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With help from Ami­ra McKee­THE FINAL STRAW? Con­s­truc­tion exe­cu­ti­ve Erden Arkan must not have fri­ends in the Trump admi­nis­tra­ti­on like Mayor Eric Adams does. So while the Depart­ment of Jus­ti­ce moved to dis­miss the mayor’s case, the wheels of jus­ti­ce kept tur­ning for Arkan. The Tur­ki­sh-Ame­ri­can co-owner of KSK Con­s­truc­tion Group was given a light sen­tence of one year pro­ba­ti­on today in Man­hat­tan fede­ral court. He’ll also pay a $9,500 fine and $18,000 in resti­tu­ti­on after plea­ding guil­ty in Janu­ary to giving 10 employees $1,250 each to dona­te to Adams’ cam­paign. But even while accep­ting that he bro­ke New York City cam­paign finan­ce laws, Arkan’s lawy­er Jona­than Rosen pre­sen­ted him as a vic­tim of “an unpre­ce­den­ted act of pro­se­cu­to­ri­al dis­cre­ti­on,” sug­gest­ing that fede­ral pro­se­cu­tors with the Sou­thern Dis­trict of New York wan­ted to sal­va­ge some sort of a win fol­lo­wing the tumult and rounds of resi­gna­ti­ons over the dis­mis­sal of Adams’ case. Rosen also sug­gested Arkan’s case never should have been brought in fede­ral court in the first place, arguing he was “tar­ge­ted… to ser­ve some grea­ter end in a bureau­cra­tic power strugg­le over the Adams case.” While an offi­ci­al from the Tur­ki­sh con­su­la­te hel­ped coor­di­na­te Arkan’s May 2021 fund­rai­sing event for Adams, Rosen said that Arkan “never had any know­ledge of for­eign inter­fe­rence” alle­ged by fede­ral pro­se­cu­tors. He main­tai­ned that neither the Adams cam­paign nor the Tur­ki­sh con­su­la­te knew about Arkan’s straw donor sche­me, which he’d coo­ked up hims­elf. Judge Dale Ho dis­missed the argu­ments. While he con­ce­ded “it is true that the­re is some incon­gru­en­cy bet­ween the government’s hand­ling of Mr. Arkan’s case and Mayor Adams’ case,” he was firm that “the­re is not a shred of evi­dence in the record” indi­ca­ting that the pro­se­cu­tors acted wron­gly pro­se­cu­ting Arkan. Ano­ther rela­ted case hasn’t been resol­ved yet. For­mer Adams aide Moha­med Bahi plea­ded guil­ty Tues­day to hel­ping to orga­ni­ze a sepa­ra­te straw donor sche­me for Adams’ 2021 cam­paign. While Adams hims­elf hasn’t been accu­sed of coor­di­na­ting straw dona­ti­ons, the prac­ti­ce has been a serious pro­blem for his cam­paign. Adams’ old fri­end Dway­ne Mont­go­me­ry plea­ded guil­ty last year along with other co-con­spi­ra­tors to giving Adams ille­gal dona­ti­ons, and THE CITY has repor­ted on num­e­rous examp­les of more appa­rent straw dona­ti­ons to Adams. Rep. Dan Gold­man, a for­mer fede­ral pro­se­cu­tor, told Play­book ear­lier this week that this wasn’t an ide­al out­co­me for Adams’ case. “As a pro­se­cu­tor, I never lik­ed when, ulti­m­ate­ly, the only peo­p­le held accoun­ta­ble for their cri­mes were the lower level peo­p­le,” he said. “But under the cir­cum­s­tances, when you’­ve char­ged someone and there’s a legi­ti­ma­te reason to char­ge that per­son, the right thing to do is to finish off the case.” — Jeff ColtinLET’S ALL GO TO THE (ASSEMBLY) LOBBY: New York movie­goers might soon have an easier time skip­ping the incre­asing­ly leng­thy block of adver­ti­se­ments and trai­lers shown befo­re the film starts, if a bill intro­du­ced this week beco­mes law. Assem­bly­mem­ber Cly­de Vanel wants to requi­re thea­ters to dis­play the time a movie actual­ly starts when pro­mo­ting showings or sel­ling tickets. His pro­po­sal comes as movies incre­asing­ly start as much as half an hour after the adver­ti­sed time. “For the con­su­mer, this can have a real mone­ta­ry and social impact,” he wro­te in his memo accom­pany­ing the bill. “Con­su­mers not only may lea­ve obli­ga­ti­ons ear­lier than they nee­ded to in order to see the moti­on pic­tu­re, but they may also con­su­me their snacks purcha­sed at the thea­ter pri­or to the movie begin­ning.” “The­re is no jus­ti­fi­ca­ti­on for decei­ving con­su­mers,” he wro­te, espe­ci­al­ly sin­ce movie­goers “can­not bring their own snacks to eat if they con­su­med their purcha­sed snacks within the extre­me­ly long 30-minu­te pre­view peri­od.” The bill would not app­ly to broad­casts of the Assem­bly ses­si­on — whe­re start­ing within half an hour of the sche­du­led time would be a major impro­ve­ment. — Bill Maho­ney­NO ‘SHOOK ONES’: Queens Borough Pre­si­dent Dono­van Richards pled­ged today to help turn out Black voters for Zohr­an Mamda­ni in Novem­ber, evo­king both Mar­tin Luther King Jr. and Mobb Deep in his enthu­si­a­stic endor­se­ment. The Demo­cra­tic mayoral nominee’s poli­ci­es — inclu­ding a rent free­ze and free and fast buses — are com­mon sen­se, not socia­lism, Richards said in the borough that he and Mamda­ni both call home. Rich­mond Hill, Queens was the last stop of Mamdani’s “Five Boroughs Against Trump” tour. “Count me in as a demo­cra­tic socia­list if it means that ever­y­day New Yor­kers will be able to afford this city,” Richards said, adding that civil rights icon King “was cal­led a socia­list and com­mu­nist as well” and refe­ren­cing hip-hop­pers Mobb Deep by boas­ting that the­re are no “shook ones” in the borough, a refe­rence to the group’s hit song. Richards had pre­view­ed his endor­se­ment of Mamda­ni a day ear­lier. One of Mamdani’s big­gest weak spots elec­to­ral­ly has been poli­ti­cal­ly mode­ra­te Black voters in are­as like sou­the­ast Queens. And while he now has Richards as a sur­ro­ga­te, Queens Demo­cra­tic Par­ty lea­der Rep. Greg Meeks has yet to endor­se him. (A Meeks spo­kesper­son did not respond today to a query on whe­ther the House mem­ber plans to meet with Mamda­ni.) Mamdani’s sup­port in the pri­ma­ry was stron­ger in parts of the city that are hea­vi­ly gen­tri­fied. Sou­the­ast Queens includes neigh­bor­hoods that have resis­ted being pri­ced out. Mamda­ni ack­now­led­ged the cri­ti­cal balan­ce bet­ween crea­ting homes for new resi­dents wit­hout pushing out lon­ger-term resi­dents. “One of the many things I app­re­cia­te about the borough pre­si­dent is how he has been able to chart a cour­se of buil­ding more housing (though) not at the expen­se of dis­pla­cing tho­se who alre­a­dy live the­re,” he said. — Emi­ly Ngo SEX WORK DEBATE: Andrew Cuo­mo went on the offen­si­ve today over Mamdani’s past sup­port for sta­te legis­la­ti­on that would decri­mi­na­li­ze sex work in New York. The for­mer gover­nor said in a state­ment that he spent years fight­ing ite­ra­ti­ons of the bill over con­cerns it would lead to an increase in sex traf­fi­cking and explo­ita­ti­on of vul­nerable New Yor­kers. “Mark my words: This is the real world and if pas­sed, this legis­la­ti­on will open the flood­gates,” Cuo­mo said in the state­ment. “Mamda­ni may not remem­ber the bad old days of New York City, whe­re Times Squa­re was see­dy and crime infes­ted and New Yor­kers knew which neigh­bor­hoods to avo­id at all cos­ts. We do, and no one should be eager to return to that era.” Cuomo’s stance was backed by Sonia Oss­o­rio, exe­cu­ti­ve direc­tor at Natio­nal Orga­niza­ti­on for Women New York City. Oss­o­rio has pre­vious­ly cri­ti­ci­zed Mamdani’s posi­ti­on on decri­mi­na­liza­ti­on. “Full decri­mi­na­liza­ti­on doesn’t pro­tect vul­nerable peo­p­le — it expands a mar­ket that thri­ves on explo­ita­ti­on, human traf­fi­cking, and crime in our neigh­bor­hoods,” she said in a state­ment. Mamda­ni twice co-spon­so­red a bill that would decri­mi­na­li­ze sex work and clear past arrest records rela­ted to pro­sti­tu­ti­on while still allo­wing law enforce­ment to go after traf­fi­cking ope­ra­ti­ons. Cam­paign spo­kesper­son Dora Pek­ec decli­ned to say whe­ther Mamda­ni still sup­ports the con­cept and whe­ther he would advo­ca­te for the legis­la­ti­on from City Hall if elec­ted. But she noted that the Demo­cra­tic nomi­nee has pled­ged addi­tio­nal resour­ces to assist vic­tims of pro­sti­tu­ti­on and sex traf­fi­cking. “While Andrew Cuo­mo is only inte­res­ted in ‘gover­ning’ behind a pho­ne screen, Zohr­an is com­mit­ted to genui­ne public safe­ty, inclu­ding com­bat­ting sex traf­fi­cking,” Pek­ec said in a state­ment that refe­ren­ced a new depart­ment Mamda­ni plans to crea­te. “His Depart­ment of Com­mu­ni­ty Safe­ty will invest $40 mil­li­on towards vic­tims ser­vices inclu­ding for pro­grams like Safe Hori­zon, for which fun­ding has been cut in past bud­gets.” The issue of whe­ther to decri­mi­na­li­ze sex work has been the sub­ject of hea­ted deba­te over the years. Orga­niza­ti­ons like Decrim­NY, a coali­ti­on of sex workers and various orga­niza­ti­ons ali­gned with the decri­mi­na­liza­ti­on move­ment, argue the chan­ges would make sex workers safer by allo­wing them to report vio­lence or unsafe working con­di­ti­ons to aut­ho­ri­ties wit­hout fear of arrest while deli­ve­ring more auto­no­my to con­sen­ting adults. — Joe Anu­ta CANNABIS REGULATORS SUED AGAIN: A dozen can­na­bis dis­pen­sa­ry licen­sees are suing the sta­te over a flip-flop on the can­na­bis agency’s inter­pre­ta­ti­on of the state’s 2021 lega­liza­ti­on law. “The con­se­quen­ces are stag­ge­ring. Peti­tio­ners’ invest­ments, often more than a mil­li­on dol­lars, are now at risk” the peti­ti­on reads. “Their liveli­hoods are being threa­ten­ed.” The peti­tio­ners are licen­sed under the Con­di­tio­nal Adult-use Retail Dis­pen­sa­ry (CAURD) and Social and Eco­no­mic Equi­ty (SEE) licen­sing pro­grams, which prio­ri­ti­ze entre­pre­neurs with past can­na­bis con­vic­tions, women and mino­ri­ties. The legal chall­enge seeks to block regu­la­tors from enfor­cing a new inter­pre­ta­ti­on of school distance requi­re­ments in the state’s can­na­bis lega­liza­ti­on law, which would force licen­sees out of their dis­pen­sa­ry loca­ti­ons that had been pre­vious­ly appro­ved by the agen­cy. Agen­cy about-face: Ear­lier this month, the Office of Can­na­bis Manage­ment noti­fied more than 100 licen­sees that their dis­pen­sa­ry loca­ti­ons could be impac­ted due to the agency’s mis­in­ter­pre­ta­ti­on of sta­te law. The licen­sees are asking the court to annul the agency’s new inter­pre­ta­ti­on of the law, decla­re their loca­ti­ons com­pli­ant and block the sta­te from taking any enforce­ment actions against them over the school distance requi­re­ment. A spo­kesper­son for the OCM said that the office does not com­ment on pen­ding liti­ga­ti­on. The agen­cy is pro­po­sing a legis­la­ti­ve fix that would allow licen­sees to remain in their loca­ti­ons, but empha­si­zed on its web­site that pas­sing such legis­la­ti­on “is not a gua­ran­tee.” The sta­te is also crea­ting an $15 mil­li­on appli­cant reli­ef fund for up to $250,000 per appli­cant to help find new loca­ti­ons. — Mona Zhang—26 FED PLAZA: As fewer immi­grants show up for their court hea­rings, arrests at 26 Fede­ral Plaza’s immi­gra­ti­on court­hou­ses are nea­ring a standstill. (THE CITY) — GOV. CLEMENCY: Hoch­ul par­do­ned a Lao­ti­an immi­grant Fri­day to stop his depor­ta­ti­on. (The New York Times) — CUT THE CHECK: Pro­gres­si­ve Demo­crats in the New York Legis­la­tu­re are decrying Hochul’s $2 bil­li­on reba­te pro­gram as fis­cal­ly irre­spon­si­ble amid loo­ming fede­ral cuts. (Got­ha­mist) Missed this morning’s New York Play­book? We for­gi­ve you. Read it here.

The sta­te is also get­ting blas­ted with robo­calls from a mys­te­rious group.

The sta­te Legis­la­tu­re has been locked in a stand­off over a push to notch more seats for Repu­bli­cans in next year’s mid­terms.

Every week poli­ti­cal car­too­nists throug­hout the coun­try and across the poli­ti­cal spec­trum app­ly their ink-stained skills to cap­tu­re the foi­bles, memes, hypo­cri­sies and other head-slap­ping events in the world of poli­tics. The fruits of the­se labors are hundreds of car­toons that enter­tain and enra­ge rea­ders of all poli­ti­cal stripes. Here’s an offe­ring of the best of this week’s crop, picked fresh off the Too­no­sphe­re. Edi­ted by Matt Wuer­ker.

The Demo­cra­tic brand is still in the toi­let. But the par­ty is get­ting some big names to run in tough races.

The for­mer pre­si­dent said he sup­ports California’s respon­se as a tem­po­ra­ry off­set by Repu­bli­can mid-deca­de move to redraw poli­ti­cal map.

“We’­re pre­pared to bring this batt­le back to Texas under the right con­di­ti­ons and to take this fight to the courts,” Texas House Demo­cra­tic Cau­cus chair Gene Wu said in a state­ment.

