliwa said potholes and rats, Cuomo said homelessness and rats and Mamdani said housing and noise. After noise and illegal parking were revealed as the two correct answers, Mamdani pointed out that noise complaints have dropped in the congestion pricing zone and used the moment as an opportunity to mention his free bus plan again.
Jenna Amatulli
After addressing Trump and the war in Gaza, among other topics, New York City-specific issues finally made their way to the forefront of the mayoral debate nearly halfway through.
Candidates were asked about the NYPD, grocery costs, rent prices and how they travel within their home town.
Zohran Mamdani clarified that despite his previous calls for defunding the police, he no longer believed that should happen. He then touted his public safety plan, saying he would work to ensure that police don’t have to respond to mental health crises. Andrew Cuomo lauded the NYPD and declared that they are not racists or anti-queer and not a threat to public safety.
Curtis Sliwa pushed back on Cuomo’s remarks, alleging the former governor was responsible for the release from prison of 43 people convicted of killing police officers. (The claim appears to be a reference to reports that the state parole board in the last eight years had released 43 “cop killers”.)
On grocery costs, all three candidates claimed they spent between $120 and $175 a week.
The conversation then took a hard pivot to rent prices. Cuomo attacked Mamdani for living in a $2300/month rent-stabilized apartment, saying it should be given to a person with lower income. (Notably, rent-stabilized apartments in New York City usually have no income-requirements to inhabit; they are regulated to limit rent increases.)
Mamdani then volunteered his housing plan which includes a proposal to freeze rent for millions of rent-stabilized city residents, building more units and making it easier for the private sector to build housing. Sliwa said he wants to expand rent stabilization while Cuomo discussed his controversial proposal called “Zohran’s law,” which would make it so that many renters would have to spend at least 30% of their income on rent.
New York City mayoral candidates discuss Trump
Jenna Amatulli
Donald Trump was one of the central focuses throughout much of the first 40 minutes of tonight’s New York City mayoral debate.
In response to the first question, which was for candidates to provide a headline on their legacy as mayor, Zohran Mamdani supplied: “Mamdani continues to take on Trump, delivers on affordability.”
Mamdani later criticized Trump’s deportation efforts, but aligned with Andrew Cuomo and Curtis Sliwa on saying he would work with Trump if elected.
The trio also agreed that they would each defend New York should Trump threaten the city. Asked about Trump potentially deploying the national guard to New York, there was mutual agreement that Trump should not do so.
Cuomo argued that he was the only candidate who could handle Trump, prompting Sliwa to say: “You think you’re the toughest guy alive. You lost your own primary.”
Sliwa continued: “You’re gonna stand up to Trump? You, Andrew Cuomo? You lost your own primary and you’re still here because you don’t know the meaning of the word ‘no’.”
Texas governor says he is activating national guard for ‘No Kings’ protests
The Texas governor, Greg Abbott, said Thursday he had directed the Texas National Guard to “deploy all necessary law enforcement officials and resources” to Austin for “No Kings” anti-Trump protests planned for this weekend.
The Republican governor, a staunch ally of the president, said state troopers, special agents, Texas Rangers and national guard soldiers would be “surged” to the Austin area to “maintain law and order”.
The governor’s office called the protest a “planned antifa-linked demonstration”, without providing specific evidence of those links. “Antifa” refers to a decentralized antifascist movement, and while there is no formal “antifa” entity, Trump has labeled it a “domestic terrorist organization”.
New York City mayoral debate begins with Mamdani and Cuomo sparring
Jenna Amatulli
The first of the New York City mayoral debates has kicked off with Andrew Cuomo, Zohran Mamdani and Curtis Sliwa taking their respective podiums.
Sparring between Cuomo and Mamdani, the race’s two frontrunners, took off mere minutes after introductions. Cuomo was quickly questioned and criticized about his various controversies, and his character, while Mamdani was lambasted about his lack of experience.
In reference to the several credible reports that he sexually harassed various women, Cuomo claimed “there was no basis” for the reports. He immediately shifted gears by taking aim at Mamdani, saying: “If you look at the failed mayors, they are ones who have no management experience. Don’t do it again.”
Mamdani went on to accuse Cuomo of sending elderly people “to their deathbeds” during his tenure as New York governor during the Covid pandemic.
“Why would New Yorkers turn back to the governor who sent seniors to their death in nursing homes? What I don’t have in experience, I make up for an integrity. And what you don’t have in integrity, you can never make up for in experience,” Mamdani said to Cuomo.