BORED MEETING: Mayor Eric Adams is lea­ving a finan­cial pre­di­ca­ment for his suc­ces­sor — who, as of now, is loo­king more and more like Zohr­an Mamda­ni. A board of the state’s top fis­cal aut­ho­ri­ties this mor­ning slam­med Adams’ $115.9 bil­li­on “Best Bud­get Ever” for ren­de­ring New York City unpre­pared for hard finan­cial rea­li­ties and loo­ming fede­ral claw­backs. The New York Sta­te Finan­cial Con­trol Board, chai­red by Gov. Kathy Hoch­ul and tas­ked with over­see­ing the city’s fis­cal plan­ning, rai­sed its con­cerns at a peri­lous moment for the city’s finan­cial future. The Trump admi­nis­tra­ti­on is loo­king to cut fede­ral fun­ding for expen­si­ve social ser­vices as the city is alre­a­dy facing its slo­west jobs growth out­side a reces­si­on in deca­des, per a New York Times report. But New York’s finan­cial lea­ders, inclu­ding Sta­te Comp­t­rol­ler Tom DiNa­po­li and City Comp­t­rol­ler Brad Lan­der, war­ned the city’s finan­cial woes pre­da­te Trump’s second term. “Ins­tead of plan­ning for uncer­tain­ty, the Adams Admi­nis­tra­ti­on has con­tin­ued the opaque fis­cal prac­ti­ce of under­bud­ge­ting of key ser­vices like shel­ter, spe­cial edu­ca­ti­on, ren­tal assis­tance, and over­ti­me,” Lan­der wro­te in his report. “Our esti­ma­tes sug­gest that the June Finan­cial Plan unde­re­sti­ma­tes expen­dit­ures by $5.15 bil­li­on annu­al­ly. That is not fis­cal disci­pli­ne — it is fis­cal deni­al.” The Citi­zens Bud­get Com­mis­si­on, a watch­dog group that gene­ral­ly advo­ca­tes for more con­ser­va­ti­ve bud­ge­ting, also worried that Adams has left New York City ill pre­pared to back­fill mas­si­ve fede­ral fun­ding cuts. “Rather than wise­ly save resour­ces, con­trol spen­ding, and focus on effi­ci­en­cy, the city dro­ve up spen­ding by 7 per­cent, con­tin­ued to under­bud­get pro­grams, and added unaf­forda­ble spen­ding during the bud­get pro­cess,” said Ana Cham­pe­ny, CBC vice pre­si­dent for rese­arch. Still, the FCB broad­ly appro­ved of Adams’ bud­ge­ting and deter­mi­ned the city was in com­pli­ance with its stan­dards — once again avo­i­ding the stric­ter sta­te over­sight that was first imple­men­ted during the city’s fis­cal cri­sis 50 years ago. Adams ack­now­led­ged that swee­ping fun­ding cuts could pro­du­ce a finan­cial short­fall the city would strugg­le to bridge. Still, he appeared con­fi­dent he’d be lea­ding the legal fight against the White House, a batt­le that would likely out­last his first term. “If dol­lars rela­ted to indi­vi­du­al grants are cla­wed back, we’ll make a deter­mi­na­ti­on about how to pro­ceed,” said Adams. “Along with other impac­ted cities and sta­tes, we will keep fight­ing in the courts for every dol­lar that has been award­ed to the city.” For Lan­der, who’s win­ding down his final months as the city’s money mana­ger after losing in the mayoral pri­ma­ry, the oppor­tu­ni­ty to once again cri­ti­ci­ze Adams’ fis­cal manage­ment comes as he’s view­ed as a top con­ten­der to join the Mamda­ni admi­nis­tra­ti­on, should the Demo­cra­tic nomi­nee main­tain his lead in the polls. The demo­cra­tic socia­list is not exact­ly run­ning on fis­cal res­traint, and his plans for new spen­ding are com­pli­ca­ted by the $4.2 bil­li­on gap that’s been left for the next fis­cal year, accor­ding to the city comptroller’s office. Mamda­ni has said he would defend against likely fede­ral cuts by rai­sing reve­nue, pri­ma­ri­ly by incre­asing taxes on cor­po­ra­ti­ons and the ultra-wealt­hy. But Mamdani’s plans for buil­ding housing and rehab­bing schools likely under­count their cos­ts, and his tax plan is likely to face serious oppo­si­ti­on in Alba­ny, as POLITICO has repor­ted. Mamdani’s cam­paign decli­ned to com­ment. In his respon­se to the bevy of con­cerns rai­sed by the board, Adams kept his remarks brief, than­king the mem­bers for their “infor­ma­ti­ve” comm­ents. — Ami­ra McKee & Jeff Col­tin­LO­CKED OUT: Rep. Dan Gold­man said today the Trump admi­nis­tra­ti­on is once again vio­la­ting the law by blo­cking him from visi­ting a fede­ral jail in Brook­lyn whe­re ICE is detai­ning immi­grants. “I have a very spe­ci­fic sta­tu­to­ry right under the law,” he said. “It’s a bla­tant vio­la­ti­on of the law. We are in court right now suing the Depart­ment of Home­land Secu­ri­ty for that pur­po­se.” Gold­man was refer­ring to his right to con­duct over­sight visits whe­re­ver the Depart­ment of Home­land Secu­ri­ty is housing immi­grants. The Demo­crat wai­ted out­side the front gate of the Metro­po­li­tan Detenti­on Cen­ter for 45 minu­tes this mor­ning. He reques­ted a visit last Fri­day, he said, but a spo­kesper­son for the Bureau of Pri­sons told him Tues­day night they wouldn’t be able to accom­mo­da­te him, wit­hout pro­vi­ding a spe­ci­fic reason. He came any­way to make a point and speak to the press. Gold­man as well as Reps. Adria­no Espail­lat and Nydia Veláz­quez were denied ent­ry for an unan­noun­ced visit last week. DHS didn’t respond to a request for com­ment. The visit today came a day after a fede­ral judge orde­red ICE to impro­ve con­di­ti­ons for detai­ned immi­grants at 26 Fede­ral Pla­za in Man­hat­tan — a site whe­re Gold­man and fel­low mem­bers of Con­gress have also been blo­cked from visi­ting. With a nod to that, Gold­man said con­gres­sio­nal over­sight is now more important than ever. “What are they hiding?” said Gold­man. “Now we know.” — Jeff ColtinHOCHUL’S GOT HIS BACK: Hoch­ul hasn’t endor­sed Mamda­ni even though he’s her party’s mayoral nomi­nee, but she still found a way to show a litt­le love. As Pre­si­dent Donald Trump escala­tes his attacks on the sta­te law­ma­ker, Hoch­ul insists she will be in Mamdani’s cor­ner if he leads City Hall. “He’s work­ed very hard with afforda­bili­ty front and cen­ter, some­thing I belie­ve in, and focu­sing on solu­ti­ons,” the gover­nor told NY1’s Bern Hogan. “If he beco­mes the next mayor, I will stand up and defend him against Donald Trump. You’re not going to come in and walk over our elec­ted offi­ci­als. So I’ll make it work. Trust us, NYPD, they know what they’re doing.” Trump today once again lit into Mamda­ni, cal­ling the 33-year-old demo­cra­tic socia­list “a com­mu­nist.” On Mon­day, the pre­si­dent announ­ced he would deploy the Natio­nal Guard in Washing­ton to address crime — and hin­ted that other big cities like New York could get the same tre­at­ment. “I wish him well,” said Trump. “I may have to deal with him. I mean, it’s not even con­ceiva­ble that could hap­pen. May­be he won’t win, but he won the pri­ma­ries quite a bit. Sho­ckin­gly, he won the pri­ma­ries.” Hoch­ul has main­tai­ned an unu­sual­ly ste­ady working rela­ti­onship with the Repu­bli­can pre­si­dent. They have met twice in the Oval Office to dis­cuss ener­gy poli­cy and the con­tro­ver­si­al con­ges­ti­on pri­cing toll pro­gram in Man­hat­tan. — Nick Reis­man­DEL­GA­DO CALLS OUT GOV: Lt. Gov. Anto­nio Del­ga­do took aim at Hoch­ul today as he joi­n­ed advo­ca­tes at Foley Squa­re to call for a spe­cial ses­si­on in Alba­ny to push back on the Trump admi­nis­tra­ti­on. “Don’t tell me that coun­ties are acting as rene­ga­de coun­ties, gover­nor, when you have the abili­ty to stop it, gover­nor,” said Del­ga­do. “Don’t tell me that we can’t clo­se the loopho­le of making sure that ICE does not enter into agree­ments with the pri­va­te pri­son indus­tri­al com­plex.” In March, Hoch­ul blas­ted “rene­ga­de” coun­ties for sig­ning agree­ments with ICE to detain undo­cu­men­ted immi­grants. Del­ga­do appeared along­side sta­te law­ma­kers, inclu­ding sta­te Sens. Julia Sala­zar and Jaba­ri Bri­sport, at a ral­ly orga­ni­zed by Citi­zen Action of New York, VOCAL NY and Make the Road New York. They cal­led on Hoch­ul to con­ve­ne a spe­cial ses­si­on to pass legis­la­ti­on to limit local law enforcement’s abili­ty to col­la­bo­ra­te with ICE and pro­hi­bit New York insti­tu­ti­ons from con­trac­ting with immi­gra­ti­on detenti­on cen­ters. The lieu­ten­ant gover­nor, who’s run­ning against Hoch­ul in the Demo­cra­tic pri­ma­ry, also took aim at the Demo­cra­tic Par­ty for not repre­sen­ting the working class. “I’m so tired of my fel­low Demo­crats tal­king about, ‘we’­re worried about the rich lea­ving our sta­te,’” he said. — Mona Zhang— BROOKLYN DODGERS: New York isn’t coll­ec­ting mil­li­ons of dol­lars in pen­al­ties from a real estate firm that hasn’t built pro­mi­sed housing at Atlan­tic Yards becau­se the com­pa­ny threa­ten­ed to sue them if they tried. (Got­ha­mist) — PAY UP: Att­or­ney Gene­ral Leti­tia James sued the ope­ra­tor of Zel­le, accu­sing the bank-owned pay­ment plat­form of faci­li­ta­ting wide­spread fraud and fai­ling to pro­tect con­su­mers. (POLITICO Pro) — CAUGHT ON CAMERA: New­ly released foo­ta­ge shows New York cor­rec­tion­al offi­cers bea­ting a man in cus­t­ody as the sys­tem has seen two high-pro­fi­le deaths in the last year. (NBC News) Missed this morning’s New York Play­book? We for­gi­ve you. Read it here.

With help from Ami­ra McKee­THE UNI-TEA: Brook­lyn Demo­crats can be a frac­tious, feu­ding bunch. Today, for a short while at least, they buried the hat­chet. Bit­ter rivals stood side by side in bois­te­rous sup­port of Zohr­an Mamda­ni at the Flat­bush Gar­dens housing com­plex, the second stop of the Demo­cra­tic mayoral nominee’s “Five Boroughs Against Trump” tour. The group included the lea­der of the Kings Coun­ty Demo­cra­tic Par­ty and mem­bers of the New Kings Demo­crats fac­tion, which sprung up as the refor­mist respon­se to coun­ty bos­ses. It fea­tured mode­ra­te Demo­crats as well as pro­gres­si­ves and demo­cra­tic socia­lists. “First of all, media, I need you to under­stand what’s going on right now becau­se I don’t think this group of peo­p­le agree about not­hing,” Public Advo­ca­te Juma­ane Wil­liams obser­ved to chuck­les befo­re he laun­ched into his remarks. Wil­liams said New York Demo­crats more broad­ly should fol­low their exam­p­le in sup­port­ing the party’s nomi­nee for mayor. Key par­ty and Brook­lyn lea­ders, inclu­ding Sena­te Mino­ri­ty Lea­der Chuck Schu­mer, House Mino­ri­ty Lea­der Hakeem Jef­fries and Rep. Yvette Clar­ke, were not in atten­dance and have yet to endor­se Mamda­ni. Mamda­ni defea­ted Andrew Cuo­mo in the Demo­cra­tic pri­ma­ry seven weeks ago, but many in his par­ty say they still don’t know the young Queens sta­te assem­bly­mem­ber well enough to get behind him. Some say his pro­po­sals to free­ze rent and make buses free are too unrea­li­stic. Others cite his cri­ti­cisms of Isra­el and his reluc­tance to con­demn the phra­se “glo­ba­li­ze the inti­fa­da” as reasons for con­cern. Mamda­ni has strug­g­led to shore up sup­port among poli­ti­cal­ly mode­ra­te Black and Jewish voters. For House Demo­crats focu­sed on win­ning the majo­ri­ty next year, there’s addi­tio­nal­ly the con­cern that having a demo­cra­tic socia­list as the face of the par­ty could hurt mode­ra­te Demo­crats in sub­ur­ban batt­le­grounds. But their col­le­agues in sta­te and city govern­ment said today in cen­tral Brook­lyn that the par­ty needs Mamda­ni to face Pre­si­dent Donald Trump. Sta­te Assem­bly­mem­ber Rod­ney­se Bichot­te Her­me­lyn, chair of the coun­ty par­ty, endor­sed Eric Adams in 2021, Cuo­mo in this year’s pri­ma­ry and Mamda­ni imme­dia­te­ly after he troun­ced the for­mer gover­nor in June by near­ly 13 points. “Peo­p­le just don’t under­stand that we all want the same thing,” Bichot­te Her­me­lyn told Play­book, refer­ring to Brook­lyn Demo­crats. “The litt­le poli­ti­cal fights, it’s just sur­face. But we all want afforda­bili­ty. We’re all fight­ing for a working class, we want equi­ty, we want fair­ness.” The vibe had enough kum­ba­ya to it that Bichot­te Her­me­lyn and City Coun­cil Mem­ber Jus­tin Brannan stood next to each other. Yes, the same two Demo­crats who waged one of the nastie­st intrapar­ty clas­hes in recent memo­ry during Brannan’s 2023 cam­paign. (She revi­ved bul­ly­ing accu­sa­ti­ons against him, he won wit­hout par­ty resour­ces and con­cluded on elec­tion night that she’s “got­ta go.”) Pro­gres­si­ve New Kings mem­bers had prai­se for both Mamda­ni and Bichot­te Her­me­lyn in explai­ning how a diver­se cross-sec­tion of Demo­crats could get on the same page. “It’s indi­ca­ti­ve of his cam­paign and who he is,” Coun­cil Mem­ber Crys­tal Hud­son said of Mamda­ni. “If all of us can come tog­e­ther behind him, he’s doing some­thing.” Coun­cil Mem­ber Chi Ossé told Play­book, “I real­ly do applaud Rod­ney­se on imme­dia­te­ly get­ting into lock­step and show­ing that Demo­cra­tic unity is important here. … I think the enti­re par­ty needs to con­ti­nue doing what we’re doing in the­re.” — Emi­ly Ngo­GOP SPLIT IN ASSEMBLY SPECIAL: Repu­bli­cans are begin­ning to coale­s­ce around a can­di­da­te for the loo­ming spe­cial elec­tion to replace Demo­cra­tic Assem­bly­mem­ber Bil­ly Jones — but not the par­ty lea­der with the most say in choo­sing a nomi­nee. Mal­o­ne Mayor Andrea Dumas locked down sup­port from Rep. Eli­se Ste­fa­nik last week. She was endor­sed today by the Con­ser­va­ti­ve Par­ty and Assem­bly Mino­ri­ty Lea­der Will Bar­clay. But Ste­fa­nik put out a leng­thy state­ment this after­noon cal­ling on Clin­ton Coun­ty GOP Chair Jeri­ka Man­ning to resign for “threa­tening to tank” the spe­cial. “I am not going to let her tor­pe­do Repu­bli­can can­di­da­tes in the North Coun­try,” Ste­fa­nik wro­te. Man­ning con­trols 53 per­cent of the vote as par­ty lea­ders choo­se a nomi­nee for the race that’ll likely be held on Elec­tion Day. Two indi­vi­du­als fami­li­ar with the situa­ti­on said Stefanik’s state­ment came about after the coun­ty chair decli­ned to join other Repu­bli­can lea­ders in endor­sing Dumas and con­tin­ued sear­ching for a new can­di­da­te. Man­ning did not return a request for com­ment. Platt­s­burgh Super­vi­sor Micha­el Cash­man has been wide­ly seen as the front-run­ner for the Demo­cra­tic nomi­na­ti­on. Bri­die Far­rell, a Child Vic­tims Act advo­ca­te and for­mer speed-ska­ter who brief­ly ran against Ste­fa­nik in 2022, for­mal­ly joi­n­ed the Demo­cra­tic field today as well. — Bill Maho­ney NOT SWEATING: Gov. Kathy Hoch­ul shrug­ged at a Sie­na Uni­ver­si­ty poll released this mor­ning that found Ste­fa­nik, a poten­ti­al guber­na­to­ri­al rival, run­ning com­pe­ti­tively in the sub­urbs and among inde­pen­dent voters. “I’ll let you all figu­re it out,” she told repor­ters. “I’m working hard every sin­gle day put­ting money back in peo­p­les’ pockets, making streets safer and fight­ing the damn Trump admi­nis­tra­ti­on.” The sur­vey found Hoch­ul with a 14-point lead over Ste­fa­nik, 45 per­cent to 31 per­cent. The gap bet­ween the Demo­cra­tic gover­nor and the House Repu­bli­can, while com­for­ta­ble, is smal­ler than the 23-point dif­fe­rence Hoch­ul held in June. “I’ve been through count­less polls and, guess what, team, there’s going to be a lot more bet­ween now and Novem­ber,” she added. — Nick Reis­man ADULT LEARNERS EYE FREE TUITION: More than 16,500 New Yor­kers appli­ed to a free com­mu­ni­ty col­lege pro­gram for older stu­dents, Hoch­ul announ­ced this mor­ning. The City Uni­ver­si­ty of New York recei­ved about 7,000 of the appli­ca­ti­ons from stu­dents see­king asso­cia­te degrees in high-demand fields, CUNY Chan­cell­or Félix Matos Rodrí­guez said. The rema­in­der went to the Sta­te Uni­ver­si­ty of New York. The initia­ti­ve — aimed at adult lear­ners bet­ween the ages of 25 and 55 — appli­es to the 37 com­mu­ni­ty col­leges run by SUNY and CUNY. The pro­gram, set to begin this fall, is part of Hochul’s afforda­bili­ty push, as she faces a tough reelec­tion bid next year. “I’m going to keep doing my part, focu­sing on fami­lies — my fight is for your fami­ly,” Hoch­ul said during a press con­fe­rence at LaGuar­dia Com­mu­ni­ty Col­lege in Queens. “Focu­sing on afforda­bili­ty — this is a major part of it, but also put­ting more money back in people’s pockets.” Hoch­ul insis­ted the sta­te “has no limit” on the num­ber of appli­cants becau­se enroll­ment is still lower than it was befo­re the Covid-19 pan­de­mic. Some 4 mil­li­on working-age adults in New York do not have a col­lege degree or cre­den­ti­al, accor­ding to the governor’s office. Sta­te law­ma­kers and hig­her edu­ca­ti­on advo­ca­tes told POLITICO ear­lier this year that com­mu­ni­ty col­leges don’t have enough money to imple­ment the plan. The gover­nor allo­ca­ted $47 mil­li­on in the sta­te bud­get for the upco­ming school year. When asked by Play­book about tho­se con­cerns, Hoch­ul poin­ted to record invest­ments in SUNY and CUNY. — Madi­na Tou­ré­TAKE­OVER TAKES: Trump’s unpre­ce­den­ted effort to take over law enforce­ment in Washing­ton drew a reac­tion from Mayor Eric Adams today. Asked about Trump’s actions, Adams tou­ted recent decrea­ses in major crime cate­go­ries to make the case that New York City does not need the type of fede­ral inter­ven­ti­on play­ing out in the nation’s capi­tal. “I’m not part of the group that says we don’t want to work with the fede­ral govern­ment, but we don’t need anyo­ne to come in and take over our law enforce­ment appa­ra­tus,” Adams, who is run­ning for reelec­tion as an inde­pen­dent, said during an unre­la­ted news con­fe­rence. “We’ve got this under con­trol.” Rival inde­pen­dent can­di­da­te Andrew Cuo­mo clai­med the turn of events in Washing­ton is “exact­ly what will hap­pen” if Mamda­ni wins the gene­ral elec­tion this fall, though Trump would be more limi­t­ed in the con­trol he could exert over the NYPD. “Trump will flat­ten him like a pan­ca­ke,” Cuo­mo pos­ted Mon­day on X. “In 2020, Trump sent the Natio­nal Guard into other sta­tes. Not New York. There’s only one per­son in this race who can stand up to Trump: the one who alre­a­dy has, suc­cessful­ly and effec­tively.” Mamda­ni war­ned Trump against try­ing a simi­lar mili­ta­riza­ti­on in New York City, as the pre­si­dent has repea­ted­ly floa­ted, while chi­ding Cuo­mo for comm­ents he made during a June CBS inter­view whe­re he war­ned fede­ral immi­gra­ti­on offi­cers are “going to do things that are ille­gal and uncon­sti­tu­tio­nal” but cau­tio­ned New Yor­kers not to over­re­act. “Donald Trump is not abo­ve the law and if he comes for New York City, he will have to go through me,” Mamda­ni said in a state­ment today. “As Mayor, I will not down­play or enable his aut­ho­ri­ta­ria­nism — and I cer­tain­ly will not tell New Yor­kers not to ‘over­re­act’ as Andrew Cuo­mo did when Trump’s militia tried to bull­do­ze Los Ange­les.” — Maya Kauf­man and Joe Anu­ta ENDORSEMENT WATCH: For­mer Gov. David Pater­son is set to endor­se Adams’ reelec­tion bid during a Wed­nes­day event at City Hall, accor­ding to a per­son with direct know­ledge of the gathe­ring. The nod comes a month after Pater­son held a press con­fe­rence that cal­led for a united front to defeat Mamda­ni in the gene­ral elec­tion. So far, the for­mer elected’s wis­hes are not play­ing out. Neither Cuo­mo, Adams nor GOP nomi­nee Cur­tis Sliwa have expres­sed any inten­ti­on of drop­ping out of the race. Pater­son backed Cuo­mo in the pri­ma­ry, but his sup­port has waned after Cuomo’s decisi­ve loss to Mamda­ni in the June 24 pri­ma­ry. — Joe Anu­ta­GUIL­TY PLEA: A for­mer Adams aide plea­ded guil­ty today to con­spi­ra­cy to com­mit wire fraud, admit­ting to orga­ni­zing a fund­rai­ser for the mayor at which he knew money would be rai­sed by ille­gal straw dona­ti­ons. Bahi’s plea in Man­hat­tan fede­ral court comes four months after Judge Dale Ho dis­missed the rela­ted char­ges against Adams after Trump’s Depart­ment of Jus­ti­ce sought to drop the case. Bahi said that an unna­med “vol­un­teer of the cam­paign” had told him Adams’ poli­ti­cal ope­ra­ti­on would rai­se money by straw dona­ti­ons at a Decem­ber 2020 fund­rai­ser with Uzbek-Ame­ri­can busi­ness lea­der Tolib Mans­ur­ov and would then seek to match the con­tri­bu­ti­ons with public funds. It wasn’t clear which vol­un­teer Bahi was refer­ring to, though Adams’ indict­ment sug­gests it was Ahsan Chug­tai, ano­ther man who was later hired by Adams’ City Hall as a Mus­lim com­mu­ni­ty liai­son. Adams advi­ser Frank Caro­ne did not respond when asked about it, say­ing the case has “no con­nec­tion at all or rele­van­ce” to the Adams cam­paign. Adams’ lawy­ers have main­tai­ned that he was not awa­re of any of the num­e­rous con­firm­ed ille­gal con­tri­bu­ti­ons to his 2021 cam­paign. Bahi did not respond when repor­ters asked how he felt about plea­ding guil­ty when Adams got off. Tur­ki­sh-Ame­ri­can deve­lo­per Erden Arkan also plea­ded guil­ty to making straw dona­ti­ons in Janu­ary, and his sen­ten­cing is sche­du­led for this Fri­day. Bahi was hired as a Mus­lim liai­son in the Mayor’s Com­mu­ni­ty Affairs Unit after Adams won. He resi­gned last Octo­ber, the day befo­re he was arres­ted and char­ged with wit­ness tam­pe­ring and des­truc­tion of evi­dence. He’s been in plea dis­cus­sions with the govern­ment sin­ce at least Febru­ary. Bahi agreed to pay $32,000 resti­tu­ti­on, Ho said, and could face up to six months in pri­son and a $20,000 fine at sen­ten­cing, which is sche­du­led for Nov.ember 18. — Jeff Col­tin— SPY-FI: The Adams admi­nis­tra­ti­on is using its flag­ship broad­band pro­gram to give poli­ce real-time access to NYCHA came­ra feeds — wit­hout tel­ling anyo­ne. (New York Focus) — AI, ESQ.:  A Queens judge is fining a landlord’s att­or­ney for using fake, AI-gene­ra­ted court cases to sup­port his argu­ment. (Hell Gate) — TEAM ZOHRAN: Mamda­ni is gro­wing his inner cir­cle, a group of trus­ted advi­sers that lean youn­ger and far­ther left than that of his rivals. (New York Times) Missed this morning’s New York Play­book? We for­gi­ve you. Read it here.

Black city mayors fear what’s next from Trump as he rails against crime in urban cen­ters that did­n’t sup­port him.

O’Rourke plans to seek sanc­tions against Pax­t­on for ‘out­right lie.’

The long­time Demo­cra­tic law­ma­ker lost to Ber­nie Moreno last year.