John Bolton: ‘I have become the latest target’
John Bolton, Trump’s former national security adviser, who was federally indicted on Thursday, has issued a statement, saying he had become the “latest target” in the president’s weaponization of the Department of Justice.
Bolton, who was charged with mishandling and transmitting classified information, said:
For four decades, I have devoted my life to America’s foreign policy and national security. I would never compromise those goals. I tried to do that during my tenure in the first Trump administration but resigned when it became impossible to do so.
Donald Trump’s retribution against me began then, continued when he tried unsuccessfully to block the publication of my book, The Room Where It Happened, before the 2020 election, and became one of his rallying cries in his re-election campaign.
Now, I have become the latest target in weaponizing the Justice Department to charge those he deems to be his enemies with charges that were declined before or distort the facts.
The statement, published by CNN, went on to accuse Trump of an “abuse of power”, saying the president embodied “what Joseph Stalin’s head of secret police once said: ‘You show me the man, and I’ll show you the crime.’”
Trump told reporters on Thursday he was not aware of the charges, but claimed Bolton was a “bad guy”.
Judge orders immigration agents to wear body cameras in Chicago
Alexandra Villarreal
Federal immigration officers in the Chicago area have been ordered by a court to wear body cameras after they repeatedly deployed pepper balls, smoke grenades and tear gas against protesters and local police, seemingly in violation of a federal judge’s ruling from last week.
Sara Ellis, a US district judge, who had previously required immigration agents to wear badges and banned them from using riot-control techniques such as tear gas without warning, railed on Thursday against the Department of Homeland Security’s continued aggressive tactics, many of which have been caught on camera, and which appear to violate her order.
Ellis said:
I live in Chicago if folks haven’t noticed. And I’m not blind, right? … I’m getting images and seeing images on the news, in the paper, reading reports where I’m having concerns about my order being followed.”
Trump blames failure to broker peace in Ukraine on ‘terrible relationship’ between Zelenskyy and Putin
Speaking to reporters at the White House on Thursday, Donald Trump once again shared his belief that international diplomacy is based on personal relationships.
“I’ll be meeting with President Putin,” Trump said of planned talks with the Russian leader in Budapest agreed during a call on Thursday. “Tomorrow I’m meeting with President Zelenskyy and I’ll be telling him about the call.”
“I mean, we have a problem: they don’t get along too well, those two, and it’s sometimes tough to have meetings, so we may do something where we’re separate, but separate but equal,” the president said.
“But this is a terrible relationship the two of them have,” Trump said, referring to the president of one country that launched an unprovoked invasion of its neighbor and the president of the country that was invaded, whose citizens have been massacred and territory occupied.
Hakeem Jeffries, the leader of the Democratic minority in the House, has written to the Republican House speaker Mike Johnson to insist that he swear in Representative-elect Adelita Grijalva, an Arizona Democrat whose signature on a petition would force a vote on releasing files from the federal investigation into Jeffrey Epstein, the late sex offender who socialized with Donald Trump for over a decade.
Jeffries wrote, in part:
I write to demand that you swear in Representative-elect Adelita Grijalva at the pro forma session scheduled to take place on Friday, October 17.
Her election has been officially certified by the state of Arizona. In fact, it was never in question. Yet, for more than three weeks House Republicans have denied the people of Arizona’s seventh district their rightful representation in Congress. The continued refusal to seat Representative-elect Adelita Grijalva for partisan advantage undermines the integrity of this institution.
In April, Republican representatives Jimmy Patronis and Randy Fine were sworn in during a pro forma session less than 24 hours after their election. The decision to seat rightwing Republicans with record speed, while denying a newly elected Democrat the opportunity to serve, is an unacceptable disgrace.
Republican lawmakers and allies spread claims that Soros is funding ‘No Kings’ protests
Shrai Popat
Republican members of Congress have taken to social media in recent days to spread the claim that billionaire George Soros – the billionaire that the GOP have frequently cast as a liberal puppet master – is funding the ‘No Kings’ protests that are taking place across the country.
“There’s considerable evidence that George Soros and his network are funding the “No Kings” rallies,” Republican senator Ted Cruz, of Texas, wrote on X.
The Open Society Foundations, which is Soros’s philanthropic network, has previously donated to Indivisible – one of the progressive organizations behind this weekend’s protests.