With help from Ami­ra McKee­MAMD­A­NI’S BIG FOIL: Afforda­bili­ty was at the cen­ter of Zohr­an Mamdani’s pri­ma­ry cam­paign for New York City mayor. Donald Trump is the focus of his gene­ral elec­tion bid. The Demo­cra­tic nomi­nee laun­ched a five-borough tour “against Trump” on Mon­day to ampli­fy how he belie­ves the pre­si­dent will bring harm to New York City — and why he thinks he should be elec­ted to lead the van­guard. He’s also tying oppon­ents Andrew Cuo­mo, Eric Adams and Cur­tis Sliwa clo­se­ly to Trump, adop­ting a clas­sic Demo­cra­tic gene­ral elec­tion play­book by cas­ting two fel­low Dems and the GOP nomi­nee as the president’s favor­ed picks. Mamdani’s reca­li­bra­ti­on comes as Trump announ­ced he’s acti­vat­ing the Natio­nal Guard to respond to crime in Washing­ton, D.C., lis­ting New York and Chi­ca­go among the cities that could be next in line. It also fol­lows a New York Times sto­ry about how Trump has tal­ked with Cuo­mo as the pre­si­dent con­siders invol­ving hims­elf with the elec­tion. Cuo­mo has denied dis­cus­sing the race with Trump. “We see far too many par­al­lels bet­ween Donald Trump and Andrew Cuo­mo, far too many sto­ries that make clear that both admi­nis­tra­ti­ons have been cha­rac­te­ri­zed by cor­rup­ti­on, by a sen­se of impu­ni­ty,” Mamda­ni told repor­ters Mon­day at the offices of 1199SEIU, which endor­sed Cuo­mo in the pri­ma­ry but is back­ing Mamda­ni in the gene­ral elec­tion. The young sta­te assem­bly­mem­ber who stun­ned the Demo­cra­tic estab­lish­ment by defea­ting Cuo­mo in June — despi­te the for­mer governor’s uni­ver­sal name reco­gni­ti­on and a $25 mil­li­on PAC in his cor­ner — now faces the task of win­ning the Novem­ber elec­tion by a hef­ty enough mar­gin to bols­ter his man­da­te. Mamda­ni, a demo­cra­tic socia­list, is still see­king the endor­se­ments of par­ty lea­ders, inclu­ding Gov. Kathy Hoch­ul, Sena­te Mino­ri­ty Lea­der Chuck Schu­mer and House Mino­ri­ty Lea­der Hakeem Jef­fries. But with or wit­hout them, he’s going after Trump — and anyo­ne he argues would be used by Trump against New Yor­kers. He noted Mon­day that Cuo­mo con­ver­sed with Trump, Adams’ cri­mi­nal fraud case was drop­ped at the urging of the Trump admi­nis­tra­ti­on and that Sliwa shares a poli­ti­cal par­ty with the pre­si­dent. “My admi­nis­tra­ti­on will be Donald Trump’s worst night­ma­re,” Mamda­ni declared just last week, arguing his poli­ci­es will lift up the same working class voters the pre­si­dent has left behind with cuts to health care and food bene­fits. Trump has ques­tio­ned Mamdani’s citi­zen­ship, vowed to arrest him if he inter­fe­res with fede­ral agents’ crack­down on ille­gal immi­gra­ti­on and threa­ten­ed to cut fede­ral fun­ding to New York City if Mamda­ni doesn’t “do the right thing.” Cuo­mo, making ano­ther bid for mayor after losing by near­ly 13 points in June to Mamda­ni, has argued that Trump would step all over Mamda­ni. Cuo­mo said he alre­a­dy stood up to Trump as gover­nor during the Covid pan­de­mic. “Trump will flat­ten him like a pan­ca­ke,” Cuo­mo pos­ted on X. (He used ano­ther food simi­le in a June pri­ma­ry deba­te, say­ing Trump would cut into Mamda­ni “like a hot kni­fe through but­ter.”) Adams, the incum­bent mayor, has said he is not behol­den to anyo­ne, inclu­ding the pre­si­dent. He has insis­ted that he seeks a working rela­ti­onship with Trump for the bene­fit of the city. And Sliwa, the long­shot Repu­bli­can making a repeat bid for mayor, has no direct rela­ti­onship with Trump at all. In fact, the GOP nomi­nee has encou­ra­ged Trump to stay out of the race for mayor. “Com­ra­de Mamda­ni is the Ame­ri­can people’s worst night­ma­re,” White House spo­kesper­son Abi­ga­il Jack­son respon­ded Mon­day, char­ging that Mamdani’s poli­ci­es will tank the eco­no­my, increase crime and favor undo­cu­men­ted immi­grants over Ame­ri­can citi­zens. — Emi­ly Ngo­PRO­GRESS IN READING AND MATH: The nation’s lar­gest school sys­tem saw nota­ble gains in rea­ding and math scores this year, but dis­pa­ri­ties per­sist among Black, His­pa­nic and dis­ab­led stu­dents, accor­ding to results announ­ced by New York City offi­ci­als today. About 56.3 per­cent of third through eighth gra­d­ers were pro­fi­ci­ent in Eng­lish during the 2024–25 school year, a 7.2 per­cen­ta­ge point increase from the pre­vious year, accor­ding to the latest data. Last school year’s figu­res repre­sen­ted a near­ly 3 per­cen­ta­ge point decrease from the year befo­re — and coin­ci­ded with the roll­out of a new rea­ding cur­ri­cu­lum. Math scores con­tin­ued to rise, with 56.9 per­cent of stu­dents mee­ting stan­dards, com­pared to 53.4 per­cent last year and 49.9 per­cent in 2023. Schools Chan­cell­or Melis­sa Avi­les-Ramos ack­now­led­ged the­re were some “imple­men­ta­ti­on hic­cups” in the begin­ning. “The­se num­bers are tel­ling us — both in [NYC] Reads and [NYC] Sol­ves — that we’­re hea­ding in the right direc­tion, but work still needs to be done,” she said in an inter­view. “So this is just fue­ling us to do bet­ter. It’s by no stretch of the ima­gi­na­ti­on a time for us to rest.” The per­cen­ta­ge of Black, His­pa­nic and Eng­lish lan­guage lear­ners, as well as pupils with disa­bi­li­ties, scoring pro­fi­ci­ent­ly remain dis­pro­por­tio­na­te­ly low despi­te increa­ses. About 43 per­cent and 43.1 per­cent of Black and His­pa­nic stu­dents, respec­tively, demons­tra­ted mas­tery of math, com­pared to 38.4 per­cent and 39.7 per­cent the pre­vious year. Avi­les-Ramos cal­led the per­sis­tent dis­crepan­ci­es “unac­cep­ta­ble” but also tou­ted the impro­ve­ments. “They are huge increa­ses and we beat pre-pan­de­mic levels and so we know that what we’­re doing is working,” she said. — Madi­na TouréCUOMO’S ZOHRAN LAW PUSH: Cuo­mo pro­mo­ted “Zohran’s Law” today, his new plan to block wealt­hy peo­p­le from living in rent-sta­bi­li­zed apart­ments. His pro­po­sal — while cle­ar­ly poli­ti­cal in ori­gin — comes with a big prac­ti­cal ques­ti­on mark: Just how eager would the Demo­cra­tic-domi­na­ted sta­te Legis­la­tu­re be to work with Cuo­mo to pass such a mea­su­re if he were elec­ted mayor? Cuo­mo spo­kesper­son Rich Azzo­par­di said the chan­ges could be enac­ted if Alba­ny agreed to repeal the Urstadt Law. “If that was suc­cessful, we could do that at the city level,” he said. The law, a mea­su­re enac­ted during Gov. Nel­son Rockefeller’s ten­ure, gives Alba­ny con­trol over rent rules. Pro­gres­si­ves have spent deca­des deman­ding Urstadt’s repeal, but their push has been met with long odds, with most Alba­ny law­ma­kers over the past half cen­tu­ry hesi­tant to give up the power to con­trol housing rules, as well as dona­ti­ons from land­lords who have his­to­ri­cal­ly been the state’s top cam­paign con­tri­bu­tors. Even pro­gres­si­ve legis­la­tors who’ve sup­port­ed repeal in the past would likely be hesi­tant to move for­ward if it meant giving Cuo­mo more power. As gover­nor, Cuo­mo floa­ted repe­al­ing the law when he attempt­ed to force real estate groups to the table during housing talks in 2011, accor­ding to tes­tim­o­ny in for­mer Sena­te Majo­ri­ty Lea­der Dean Skel­os’ cor­rup­ti­on tri­al. But he never publicly cham­pio­ned giving up that power while gover­nor. “The­re are peo­p­le run­ning for gover­nor right now and I don’t know whe­re they stand on Urstadt, inclu­ding Gov. Cuo­mo,” then-City Coun­cil­mem­ber Juma­ane Wil­liams said in 2014. “I would like to know whe­re he stands on repe­al­ing Urstadt and brin­ging Urstadt back to New York City.” — Bill Maho­ney— MAMDANI’S PUBLIC SAFETY: Mamdani’s visi­on for a new Depart­ment of Com­mu­ni­ty Safe­ty shows pro­mi­se, but public safe­ty experts say trans­fer­ring NYPD duties to the pro­po­sed agen­cy could pose an admi­nis­tra­ti­ve chall­enge. (Got­ha­mist) — SHUTTERED SHELTERS: New York City real estate deve­lo­pers are loo­king to con­vert clo­sed hotel shel­ters into resi­den­ti­al apart­ments. (The Wall Street Jour­nal) — ICE CAPITAL: New York City is lea­ding the nati­on in immi­gra­ti­on court­house arrests by ICE aut­ho­ri­ties. (THE CITY) Missed this morning’s New York Play­book? We for­gi­ve you. Read it here.

After years of loyal­ly back­ing Demo­crats, Teamsters Gene­ral Pre­si­dent Sean O’Bri­en is diver­si­fy­ing the union’s PAC to sup­port Repu­bli­cans, too.

In a let­ter to Trump, the Cali­for­nia gover­nor threa­tens to start mid-deca­de redis­tric­ting efforts in the Gol­den Sta­te.

With help from Ami­ra McKee­PRI­MA­RI­LY INTERESTING: Assem­bly­mem­ber Zohr­an Mamdani’s resound­ing pri­ma­ry vic­to­ry expo­sed how a Demo­cra­tic socialist’s abili­ty to domi­na­te across the city, and his 56–43 win over the more mode­ra­te Andrew Cuo­mo has spark­ed a wave of ener­gy for lef­ty chal­lenges. Pro-Cuo­mo law­ma­kers sta­te Sen. Jes­si­ca Ramos and Assem­bly­mem­ber David Weprin have alre­a­dy drawn chal­len­gers, but a host of other low-pro­fi­le elec­teds didn’t back Mamda­ni and saw their con­sti­tu­ents vote over­whel­mingly in his favor. Thanks to data published by Sam Hudis and Com­pe­ti­ti­ve Advan­ta­ge Rese­arch, Play­book was able to iden­ti­fy 23 Demo­cra­tic-held legis­la­ti­ve dis­tricts in the city whe­re Mamda­ni cap­tu­red more than 50 per­cent of the vote in the first round of ran­ked choice voting. Five of tho­se dis­tricts are occu­p­ied by law­ma­kers who didn’t recei­ve the back­ing of the Working Fami­lies Par­ty in its initi­al round of endor­se­ments last year and stay­ed away from the brand of lef­tist poli­tics that laun­ched Mamda­ni to the nomi­na­ti­on — and they could see the Mamda­ni momen­tum topp­le them next June. The­se law­ma­kers didn’t endor­se Mamda­ni in the Demo­cra­tic pri­ma­ry — or they backed Cuo­mo. Four of them repre­sent a clus­ter of neigh­bor­hoods near and along the bor­der of Brook­lyn and Queens and one comes from Nor­t­hern Man­hat­tan. Sup­port from WFP and the DSA will be key for any left chal­len­ger hoping to unse­at an incum­bent, but the groups told Play­book it’s too ear­ly to talk about next year’s pri­ma­ries. “The WFP is focu­sed on win­ning in Novem­ber, along­side Zohr­an Mamda­ni and our other endor­sees all around New York,” par­ty spo­kesper­son Syd­ney Wat­nick said. “Our num­ber one prio­ri­ty at this time is making sure that working fami­lies across the sta­te know and feel that their elec­ted offi­ci­als are working tog­e­ther to make New York more afforda­ble for ever­yo­ne.” Grace Maus­ser, the co-chair of the city’s Demo­cra­tic Socia­list chap­ter, told Play­book in a state­ment, “Curr­ent­ly, our Elec­to­ral Working Group is loo­king at Zohran’s his­to­ric vic­to­ry to see whe­re we can grow our move­ment across the city. We’ll be hos­ting seve­ral forums this fall to hear from inte­res­ted can­di­da­tes, dis­cuss their cam­paigns among our mem­bers, and ulti­m­ate­ly our mem­ber­ship will vote on who we should endor­se.” 1. Maritza Davila. Dis­trict 53.  Zohr­an vote share: 75% Pri­ma­ry endor­se­ment: None First elec­ted: 2013 Nowhe­re else did Mamda­ni do bet­ter in the first round of voting than in Assem­bly­mem­ber Maritza Davila’s dis­trict, which includes what some poli­ti­cal nerds have dub­bed the “Com­mie Cor­ri­dor.” Three quar­ters of all pri­ma­ry voters ran­ked him first, with Cuo­mo nab­bing a mere 15 per­cent of the vote. Davila didn’t back anyo­ne in the mayoral pri­ma­ry, but she sup­port­ed lef­ty Maya Wiley in the 2021 race after resc­in­ding an endor­se­ment for for­mer comp­t­rol­ler Scott Strin­ger fol­lo­wing alle­ga­ti­ons of sexu­al harass­ment he denies. Her most recent pri­ma­ry chall­enge was in 2018, when she won with 82 per­cent of the vote and got the back­ing of the Working Fami­lies Par­ty. “The voters of Bush­wick and Wil­liams­burg have always made their voices clear when it comes to the issues that mat­ter most — the cost of rent, the pri­ce of put­ting food on the table, and being able to afford to get to work or school,” Davila said in a state­ment. “For years, the­se neigh­bor­hoods have been at the fore­front of deman­ding action on rent sta­bi­liza­ti­on, food cos­ts, and afforda­ble, relia­ble public trans­por­ta­ti­on. That is why the com­mu­ni­ty came out so stron­gly for Zohr­an Mamda­ni. His mes­sa­ge reso­na­ted becau­se it speaks to the dai­ly strug­gles my con­sti­tu­ents face and the fights I have taken on throug­hout my care­er from deli­ve­ring sum­mer SNAP dol­lars, to advo­ca­ting for rent free­zes to working to make the B60 bus free.” 2. Ste­fa­ni Ziner­man. Dis­trict 56.  Zohr­an vote share: 65% Pri­ma­ry endor­se­ment: None First elec­ted: 2020 Assem­bly­mem­ber Ste­fa­ni Ziner­man suc­cessful­ly waded off a com­pe­ti­ti­ve pri­ma­ry chall­enge last year, but left-lea­ning Demo­crats are alre­a­dy eye­ing her Bedford Stuy­ve­sant and Crown Heights dis­trict. Ziner­man — a clo­se ally of House Mino­ri­ty Lea­der Hakeem Jef­fries — beca­me the latest front on the House leader’s war to fend off the DSA in his back­yard. He got hea­vi­ly invol­ved in the race, and it ulti­m­ate­ly paid off: Ziner­man beat Eon Hunt­ley by six points last year. Left-lea­ning City Coun­cil Mem­ber Chi Ossé, who resi­des in Zinerman’s dis­trict, has alre­a­dy made clear he wants someone to unse­at her next year. “Her pro-land­lord lob­by, pro-home­l­ess­ness, pro-dis­pla­ce­ment agen­da has been allo­wed to rava­ge our neigh­bor­hoods for too long,” he wro­te in a leng­thy state­ment. “Her abhor­rent poli­cy posi­ti­ons invi­te a pri­ma­ry chall­enge.” Ziner­man told Play­book in a state­ment that she com­mends Mamda­ni for his “impres­si­ve and inspi­ring grass­roots cam­paign.” “In each elec­tion, I have ear­ned the trust of voters through hard work, acces­si­bi­li­ty, and by advan­cing a legis­la­ti­ve and com­mu­ni­ty agen­da roo­ted in equi­ty, accoun­ta­bi­li­ty, and action,” she said. “Spe­cu­la­ting about my poli­ti­cal future wit­hout ack­now­led­ging the depth of my ser­vice or the diver­si­ty of thought within pro­gres­si­ve cir­cles is a dis­ser­vice to the con­sti­tu­ents of the 56th Assem­bly Dis­trict and your rea­ders.” 3. Jeni­fer Raj­ku­mar. Dis­trict 38.  Zohr­an vote share: 64% Pri­ma­ry endor­se­ment: None First elec­ted: 2020 To poli­ti­cal insi­ders, Assem­bly­mem­ber Jeni­fer Raj­ku­mar needs no intro­duc­tion. She was once famous for her remar­kab­le stan­ning of our Mayor Eric Adams, but when his poli­ti­cal capi­tal nose­di­ved she all but hal­ted her cas­ca­de of appearan­ces with the mayor. This year, she was the mode­ra­te chal­len­ger hoping to unse­at lef­ty Juma­ane Wil­liams for public advo­ca­te, and she levied attacks (which some cri­ti­ci­zed as racist) that he was lazy and absent from his job. Raj­ku­mar — who is also a strong sup­port­er of Isra­el — lost to Wil­liams by over 50 points but was able to keep her dis­trict, which includes parts of Rid­ge­wood, Glend­a­le and Wood­ha­ven. “In 2020, Assem­bly­wo­man Jeni­fer Raj­ku­mar made histo­ry, defea­ting an 11-year incum­bent by the lar­gest mar­gin of any chal­len­ger in New York Sta­te and tri­pling voter turn­out to a record high,” her spo­kesper­son Jacob Gross said in a state­ment. “Sin­ce then, she has brought that same unmat­ched ener­gy and results to her dis­trict every day, backed by a broad, diver­se coali­ti­on — and she’s just get­ting star­ted.” 4. Erik Dilan. Dis­trict 54.  Zohr­an vote share: 65% Pri­ma­ry endor­se­ment: Cuo­mo First elec­ted: 2014 Erik Dilan repres­ents parts of Bush­wick and Cypress Hills — and he has expe­ri­ence wat­ching incumb­ents lose their seats to young, lef­ty chal­len­gers. His father, for­mer sta­te Sen. Mar­ty Dilan, nota­b­ly beca­me the first sit­ting sta­te legis­la­tor to lose a pri­ma­ry to a DSA mem­ber when he was ous­ted by Julia Sala­zar in 2018. The Assemblymember’s most recent pri­ma­ry chall­enge came from DSA mem­ber Samy Oli­va­res in 2022; he squea­k­ed by with 52 per­cent of the vote. He did not respond to a request for com­ment. 5. Al Tay­lor. Dis­trict 71.  Zohr­an vote share: 51% Pri­ma­ry endor­se­ment: None First elec­ted: 2017 Har­lem saw a swing toward Mamda­ni, and Assem­bly­mem­ber Al Taylor’s dis­trict was no excep­ti­on. While he didn’t endor­se in the pri­ma­ry, Mamda­ni announ­ced Thurs­day that Tay­lor is sup­port­ing him in the gene­ral elec­tion. Ear­lier this year, the Har­lem law­ma­ker stood with other Black elec­teds to sup­port Eric Adams during the brief peri­od when Gov. Kathy Hoch­ul was con­side­ring remo­ving him from office. “As a long­time col­le­ague in the NYS Assem­bly, I’ve had the pri­vi­le­ge of working along­side Zohr­an Mamda­ni on issues that mat­ter most to our com­mu­ni­ties,” Tay­lor said in a state­ment. “I look for­ward to con­ti­nuing our work tog­e­ther, inclu­ding making New York more afforda­ble and our city safer. I am proud to sup­port our Demo­cra­tic nomi­nee for Mayor and am eager to cam­paign with him lea­ding up to the Novem­ber elec­tion, doing my part to help crea­te a brigh­ter future for our city.” — Jason Bee­fer­man and Bill Maho­ney­SUB­POE­NA SITUATION: The U.S. attorney’s office in Alba­ny has issued two sub­poe­nas to New York Att­or­ney Gene­ral Leti­tia James stem­ming from a pair of poli­ti­cal­ly char­ged civil cases against Pre­si­dent Donald Trump and the Natio­nal Rif­le Asso­cia­ti­on, accor­ding to a per­son fami­li­ar with the mat­ter. The sub­poe­nas are an escala­ti­on of the Trump administration’s scru­ti­ny of James, who has posi­tio­ned hers­elf as a fero­cious oppo­nent of the pre­si­dent. The Depart­ment of Jus­ti­ce ear­lier this year ope­ned a sepa­ra­te inves­ti­ga­ti­on into mor­tga­ge fraud alle­ga­ti­ons against James, which she has denied. The New York Times first repor­ted the sub­poe­nas. “Any wea­po­niza­ti­on of the jus­ti­ce sys­tem should dis­turb every Ame­ri­can,” James spo­kesper­son Geoff Burgan said in a state­ment. “We stand stron­gly behind our suc­cessful liti­ga­ti­on against the Trump Orga­niza­ti­on and the Natio­nal Rif­le Asso­cia­ti­on, and we will con­ti­nue to stand up for New Yor­kers’ rights.” James’ civil fraud case against Trump led to a Man­hat­tan tri­al judge last year deter­mi­ning the pre­si­dent and other defen­dants — inclu­ding his adult sons — infla­ted his net worth and the value of his real estate pro­per­ties. The judge orde­red Trump to pay a mas­si­ve finan­cial penal­ty that, with inte­rest, has bal­loo­ned to more than half a bil­li­on dol­lars. Trump is appe­al­ing that ver­dict. James’ office last year suc­cessful­ly won a fraud case against the NRA, the pro-gun rights advo­ca­cy group, with a jury deter­mi­ning its long­time CEO mis­spent the organization’s funds on expen­si­ve perks. “Inves­ti­ga­ting the fraud case Att­or­ney Gene­ral James won against Pre­si­dent Trump and his busi­nesses has to be the most bla­tant and despe­ra­te exam­p­le of this admi­nis­tra­ti­on car­ry­ing out the president’s poli­ti­cal retri­bu­ti­on cam­paign,” James’ per­so­nal att­or­ney Abbe Lowell said. — Nick Reis­man, Josh Ger­stein and Eri­ca Orden ‘HAPPY 90TH’: New York law­ma­kers joi­n­ed the AARP to cele­bra­te Social Security’s 90th anni­ver­sa­ry today. The mile­stone comes at a peri­lous moment for the state’s social safe­ty net, as the Empire State’s social ser­vice agen­ci­es brace for deep fede­ral fun­ding cuts in the Repu­bli­can-led “One Big Beau­tiful Bill.” Vul­nerable GOP Rep. Mike Law­ler atten­ded one AARP event today in the Hud­son Valley’s Tar­ry­town. Law­ler is a high-prio­ri­ty tar­get for Demo­crats see­king to ret­a­ke the House majo­ri­ty next year and he’s faced pro­tests in his dis­trict over cuts to social ser­vice pro­grams in the Repu­bli­can mega­bill. But Law­ler was gree­ted diplo­ma­ti­cal­ly today and focu­sed his brief remarks on efforts to bols­ter area Social Secu­ri­ty offices and how the mega­bill bene­fits seni­ors. “I am proud of the fact that as part of the tax bill, we were able to pass a $6,000 seni­or deduc­tion, which will help off­set Social Secu­ri­ty taxes that is vital for our seni­ors who are living on a fixed inco­me,” he said. It was a far cry from the com­ba­ti­ve “Mor­ning Joe” inter­view he had ear­lier in the day, whe­re host Joe Scar­bo­rough pres­sed him on the law’s impact on Medi­caid and dis­trict hos­pi­tals. Law­ler accu­sed hos­pi­tal repre­sen­ta­ti­ves of “par­ro­ting” tal­king points. Demo­cra­tic Rep. Rit­chie Tor­res joi­n­ed a rela­ted AARP event in the Bronx today, tel­ling the small crowd that he is “a lifel­ong ally in the fight for social secu­ri­ty.” “For me, the­re is no grea­ter respon­si­bi­li­ty for the fede­ral govern­ment and for Ame­ri­ca than to pro­tect Social Secu­ri­ty for the pre­sent and future gene­ra­ti­on of older Ame­ri­cans,” Tor­res said. Tor­res didn’t direct­ly cri­ti­ci­ze the mega­bill or his Repu­bli­can col­le­agues in his address, but said “the top one per­cent does not pay their fair share into Social Secu­ri­ty” — a poin­ted nod to the par­ti­san deba­te. — Ami­ra McKee and Emi­ly Ngo— QUEENS BOYS: Trump and Cuomo’s have crossed paths in their per­so­nal and pro­fes­sio­nal lives seve­ral times befo­re. (The New York Times) — ONE WAY STREET: Mamda­ni has voi­ced sup­port for Demo­cra­tic Rep. Mikie Sher­rill in her bid for gover­nor of New Jer­sey, but the mode­ra­te is kee­ping her distance. (POLITICO Pro) — GET OUT: The new Brook­lyn head­quar­ters for Adams’ reelec­tion cam­paign has an out­stan­ding vaca­te order. (THE CITY) Missed this morning’s New York Play­book? We for­gi­ve you. Read it here.