Cruz’s colleague in the Senate, Mike Lee, also wrote on social media that “No Kings = King George Soros”.
Organizers say there are an estimated 2,500 demonstrations taking place throughout the US. They also say that this is a “people power funded movement”.
Republican lawmakers have sought to rebrand the mass protests this weekend as a “hate America rally” that will probably turn violent. Those coordinating the demonstrations say that they expect them to entirely peaceful.
Meanwhile, members of Trump’s own cabinet have suggested that politicians on the other side of the aisle have purposefully prolonged the government shutdown attend demonstrations.
“Are Democrats holding our government hostage to hold a ‘No Kings’ protest this weekend? Who is funding it? And which Democrats will participate? These are all questions the American people deserve to have answered,” said transportation secretary Sean Duffy.
Appeals court declines to lift order blocking Trump from deploying national guard troops in Illinois
A federal appeals court on Thursday rejected the Trump administration’s request to lift a lower court’s order that temporarily blocks the deployment of national guard troops in Illinois during its appeal.
The ruling allows a temporary restraining order against the deployment issued by US district judge April Perry in Chicago last week to remain in place.
A three-judge panel of the Chicago-based seventh US circuit court of appeals, made up of judges nominated by George HW Bush, Barack Obama and Donald Trump, concluded that that “the facts do not justify the president’s actions”.
Trump had asserted the power to deploy national guard troops in Illinois after claiming federal immigration enforcement officer had faced violent protests as they attempted to arrest people.
“Immigration arrests and deportations have proceeded apace in Illinois over the past year, and the administration has been proclaiming the success of its current efforts to enforce immigration laws in the Chicago area,” the court said.
The court said there had likely been a violation of Illinois’ constitutional right to sovereignty, made worse by the fact that Texas national guard troops were sent into the state.
The court did pause a portion of Perry’s order that had barred the federalization of Illinois national guard troops, allowing the troops to remain under federal control.
One of the judges on the panel, Ilana Diamond Rovner, 87, previously ruled against Trump’s effort, during his first term to crack down on sanctuary cities. In 2018, Rovner upheld a nationwide injunction against making federal funding contingent on cooperation with immigration enforcement.
Rovner herself arrived in the United States as a refugee during the second world war, when her Jewish family fled Riga in Latvia before the Nazi invasion.
Carter Sherman
The Trump administration announced Thursday that it is urging US employers to create new fertility benefit options to cover in vitro fertilization and other infertility treatments.
In an announcement from the Oval Office, Donald Trump also said his administration had cut a deal with the drug manufacturer EMD Serono to lower the cost of one of its fertility drugs and list the drug on the government website TrumpRx.
Bolton charged with retaining classified information, the crime Trump was indicted for
The justice department says that Donald Trump’s former national security adviser, John Bolton, has been charged with 10 counts of unlawful retention of national defense information and eight counts of transmission of that information.
The indictment alleges that Bolton used personal email and messaging app accounts to send documents classified as high as top secret.
The documents contained intelligence about what the government terms “future attacks, foreign adversaries, and foreign-policy relations”.
The indictment also alleges that Bolton, like Trump after he left office in 2021, kept secret documents in his home. The documents Bolton kept included “intelligence on an adversary’s leaders as well as information revealing sources and collections used to obtain statements on a foreign adversary”, the government alleges.
“Anyone who abuses a position of power and jeopardizes our national security will be held accountable,” Trump’s attorney general, Pam Bondi, said. “No one is above the law.”
When Donald Trump was indicted for the same crime by special counsel Jack Smith in 2023, in an indictment that cited evidence that Trump showed a ghostwriter working for his former chief of staff Mark Meadows “a four-page report” detailing US plans for striking Iran.
According to audio of the conversation obtained by CNN, Trump even acknowledged that the document he showed the writer was “highly confidential, secret information” he could not make public because it was “still a secret”.
John Bolton indicted on charges of mishandling and transmitting classified information
Hugo Lowell
A federal grand jury has indicted John Bolton, the former national security adviser in Donald Trump’s first term, on charges of mishandling and transmitting classified information.
The indictment, filed in Maryland, appears to ultimately have had signoff from career prosecutors in the US attorney’s office there despite initial reluctance to bring a case before the end of the year.
The 18-count indictment against Bolton involves eight counts of unlawfully transmitting national defense information and 10 counts of retaining classified information under the Espionage Act, according to the 26-page indictment.