The sta­te­house has been wit­hout quo­rum all week for its spe­cial ses­si­on to deba­te redis­tric­ting Texas’ con­gres­sio­nal map.

Every week poli­ti­cal car­too­nists throug­hout the coun­try and across the poli­ti­cal spec­trum app­ly their ink-stained skills to cap­tu­re the foi­bles, memes, hypo­cri­sies and other head-slap­ping events in the world of poli­tics. The fruits of the­se labors are hundreds of car­toons that enter­tain and enra­ge rea­ders of all poli­ti­cal stripes. Here’s an offe­ring of the best of this week’s crop, picked fresh off the Too­no­sphe­re. Edi­ted by Matt Wuer­ker.

With help from Ami­ra McKee­WHAT COULD BE ON TAP FOR 2028: There’s never been a full-fled­ged par­ti­san ger­ry­man­der on the books for New York’s con­gres­sio­nal dis­tricts. Demo­crats and Repu­bli­cans have split power in Alba­ny during most modern redis­tric­ting cycles. When they didn’t in 2024, the lines drawn by Demo­crats after a series of court batt­les were nowhe­re near as aggres­si­ve as some par­tisans hoped. Gov. Kathy Hoch­ul now wants to chan­ge that in respon­se to simi­lar Repu­bli­can efforts in Texas. Redra­wing the lines would be com­pli­ca­ted in the Empire Sta­te. It couldn’t hap­pen until 2028 at the ear­liest, and even then, it could only move for­ward if voters appro­ve a con­sti­tu­tio­nal amend­ment to per­mit a mid-deca­de ger­ry­man­der. But that begs a big ques­ti­on: What would an all-out New York ger­ry­man­der look like? The poli­ti­cal rea­li­ties of 2028 are tough to pre­dict. Some incumb­ents will be gone by then, and poli­ti­cal shifts could come to various pockets of the sta­te. And if Pre­si­dent Donald Trump has his way, a new Cen­sus could throw the cur­rent map­ma­king cal­cu­lus out the win­dow. But as things stand now, at least two Repu­bli­cans have reason to fret, and may­be as many as four. Rep. Nico­le Mal­lio­ta­kis has top­ped 60 per­cent in the past two elec­tions. Her dis­trict curr­ent­ly encom­pas­ses Sta­ten Island and mer­ges it with por­ti­ons of Brook­lyn most­ly to the east of the Ver­raz­z­a­no Bridge, most of them Repu­bli­can-fri­end­ly. In 2022, Demo­crats wan­ted to extend the dis­trict fur­ther north into Brook­lyn to include por­ti­ons of the left-lea­ning encla­ve of Park Slo­pe. Enac­ting such a plan would turn the dis­trict into a batt­le­ground. A more aggres­si­ve approach — har­ke­ning back to a map used in the 1970s — would mer­ge Sta­ten Island with parts of Manhattan.In West­ches­ter, Demo­cra­tic Rep. Geor­ge Lati­mer has a lot of breathing room — he recei­ved 72 per­cent of the vote in 2024. Repu­bli­can Rep. Mike Law­ler doesn’t — he recei­ved 52 per­cent. The­re are towns, such as the ones imme­dia­te­ly south of the Tap­pan Zee, that could be swap­ped from Latimer’s dis­trict to Lawler’s, gro­wing the num­ber of Demo­crats in the Republican’s seat.The four Con­gres­sio­nal seats on Long Island are curr­ent­ly split bet­ween Demo­cra­tic Reps. Lau­ra Gil­len and Tom Suoz­zi and Repu­bli­can Reps. Nick LaLo­ta and Andrew Gar­ba­ri­no. “You could pull Suozzi’s dis­trict more into the city. You could pull Gillen’s dis­trict more into Gre­go­ry Meeks’ ter­ri­to­ry,” Hof­stra University’s Lar­ry Levy said, refer­ring to the Queens Con­gress mem­ber. That would allow for some por­ti­ons of the Suoz­zi and Gil­len dis­tricts to be mer­ged with the Demo­cra­tic strong­holds curr­ent­ly situa­ted in Repu­bli­can dis­tricts: “You pro­ba­b­ly could make eit­her Gar­ba­ri­no or LaLo­ta more vul­nerable, but not both,” Levy said. In the wes­tern half of upsta­te, Demo­cra­tic Rep. Tim Ken­ne­dy and Repu­bli­can Reps. Clau­dia Ten­ney and Nick Lang­wor­t­hy each recei­ved around 65 per­cent of the vote in 2024. Demo­cra­tic Rep. Joe Morel­le got 60 per­cent. The­re might be a path to joi­ning sli­ces of the Ken­ne­dy and Morel­le seats with Demo­cra­tic-fri­end­ly towns like Gen­e­va and Oswego, allo­wing the Ten­ney dis­trict to beco­me a bit more com­pe­ti­ti­ve. But there’s not much to work with. “Ken­ne­dy and Morel­le are kind of islands of Demo­crats in a sea of Repu­bli­cans,” one Buf­fa­lo Demo­crat said. With that in mind, the end result might just be jeo­par­di­zing two Demo­crats wit­hout actual­ly making the Ten­ney seat win­nable. — Bill Maho­ney­MAMDA­NI TURNS UP PRESSURE: Zohr­an Mamda­ni sought to press his advan­ta­ge today among Demo­crats who have yet to sup­port him by lever­aging a New York Times report that rival Andrew Cuo­mo and Pre­si­dent Donald Trump have dis­cus­sed the mayoral race. “My admi­nis­tra­ti­on will be Donald Trump’s worst night­ma­re,” Mamda­ni declared, pre­dic­ting his poli­ci­es to boost working-class New Yor­kers would show how Trump has fai­led tho­se com­mu­ni­ties. The Demo­cra­tic nomi­nee for mayor accu­sed Cuo­mo of “con­spi­ring” with Trump. He spo­ke to repor­ters in Lower Man­hat­tan out­side 26 Fede­ral Pla­za, whe­re fede­ral immi­gra­ti­on agents have been detai­ning migrants out­side of court. Mamda­ni, who defea­ted Cuo­mo by 12 points in the June pri­ma­ry, stood with the lea­ders of labor uni­ons that have endor­sed him after pre­vious­ly back­ing Cuo­mo. “We know that Andrew Cuo­mo will sell working peo­p­le out for his inte­rests, for the inte­rests of the bil­lionaires that sup­port him, for the inte­rests of Donald Trump,” Mamda­ni said, “becau­se all of tho­se inte­rests are lining up as one and the same.” Cuo­mo, who’s run­ning an inde­pen­dent gene­ral elec­tion bid, told repor­ters in Mid­town Man­hat­tan that he doesn’t remem­ber the last time he spo­ke with Trump and kno­cked the sto­ry as “palace intri­gue.” The for­mer gover­nor said he did “lea­ve word” with the pre­si­dent after an ass­asi­na­ti­on attempt. “I’ve never spo­ken to him about the mayor’s race,” Cuo­mo said, deny­ing the Times report. “I had spo­ken to him when I was gover­nor dozens and dozens, if not hundreds of times. We went through Covid tog­e­ther.” Cuo­mo told repor­ters he would defend New York City against Trump “with every oun­ce of my strength.” The Times addi­tio­nal­ly repor­ted today that Cuo­mo has told busi­ness lea­ders he’s not “per­so­nal­ly” loo­king for a fight with the pre­si­dent. In Brook­lyn, Mayor Eric Adams, who’s also run­ning as an inde­pen­dent, said he’s never dis­cus­sed the cam­paign with Trump and that his “con­ver­sa­ti­ons with the pre­si­dent is about brin­ging resour­ces to the city.” Mamda­ni told repor­ters today that he’s wil­ling to talk with Trump and keep an open dia­lo­gue but only to impro­ve the lives of New Yor­kers. “If he wants to actual­ly act upon the che­a­per gro­ce­ries that he told us he would deli­ver, that is a dif­fe­rent con­ver­sa­ti­on,” the can­di­da­te said. — Emi­ly Ngo, Joe Anu­ta and Ami­ra McKee ‘LOOK ON THE HAT’: The first borough office of Adams’ uphill reelec­tion cam­paign is bor­ro­wing the head­quar­ters of one of Brooklyn’s old-guard poli­ti­cal clubs. The self-titled “child from Browns­ville” cut the rib­bon at his new Mill Basin office Thurs­day, announ­cing that the Tho­mas Jef­fer­son Demo­cra­tic Club head­quar­ters — now plas­te­red with “re-elect Eric for Mayor” pos­ters — will ser­ve as the ner­ve cen­ter for the campaign’s Brook­lyn efforts. “Why Brook­lyn?” Adams said at the Thurs­day event, ges­t­uri­ng to his cap. “Brook­lyn is the place I was born. When you look on the hat, it says Browns­ville. It was the place that shaped and made me. It was the place that taught me the for­ti­tu­de that I have right now to lead this city.” Adams’ team said today it expects to unveil more offices across the five boroughs — just a day after the New York City Cam­paign Finan­ce board denied the incum­bent mil­li­ons of dol­lars in public matching funds, put­ting him at a weigh­ty finan­cial dis­ad­van­ta­ge against Mamda­ni. This isn’t the first time Adams has encoun­te­red trou­ble with the CFB, who­se public matching fund pro­gram requi­res strict adhe­rence to report­ing man­da­tes and indi­vi­du­al dona­ti­on limits. A 900-page CFB audit of Adams’ 2021 cam­paign found more than 150 fund­rai­sing events that the Adams cam­paign said they paid for but did not docu­ment how much was spent and by whom — a red flag for poten­ti­al­ly pro­hi­bi­ted in-kind con­tri­bu­ti­ons. The cam­paign decli­ned to address tho­se irre­gu­la­ri­ties in its offi­ci­al respon­se. POLITICO repor­ted in 2021 that Adams also inter­mit­tent­ly used office space occu­p­ied by the Demo­cra­tic Party’s law firm wit­hout dis­clo­sing the rela­ti­onship in cam­paign finan­ce filings. When asked about how much his cam­paign was spen­ding to rent the home of one of New York’s oldest and most influ­en­ti­al Demo­cra­tic clubs, Adams shrug­ged. “Every pay­ment we do is lis­ted on the cam­paign finan­ce so you can look at that,” he said. Despi­te the CFB deny­ing his fun­ding request for the tenth time yes­ter­day, Adams said he was unfa­zed, dod­ging ques­ti­ons about whe­ther he would shake up his cam­paign staff or for­go the matching pro­gram to accept lar­ger dona­ti­ons. “The life of a per­son born in Browns­ville, you’­re always mee­ting obs­ta­cles,” Adams said, again ges­t­uri­ng to his cap. “But in all tho­se obs­ta­cles, what hap­pen­ed? I’m the mayor, becau­se I’m a working class, resi­li­ent, hard working New Yor­ker, and we’­re used to obs­ta­cles.” — Ami­ra McKee­DE­PART­MENT OF WISHFUL THINKING: City Hall is asking agen­ci­es to con­tri­bu­te ide­as for Mayor Eric Adams’ 2026 Sta­te of the City address — a request that assu­mes the mayor will win reelec­tion despi­te poll num­bers sug­gest­ing other­wi­se. On Wed­nes­day, Depu­ty Mayor for Com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons Fabi­en Levy blas­ted out a mes­sa­ge encou­ra­ging agen­ci­es to sub­mit ide­as for the theo­re­ti­cal address by Aug. 11, accor­ding to a copy of the mis­si­ve obtai­ned by Play­book. The request comes as Adams, who is run­ning as an inde­pen­dent, remains a long­shot con­ten­der for a second term. The incum­bent is run­ning as an inde­pen­dent in an over­whel­mingly Demo­cra­tic town. The Cam­paign Finan­ce Board appears deter­mi­ned to deny him mil­li­ons of dol­lars in public matching funds. And the latest poll had the mayor win­ning just 7 per­cent of the vote, coming in behind Mamda­ni, Cuo­mo and GOP nomi­nee Cur­tis Sliwa. Regard­less, Levy is bul­lish on the mayor’s odds. “New York City’s public ser­vants are at their best when put­ting poli­tics asi­de and stay­ing focu­sed on the work — and that is exact­ly what we are doing,” he said in a state­ment. “The Sta­te of the City takes months of thoughtful plan­ning, and we intend to deli­ver a speech in ear­ly 2026 that is as ground­brea­king as ever.” Despi­te the aura of futi­li­ty, some muni­ci­pal workers are trea­ting the exer­cise as a job pre­ser­va­ti­on stra­tegy, accor­ding to one city employee who was gran­ted anony­mi­ty to dis­cuss inter­nal thin­king. Should Mamda­ni win the gene­ral elec­tion, as pol­ling curr­ent­ly indi­ca­tes, seni­or staf­fers would have a rea­dy­ma­de plan to pitch to the new admi­nis­tra­ti­on and pro­ve their worth. “Zohran’s peo­p­le are going to gra­vi­ta­te to tho­se who have an agen­da that ali­gns with his popu­lism,” ano­ther city staf­fer, also gran­ted anony­mi­ty, told Play­book. Levy is con­vin­ced the­re will be no chan­ging of the guard. “We have app­re­cia­ted POLITICO’s covera­ge of our past four Sta­te of the City addres­ses, and we look for­ward to their con­tin­ued covera­ge of Mayor Adams’ next four,” he said in his state­ment. — Joe Anu­ta— MEGABILL CUTS: New York’s social ser­vice pro­vi­ders are bra­cing for deep fede­ral fun­ding cuts as pover­ty rates rise among the state’s elder­ly. (New York Focus) — ANOTHER LAWSUIT: A for­mer top NYPD lawy­er is suing the depart­ment, accu­sing top brass of firing her for inves­ti­ga­ting Adams’ for­mer Chief of Depart­ment Jef­frey Mad­drey. (Got­ha­mist) — SLOW DOWN: New York City has insti­tu­ted a new e‑bike speed limit, but local offi­ci­als don’t have the tee­th to enforce it. (The Wall Street Jour­nal) Missed this morning’s New York Play­book? We for­gi­ve you. Read it here.

Mitch Dani­els weighs in on what has beco­me a natio­nal fight over ger­ry­man­de­ring.

India­na Repu­bli­cans remain­ed non­com­mit­tal fol­lo­wing a con­ver­sa­ti­on with Vice Pre­si­dent JD Van­ce.

The con­ser­va­ti­ve ope­ra­ti­ve is mar­ried to White House depu­ty chief of staff Ste­phen Mil­ler and has work­ed for Elon Musk.

The orga­niza­ti­on, Powered by Peo­p­le, has repor­ted­ly been hel­ping sup­port Texas sta­te law­ma­kers who fled the sta­te to pre­vent Repu­bli­cans from pas­sing a new con­gres­sio­nal map.

With help from Ami­ra McKee🚨 🚨 — “Trump Weighs Get­ting Invol­ved in New York City Mayor Race,” by NYT’s Nicho­las Fan­dos, Jere­my W. Peters, Mag­gie Haber­man and Kathe­ri­ne Ros­man: “Pre­si­dent Trump may have moved out of New York City, but he has pri­va­te­ly dis­cus­sed whe­ther to inter­ce­de in its frac­tious race for mayor to try to stop Zohr­an Mamda­ni, the Demo­cra­tic nomi­nee, accor­ding to eight peo­p­le briefed on the dis­cus­sions.” (More below) ​​CRY ME A RIVER: Even as Gov. Kathy Hoch­ul dou­bles down on her Demo­cra­tic ger­ry­man­de­ring plan, she said she’s fee­ling over­co­me with despon­den­cy for New York Repu­bli­cans who could lose their seats when she tri­es to redraw New York’s maps to boost her par­ty. “I feel real­ly sad,” Hoch­ul said today, when asked if she had a mes­sa­ge for any GOP reps who might see their seat era­sed if she pushes through a full-fled­ged ger­ry­man­der. Hoch­ul and Cali­for­nia Gov. Gavin News­om sprin­ted to the front lines of the mucky redis­tric­ting war and have vowed to redraw their own maps to add more Demo­cra­tic seats ever sin­ce Pre­si­dent Donald Trump cal­led on Texas to abrupt­ly redraw its Con­gres­sio­nal maps to add 5 more GOP seats. Lucki­ly, Hoch­ul noted, there’s a way out. His name is Repu­bli­can Rep. Mike Law­ler, and, she said, he has the poli­ti­cal power and sway in Washing­ton to end par­ti­san ger­ry­man­de­ring with his forth­co­ming fede­ral bill that would ban the prac­ti­ce nati­on­wi­de. “He has so much enorm­ous power in Washing­ton,” Hoch­ul said of Law­ler. Sike! She was kid­ding. She doesn’t feel sad. She doesn’t think Law­ler has any juice in D.C. and she defi­ni­te­ly doesn’t seem to be slo­wing down her push to ger­ry­man­der the hell out of New York in what she says is a respon­se to Texas’ efforts. On Tues­day, Demo­cra­tic Natio­nal Com­mit­tee Chair Ken Mar­tin indi­ca­ted he’s encou­ra­ging other Demo­cra­tic gover­nors to con­sider redra­wing their maps too. And the red sta­te of Mis­sou­ri, which has two GOP House seats, could be Repu­bli­cans’ next ger­ry­man­de­ring tar­get. As the redis­tric­ting war looks to be going nuclear, Hoch­ul is dar­ing Repu­bli­cans like Law­ler to loud­ly call for an end to their party’s redis­tric­ting effort in Texas. “Tell them to call the pre­si­dent of their own par­ty and say, ‘Stand down in the war with New York and Cali­for­nia and other Demo­cra­tic sta­tes,’” Hoch­ul said. “If you want to stop what you’re doing in Texas, I’ll stand down. You star­ted it. You end it.” “This is a guy who’s now say­ing, ‘I’m going to intro­du­ce a bill to get it chan­ged,’” she said. “The same guy who pro­mi­sed a full res­to­ra­ti­on of the sta­te and local tax deduc­tion comes back far short from that and spins it as a win that everybody’s buy­ing. He has no power. He won’t get it done. And I’m not sym­pa­the­tic becau­se he was silent.” Lawler’s office noted that the increa­ses in sta­te and local tax deduc­tions he fought with Trump for during the crea­ti­on of the One Big Beau­tiful Bill Act pro­vi­des reli­ef for most of his dis­trict, with only the top 10 per­cent of tax­pay­ers not get­ting a tax cut. “Kathy Hoch­ul is not just the worst Gover­nor in Ame­ri­ca, she’s also the dum­best,” Law­ler said in a state­ment. “After years of cal­ling for the SALT cap to be fixed, she’s now attack­ing the solu­ti­on becau­se Demo­crats weren’t the ones to get it done, my New York GOP col­le­agues and I were. No one belie­ves a word she says. Her own col­le­agues in the Sta­te Legis­la­tu­re mock her at every turn. What a pathe­tic excu­se for a lea­der of New York Sta­te.” — Jason Bee­fer­m­an­TRUMP EYES NYC MAYOR’S RACE: Trump is “very inte­res­ted” in the New York City mayoral race, said Repu­bli­can bil­lionaire John Cat­s­i­ma­t­i­dis, who is fri­end­ly with both Andrew Cuo­mo and Mayor Eric Adams. Cat­s­i­ma­t­i­dis said he dined Fri­day with Trump. “He’s a New York guy, he grew up in New York,” Cat­s­i­ma­t­i­dis told Play­book. “He loves New York. He wants to make sure there’s pro­per accoun­ting in New York, that the qua­li­ty of life goes on in New York and that we don’t lose any more popu­la­ti­on.” Trump hasn’t com­mit­ted to a role in the race, though, and Cat­s­i­ma­t­i­dis said he wants the pre­si­dent to hold off — for now. “I asked him to put off decis­i­ons on any­thing until Sep­tem­ber,” Cat­s­i­ma­t­i­dis said. The New York Times repor­ted on the president’s inte­rest ear­lier today. The Times also repor­ted that during a clo­sed-door mee­ting with Law­ler last month in the White House, Trump dis­cus­sed the mayor’s race with the Hud­son Val­ley con­gress­man. A per­son fami­li­ar with the mee­ting told Play­book that Trump did not express a spe­ci­fic pre­fe­rence for any of the mayoral can­di­da­tes, but rather was inte­res­ted in who has the best shot at win­ning. Trump’s invol­vement would come as Cuomo’s pushing for the field to coale­s­ce around the stron­gest chal­len­ger to Mamda­ni by mid-Sep­tem­ber — a dyna­mic that curr­ent­ly favors the for­mer gover­nor, accor­ding to most polls. “The pre­si­dent runs the coun­try and what is said to him at the din­ner par­ty is, ‘We saved Ame­ri­ca, we saved the free world, now it’s time to save New York,” Cat­s­i­ma­t­i­dis said. “I’m pret­ty sure he agreed with it.” — Nick Reis­man and Jason Bee­fer­ma­nAN­DREW CUOMO, THE REPLY GUY: If you haven’t been on X in the last 24 hours (lucky you) you’ve missed Cuomo’s furious — and curious — bar­ra­ge of posts and repli­es. Sin­ce Mon­day, Cuo­mo has expres­sed gra­ti­tu­de to someone with the user­na­me “Andrew Cuo­mo is a Sex Pest.” He cal­led on Demo­cra­tic nomi­nee Zohr­an Mamda­ni to “Boy­cott, Dive­st, and Sanc­tion” his pro­per­ty in Ugan­da — a coun­try, he noted, “that mur­ders LGBTQIA+ peo­p­le.” And the for­mer gover­nor even respon­ded ear­nest­ly to someone else who told him to “Give it up grand­pa.” “No grand­kids yet- but I’ve got the expe­ri­ence and the abili­ty to get things done,” Cuo­mo wro­te. The mayoral hop­eful and fai­led pri­ma­ry can­di­da­te has pos­ted over 35 times on X over the past two days, most­ly with a new, direct tone that would’ve been unbe­co­ming of the high­ly-coor­di­na­ted pri­ma­ry cam­paign he was run­ning just two months ago. It’s a new social media approach from the 67-year-old and his cam­paign after his mil­len­ni­al foe Mamda­ni suc­cessful­ly uti­li­zed the medi­um to han­di­ly beat him in the Demo­cra­tic pri­ma­ry and sur­ge the under-30 turn­out. So is Andrew hims­elf behind the account? “We hired this real­ly smart kid named A.J. Par­kin­son,” Rich Azzo­par­di told Play­book, an appa­rent ton­gue-in-cheek refe­rence to a fic­ti­tious cha­rac­ter Cuomo’s father first brought to life and quo­ted fre­quent­ly in the ear­ly ‘80s. Coin­ci­den­tal­ly, Par­kin­son emer­ged around the same time Cuo­mo took his last nap — a fact we now know becau­se he told us so in one of his many repli­es on X this after­noon. MAGA influen­cer Lau­ra Loo­mer loves it. “W,” she wro­te in respon­se to Cuomo’s call for a Ugan­da-cen­tric BDS move­ment. Mamdani’s cam­paign did not com­ment on Cuomo’s new online approach. — Jason Bee­fer­man NO MATCHING FUNDS FOR ADAMS: The New York City Cam­paign Finan­ce Board denied Adams mil­li­ons of dol­lars in matching funds for the tenth time this mor­ning — and sug­gested in a stron­gly worded state­ment that Adams will not be get­ting a pen­ny any­ti­me soon, POLITICO repor­ted today. The regu­la­to­ry body denied Adams the public fun­ding he’s see­king for his gene­ral elec­tion bid on two grounds: His cam­paign has not sub­mit­ted requi­red paper­work, and the board has reason to belie­ve the cam­paign vio­la­ted the law. The board’s decis­i­on escala­tes a long-sim­me­ring stand­off with the incum­bent and hob­bles Adams’ abili­ty to com­pe­te at a time when he is alre­a­dy at a seve­re dis­ad­van­ta­ge. The mayor drop­ped out of the Demo­cra­tic pri­ma­ry after the con­tro­ver­si­al dis­mis­sal of a fede­ral bri­be­ry case against him. He is now run­ning in the crow­ded gene­ral elec­tion as an inde­pen­dent. Fel­low inde­pend­ents Cuo­mo and Jim Wal­den are hoping to take down Mamda­ni, a demo­cra­tic socia­list who has solid­ly sta­ked out the left lane in the gene­ral elec­tion. So is GOP nomi­nee Cur­tis Sliwa. Cuomo’s base over­laps with Adams’, as does Sliwa’s, alt­hough to a les­ser degree. Should the mul­ti­mil­li­on-dol­lar hole in his war chest per­sist, the mayor will be forced to con­ti­nue the time-con­sum­ing pro­cess of fund­rai­sing long after his oppon­ents, pla­cing yet ano­ther obs­ta­cle in the way of his long­shot come­back bid. Adams’ cam­paign did not imme­dia­te­ly com­ment on the board’s latest decis­i­on. — Joe Anu­ta— PAC CASH: The pro-Adams PAC, Empower NYC, has rai­sed $1 mil­li­on in sup­port of the mayor’s long-shot reelec­tion bid, inclu­ding from cryp­to indus­try donors. (City and Sta­te) — NUCLEAR OPTION: Hochul’s admi­nis­tra­ti­on wants to con­ti­nue sub­si­di­zing New York’s aging nuclear faci­li­ties until 2050. (POLITICO Pro) — RYDER’S LAW: The death of a New York City car­ria­ge hor­se has rene­wed calls for City Hall to pha­se-out hor­se-drawn car­ri­a­ges. (CBS News) Missed this morning’s New York Play­book? We for­gi­ve you. Read it here.

Four hundred peo­p­le were evacua­ted from the hotel whe­re they were stay­ing, but they were allo­wed to even­tual­ly return.

He says the issue may come up when he meets with Vice Pre­si­dent JD Van­ce later this week.

With help from Ami­ra McKee­MU­TUAL­LY ASSURED REDISTRICTING: The mul­ti-front, tit-for-tat ger­ry­man­de­ring war is put­ting New York Repu­bli­cans in a peri­lous posi­ti­on, and they’re acting quick­ly to con­demn Hoch­ul — and even buck Pre­si­dent Donald Trump — to avo­id beco­ming casu­al­ties as Dems seek reta­li­a­to­ry redis­tric­ting. After Pre­si­dent Donald Trump pres­sed Texas Gov. Greg Abbott to redraw his state’s con­gres­sio­nal maps in a way that would add five GOP seats, Hoch­ul respon­ded with a pledge to “fight fire with fire.” New York’s Repu­bli­can Reps. Mike Law­ler, Eli­se Ste­fa­nik, Nico­le Mal­lio­ta­kis and Nick LaLo­ta don’t want to beco­me col­la­te­ral dama­ge. To that end, some are even wil­ling to blast Trump’s efforts in Texas. “What Texas is doing is wrong and I’m oppo­sed to it,” Law­ler text­ed Play­book, not­ing that he’s spon­so­ring a bill with fel­low blue sta­te Repu­bli­can Rep. Kevin Kiley of Cali­for­nia that would ban ger­ry­man­de­ring nati­on­wi­de. Mal­lio­ta­kis is spea­king out against Texas’ redis­tric­ting efforts too. “I may dif­fer in opi­ni­on from many of my col­le­agues on this, par­ti­cu­lar­ly the ones from Texas,” she told The Joe Pis­co­po Show on Mon­day. “I’m not some­bo­dy who’s sup­port­i­ve of any type of ger­ry­man­de­ring.” Their efforts come as Hoch­ul con­ti­nues to burn away any pre­ten­se that New York’s redis­tric­ting pro­cess should be inde­pen­dent. “Up until now, Demo­crats have trea­ted our poli­ti­cal sys­tem like it’s still gover­ned by norms, guard­ed by limits and roo­ted in fair­ness,” Hoch­ul wro­te in an op-ed published today in the Hous­ton Chro­nic­le. “Rules were meant to be fol­lo­wed. It hurts to say it, but that era has come to an end.” On Mon­day, as Hoch­ul hos­ted Texas law­ma­kers fle­e­ing their sta­te to pre­vent pas­sa­ge of redis­tric­ting legis­la­ti­on, Assem­bly Spea­k­er Carl Heas­tie told New York’s Repu­bli­cans to pipe up. “Per­haps the Repu­bli­can mem­bers of Con­gress here in New York could say to their Repu­bli­can col­le­agues in Texas, ‘Hey, slow down on this, becau­se this can also affect us,’” he said. But the Repu­bli­cans spea­king out about what’s going on deep in the heart of Texas still won’t for­get Dems’ redis­tric­ting past at home. New York Demo­crats tried to redraw dis­trict lines in their favor long befo­re Trump told Texas to make chan­ges of its own. In 2021, voters rejec­ted a Demo­crat-led bal­lot refe­ren­dum to wea­k­en the inde­pen­dence of the state’s redis­tric­ting pro­cess. The next year, the courts blo­cked their attempts to redraw the maps in a way that would favor Demo­crats. “New York Dems have been try­ing to ger­ry­man­der and rig the elec­tions for years, well befo­re what Texas is doing,” Law­ler said. “They are not doing this in respon­se, they are using this as cover to jus­ti­fy what they have wan­ted to do.” Law­ler said he’s still working on the spe­ci­fics of his fede­ral anti-ger­ry­man­de­ring bill. Ste­fa­nik — who’s con­side­ring a guber­na­to­ri­al run against Hoch­ul — said she would work to pre­vent mid-deca­de redis­tric­ting in New York if elec­ted gover­nor. But she went silent when Play­book asked her if she’s against mid-deca­de redis­tric­ting in Texas. “As Gover­nor, Con­gress­wo­man Ste­fa­nik would sup­port the NY Sta­te Con­sti­tu­ti­on that is expli­cit with once a deca­de redis­tric­ting and the will of the voters of NY that voted for the inde­pen­dent bipar­ti­san com­mis­si­on,” her spo­kesper­son Alex DeGras­se said in a state­ment. “Con­gress­wo­man Ste­fa­nik suc­cessful­ly led the effort to pro­tect the inte­gri­ty of NY elec­tions and fair dis­trict lines while Kathy Hoch­ul tried twice to ille­gal­ly ger­ry­man­der and sup­press the will of New York voters.” Hoch­ul spo­kesper­son Jen Good­man respon­ded to New York’s GOP mem­bers. “If New York House Repu­bli­cans are serious about pro­tec­ting demo­cra­cy, they should direct their outra­ge at Donald Trump and their col­le­agues in Texas try­ing to dis­mant­le it,” she said. “Until Texas stands down, Gover­nor Hoch­ul will con­ti­nue explo­ring every available opti­on to fight fire with fire and ensu­re New York voters are not silen­ced.”— Jason Bee­fer­ma­nA FEDERAL SUIT AGAINST EVEN-YEAR ELECTIONS: Repu­bli­cans are plan­ning to file a fede­ral lawsu­it chal­len­ging New York’s new law moving most local elec­tions to even-num­be­red years. The suit is in the works as the sta­te Court of Appeals is sche­du­led to hear argu­ments in Sep­tem­ber in a series of sta­te-level cases brought over the 2023 law, which resche­du­led town and coun­ty races. A mid-level appel­la­te court con­cluded in May that the law doesn’t run afoul of the sta­te con­sti­tu­ti­on, despi­te chal­lenges from eight GOP coun­ty exe­cu­ti­ves. Argu­ments in the forth­co­ming fede­ral lawsu­it were pre­view­ed in an ami­cus brief filed today in the state’s top court on behalf of the town of Riverhead and Nas­sau Coun­ty Legis­la­tor Mazi Pil­ip. They’re say­ing the sta­te law runs afoul of the U.S. Con­sti­tu­ti­on. “The pri­ma­ry pur­po­se of the First Amend­ment is not to increase raw par­ti­ci­pa­ti­on num­bers, but rather to pro­tect the public dia­lo­gue and deba­te that sits at the very heart of our demo­cra­cy. When local elec­tions are con­so­li­da­ted with fede­ral and sta­te­wi­de con­tests, local can­di­da­tes are pushed to the mar­gins of the ‘public squa­re,’” accor­ding to the brief, a copy of which was obtai­ned by Play­book. “The First Amend­ment doesn’t stop at the steps of the sta­te capi­tal,” said Wil­liam A. Bre­wer III, the coun­sel repre­sen­ting Riverhead and Pil­ip. “Our cli­ents con­t­end that in their com­mu­ni­ties, demo­cra­cy will be drow­ned out — not by cen­sor­ship, but by unneces­sa­ry bur­dens to local speech.” Sta­te Sen. James Skou­fis, who spon­so­red the now-on-the-books bill to resche­du­le elec­tions, said the suit is evi­dence local offi­ci­als like Pil­ip are “afraid of more voters par­ti­ci­pa­ting in their elec­tions.” “This is despe­ra­te and pathe­tic,” Skou­fis said. “It is obvious­ly con­sti­tu­tio­nal — the­re are other sta­tes that have done it, the­re are other juris­dic­tions that have done it. It unequi­vo­cal­ly and dra­ma­ti­cal­ly increa­ses voter turn­out. So it’s laug­ha­ble on its face that anyo­ne thinks this isn’t going to be com­ple­te­ly thrown out of a cour­t­room.” — Bill Maho­ney­BOOK OF JOB APPROVAL: Mayor Eric Adams held a ral­ly on the steps of City Hall today with a pan-city coll­ec­tion of faith lea­ders back­ing his run. The incum­bent, who is lim­ping along in the polls and facing high dis­ap­pr­oval ratings from voters, used the oppor­tu­ni­ty to high­light his accom­plish­ments and re-air his long­stan­ding grie­van­ces with the press. Adams, who repea­ted­ly cri­ti­ci­zed Andrew Cuo­mo for avo­i­ding the media during the Demo­cra­tic pri­ma­ry, began the event with a war­ning: He would not be taking ques­ti­ons. “After I speak, I’m boun­cing,” Adams said. “You’re not going to tar­nish the good news of today.” He clo­sed his remarks by asking God for a “spe­cial pray­er.” “Lay hands on our media,” he said. “Heal them. Put hones­ty in their hearts.” Adams has taken umbra­ge at covera­ge of his sin­ce-dis­missed fede­ral bri­be­ry case, alle­ga­ti­ons of a quid pro quo with Pre­si­dent Donald Trump and cor­rup­ti­on pro­bes that hol­lo­wed out his inner cir­cle. As he left, repor­ters pep­pe­red him with queries any­way, promp­ting the mayor to clap and chant “ask me the good news ques­ti­ons” as he and his reti­nue dis­ap­peared into City Hall. — Joe Anut­a­RE­SO­LU­TI­ON TO BACK THE BLUE: Ste­fa­nik intro­du­ced a reso­lu­ti­on today to con­demn the mass shoo­ting last week in mid­town Man­hat­tan, whe­re five were kil­led inclu­ding an off-duty NYPD offi­cer. The mea­su­re also con­demns “divi­si­ve rhe­to­ric and vio­lence against fede­ral, sta­te, and local law enforce­ment offi­cers and urges law­ma­kers to redou­ble their com­mit­ment to back­ing the blue.” The North Coun­try Repu­bli­can said in a state­ment that “anti-poli­ce poli­ci­es should have no place in our gre­at sta­te.” Mean­while, on Long Island, Nas­sau Coun­ty Exe­cu­ti­ve Bruce Blak­e­man and Rep. Andrew Gar­ba­ri­no, both Repu­bli­cans, sought to empha­si­ze the importance of trai­ning and col­la­bo­ra­ti­on among local, sta­te and fede­ral law enforce­ment offi­ci­als. They tou­red the Nas­sau Coun­ty Poli­ce Department’s intel­li­gence cen­ter and poli­ce trai­ning vil­la­ge. Gar­ba­ri­no, the new chair of the House Home­land Secu­ri­ty Com­mit­tee, said his focus will be coun­ter­ter­ro­rism, inclu­ding in neigh­bor­ing New York City. “New York is the grea­test city, it’s also the one that’s most top tar­ge­ted and we have to pro­tect it,” the House mem­ber said. Ste­fa­nik and Blak­e­man, poten­ti­al can­di­da­tes for gover­nor next year who are clo­se allies of Pre­si­dent Donald Trump, have slam­med Demo­crats for poli­ci­es and rhe­to­ric they say is dan­ge­rous for law enforce­ment offi­ci­als. But they did not refe­rence their poli­ti­cal affi­lia­ti­on in their remarks today. — Emi­ly Ngo— MAMDANI DRAWS JEWISH VOTERS: Zohr­an Mamda­ni appea­led to Jewish New Yor­kers who were drawn to his afforda­bili­ty-focu­sed plat­form and unbo­the­red by or sup­port­i­ve of his views on Isra­el and Gaza. (The New York Times) — CUOMO RECALIBRATES: Andrew Cuomo’s revam­ped cam­paign is shif­ting away from his his­to­ri­cal­ly vehe­ment defen­se of Isra­el. (Bloom­berg) — ICE CRACKDOWN: Most immi­grants arres­ted in New York City sin­ce the Trump admi­nis­tra­ti­on ram­ped up its strin­gent bor­der poli­ci­es do not have cri­mi­nal char­ges or con­vic­tions. (The New York Times) Missed this morning’s New York Play­book? We for­gi­ve you. Read it here.

Demo­crats are try­ing to block the redraw in the sta­te by deny­ing the sta­te legis­la­tu­re a quo­rum.

With help from Ami­ra McKeeY­OU STARTED IT: She wants to be the ger­ry­man­de­rer-in-chief. Gov. Kathy Hoch­ul hos­ted six law­ma­kers from Texas at the Capi­tol this mor­ning — and while gra­cing them with some good ol’ nor­t­hern hos­pi­ta­li­ty, she also effec­tively told the Empire State’s good govern­ment groups to go to hell. The Texas Demo­crats were fle­e­ing the Lone Star Sta­te to pre­vent their sta­te Legis­la­tu­re from having the quo­rum neces­sa­ry to push for­ward a Trump-led redis­tric­ting mea­su­re, which would give the sta­te five more Repu­bli­can con­gres­sio­nal seats. The visit to Hochul’s back­yard show­ca­sed how the gover­nor is play­ing a key role in escala­ting the poli­ti­cal arms race to redraw con­gres­sio­nal maps around the coun­try, POLITICO’s Bill Maho­ney reports. After gree­ting the Texans in Alba­ny with a break­fast of eggs, bacon and sau­sa­ge, Hoch­ul held a press con­fe­rence with them in the Capitol’s Red Room — whe­re she slam­med New York’s own redis­tric­ting pro­cess for not being par­ti­san enough and embra­ced the full-fled­ged ger­ry­man­de­ring of New York’s con­gres­sio­nal dis­tricts. “I’m tired of fight­ing this fight with my hand tied behind my back,” Hoch­ul said, when asked if she would chan­ge or dis­band New York’s inde­pen­dent redis­tric­ting com­mit­tee. “Repu­bli­cans take over the Legis­la­tu­re? They can have at it. But until then, we’­re in char­ge.” “All due respect to the good govern­ment groups, poli­tics is a poli­ti­cal pro­cess,” she added. Assem­bly Spea­k­er Carl Heas­tie agreed: “It’s very dif­fi­cult to say play fair when your oppon­ents are play­ing dir­ty and using every tool­box to under­mi­ne demo­cra­cy.” Hoch­ul wants legis­la­tors to start a pro­cess of appro­ving a con­sti­tu­tio­nal amend­ment to let New York make chan­ges to its own con­gres­sio­nal lines. But that’s a leng­thy pro­cess and wouldn’t impact the maps any soo­ner than the 2028 elec­tion — even if the amend­ment is appro­ved by voters and the new lines aren’t chal­len­ged in court. “We’re sick and tired of being pushed around when other sta­tes don’t have the same aspi­ra­ti­ons that we always have,” the gover­nor said. Mayoral can­di­da­te and for­mer Gov. Andrew Cuo­mo, who aut­ho­red the 2012 sta­te con­sti­tu­tio­nal lan­guage now rest­ric­ting New York Demo­crats’ abili­ties to quick­ly respond to Texas, wasn’t total­ly on board with Hochul’s hard­ball efforts. “I think what Texas is doing is gross­ly poli­ti­cal and just gross ger­ry­man­de­ring and is one of the reasons why the public turns off on govern­ment,” Cuo­mo said at an unre­la­ted cam­paign event in Man­hat­tan. “It could also have a dra­ma­tic effect if it goes bey­ond Texas. But to pass it, to do it here, you would need a cou­ple of years. … So my guess is, by the time you could actual­ly do it, it would be irrele­vant.” The six Texas House Demo­crats — who­se col­le­agues also fled to Illi­nois on Sun­day — said today they were just stop­ping through Alba­ny and plan­ned to con­ti­nue on their jour­ney to meet with Demo­cra­tic gover­nors from other sta­tes. They wouldn’t say whe­re they’re hea­ded next and refu­sed to reve­al if they plan to remain out­side the Lone Star Sta­te until Aug. 19, when Texas’ spe­cial ses­si­on con­cludes. If they don’t, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has the power to call ano­ther spe­cial ses­si­on imme­dia­te­ly after the cur­rent one to bring up the redis­tric­ting bill again. “To run to sta­tes like New York and Illi­nois to pro­test redis­tric­ting, it’s kind of like run­ning to Wis­con­sin to pro­test cheese. It’s just kind of outra­ge­ous,” Abbott said in respon­se to the law­ma­kers Alba­ny visit today. “New York and Illi­nois are two hall­mark sta­tes that have alre­a­dy done redis­tric­ting to eli­mi­na­te Repu­bli­cans.” Hochul’s naked embrace of Demo­cra­tic ger­ry­man­de­ring in respon­se to the Texas GOP’s own effort was con­dem­ned by New York Repu­bli­cans in the sta­te Legis­la­tu­re and Con­gress, inclu­ding Rep. Eli­se Ste­fa­nik, who’s con­side­ring chal­len­ging Hoch­ul for gover­nor. “The Worst Gover­nor in Ame­ri­ca needs to be remin­ded that she con­ve­ni­ent­ly for­got to tell the unlawful out-of-sta­te radi­cal Demo­crats at today’s despe­ra­te press con­fe­rence that she lost not once, but TWICE in her effort to ille­gal­ly draw ger­ry­man­de­red lines in New York to rig our Con­gres­sio­nal elec­tions and sup­press the will of the voters,” Ste­fa­nik said on X. John Kaeh­ny, exe­cu­ti­ve direc­tor of the good govern­ment group Reinvent Alba­ny, descri­bed Hochul’s move as try­ing to jus­ti­fy des­troy­ing the vil­la­ge to save it — which will real­ly just under­mi­ne demo­cra­cy. “The sta­te of New York mot­to is Excel­si­or, which means, ‘Ever Upwards,’ not, ‘We’ll Race Texas to The Bot­tom and Disen­fran­chise Lar­ge Swaths of New York Voters,’” he told Play­book. “Ger­ry­man­de­ring is wit­hout a doubt one of the most devas­ta­ting ways to essen­ti­al­ly nul­li­fy the votes of huge num­bers of peo­p­le, and that’s the oppo­si­te of demo­cra­cy.” — Jason Beeferman‘THE SAFEST BIG CITY’: Mayor Eric Adams tou­ted fal­ling crime rates today in Brook­lyn, dub­bing last month “the safest July in our sub­way sys­tem in recor­ded histo­ry.” Adams, a reti­red NYPD cap­tain, won his 2021 cam­paign in lar­ge part on the pro­mi­se that he would make a pan­de­mic-rava­ged New York City safer. Now, as New Yor­kers’ public safe­ty inse­cu­ri­ties endu­re, he’s retur­ning to crime sta­tis­tics — in the face of his abys­mal per­for­mance in recent polls. “New York City is grie­ving this week after the tra­gic loss of four inno­cent lives — inclu­ding an NYPD offi­cer — in a sen­se­l­ess shoo­ting in Mid­town,” Adams said in a state­ment. “As we mourn, we must also find ways to turn our pain into pur­po­se; it’s the least we can do to honor the vic­tims. While this inci­dent will fore­ver be a stain on our city, it hap­pen­ed against the back­drop of a lar­ger, more hop­eful pic­tu­re — one whe­re the bra­ve men and women of the NYPD con­ti­nue to dri­ve down crime.” The first seven months of 2025 saw the fewest shoo­ting inci­dents and shoo­ting vic­tims in recor­ded histo­ry, accor­ding to July crime sta­tis­tics put out by the NYPD today. The department’s seven major crime cate­go­ries, inclu­ding mur­der and rob­be­ry, are down 5.6 per­cent over­all from last year. While Adams has bla­med media covera­ge for lin­ge­ring fears over public safe­ty, a POLITICO ana­ly­sis found over­all crime in the city is yet to return to pre-pan­de­mic levels. The mayor and NYPD Com­mis­sio­ner Jes­si­ca Tisch told repor­ters today that they attri­bu­te their pro­gress, in part, to the administration’s focus on ille­gal gun rem­oval and gang take­downs. Zohr­an Mamda­ni, the Demo­cra­tic nomi­nee for mayor who leads the field in recent polls, has offe­red dif­fe­rent poli­cy pre­scrip­ti­ons from the mayor when it comes to poli­cing. Their diver­gent views have beco­me a cen­ter­pie­ce in the race in the after­math of a mass shoo­ting that kil­led an NYPD offi­cer in Mid­town Man­hat­tan last week. Mamda­ni has distanced hims­elf from his pre­vious calls to “defund the poli­ce,” but his future with the nation’s lar­gest poli­ce force remains a deli­ca­te mat­ter. Adams took aim at Mamda­ni today for his calls to dis­band the NYPD’s Stra­te­gic Respon­se Group, the con­tro­ver­si­al unit respon­si­ble for poli­cing pro­tests and respon­ding to major public dis­tur­ban­ces — inclu­ding the mass shoo­ting. “We just have a phi­lo­so­phi­cal dif­fe­rence in the prin­ci­ples of public safe­ty, and there’s a reason crime is down and jobs are up, and idea­lism col­l­i­des with rea­lism when you are saving the lives of peo­p­le,” Adams said at his press con­fe­rence on the stats. — Ami­ra McKee IF YOU PAY THEM, THEY WILL COME: Cuo­mo unvei­led a public safe­ty pro­po­sal of his own today — it’s desi­gned to retain and attract more NYPD recruits. The for­mer gover­nor pro­po­sed offe­ring new recruits a $15,000 sig­ning bonus and then laye­ring in addi­tio­nal reten­ti­on bonu­ses throug­hout their ten­ure. He floa­ted the idea of recrui­ting reti­red cops to rejoin the force, allo­wing them to coll­ect their pen­si­on and a sala­ry. Cuo­mo also pro­po­sed a city-run scho­lar­ship fund that would offer a full ride to offi­cers wit­hout a bachelor’s degree. Sweetening the pay — which would cost $250 mil­li­on over five years — and offe­ring other perks would help the city hire 5,000 more poli­ce offi­cers, Cuo­mo said. “It’s time to build a new New York City based on what we are deal­ing with and what we’ve lear­ned,” Cuo­mo said. The for­mer gover­nor also devo­ted a signi­fi­cant por­ti­on of his press brie­fing to attack­ing Mamda­ni and poring over the sta­te legislator’s past sup­port for defun­ding the poli­ce. Mamda­ni has said during his cam­paign he would main­tain fun­ding for the depart­ment while crea­ting a new Depart­ment of Com­mu­ni­ty Safe­ty that would hand­le tasks like men­tal health emer­gen­ci­es. “Eit­her you were tel­ling the truth then or you’re tel­ling the truth now, but you can­not jus­ti­fy tho­se two state­ments,” Cuo­mo said. The for­mer gover­nor fur­ther sepa­ra­ted hims­elf from the 33-year-old demo­cra­tic socia­list by pro­po­sing to expand the Stra­te­gic Respon­se Group, a con­tro­ver­si­al NYPD unit, and con­ti­nuing to have it hand­le pro­tests. Mamda­ni has pro­po­sed dis­ban­ding the unit and crea­ting a new one desi­gned to respond to emer­gen­ci­es like the Mid­town mass shoo­ting last week. — Joe Anu­ta ON YOUR RIGHT: Adams is plan­ning to do a fire­si­de chat next week with the con­ser­va­ti­ve Man­hat­tan Insti­tu­te as he seeks sup­port on the right for his long­shot inde­pen­dent reelec­tion effort. “Gover­ning in NYC,” a con­ver­sa­ti­on bet­ween Adams and Man­hat­tan Insti­tu­te Pre­si­dent Rei­han Salam, is set for Aug. 14 at the Hil­ton Mid­town. The pro­mi­nent think tank wel­co­med Adams’ 2021 elec­tion as a chan­ge from the de Bla­sio years. But even as the institute’s scho­lars have writ­ten exten­si­ve­ly about the mayor — both posi­tively and nega­tively — Adams has lar­ge­ly kept his distance from his con­ser­va­ti­ve backers. The insti­tu­te has been an intellec­tu­al force behind attacks on DEI initia­ti­ves and gen­der iden­ti­ty pro­tec­tions. Adams is also men­ding fen­ces with an old fri­end on the right, the Trump-fri­end­ly radio host Sid Rosen­berg, the Dai­ly News repor­ted Fri­day. We’ll be wat­ching to see if new­ly min­ted Man­hat­tan Insti­tu­te fel­low Dani­elle Sas­so­on shows up, after she resi­gned as acting U.S. att­or­ney in Man­hat­tan, rather than com­ply with the Depart­ment of Justice’s order to drop the cor­rup­ti­on case against Adams. — Jeff Col­tin— STATEN ISLAND 4 MAMDANI: Demo­cra­tic lea­ders in New York City’s most con­ser­va­ti­ve borough are back­ing Zohr­an Mamda­ni over Andrew Cuo­mo. (New York Post) — NY POST TAKES LA: The New York Post will launch a new dai­ly news­pa­per in Los Ange­les cal­led “The Cali­for­nia Post” in ear­ly 2026. (Axi­os) — ‘BASIC DECENCY’: Hoch­ul respon­ded to Texas Sen. Ted Cruz after he cri­ti­ci­zed her for wea­ring a head cove­ring to the fun­e­ral of a slain Mus­lim NYPD offi­cer. (New York Times) Missed this morning’s New York Play­book? We for­gi­ve you. Read it here.

The co-host of “The Break­fast Club” radio show labe­led the pre­si­dent as “Don­key of the Day” on Mon­day.