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Matt Katz: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. I'm Matt Katz, former reporter here at WNYC. I'm now running a local news podcast in Philadelphia called City Cast Philly, and I'm filling in for Brian today. Coming up on the show, we're going to talk about President Trump's move to take control of the police department in Washington, DC. My guest, David Graham from The Atlantic, says it's a raw assertion of presidential power, a pattern for Trump. Plus, later in the show, why the public health messaging around vaping and using nicotine pouches is so mixed.

Let's put it this way. We've known for decades that smoking cigarettes is addictive and harmful for long-term health, but is vaping or using a ZYN pouch, which both contain nicotine, just as bad or a less bad alternative? We'll get into all of that. We'll wrap today's show with a call-in for you to share your memories of AOL since the company announced this week that it's ending its dial-up internet service. This one is especially for the young Gen Xers, elder millennials, older gen Zers among us. You know that sound, that dial-up sound was a defining feature of my teenage years, and maybe yours too if you fall into one of those generational groups.

First, we begin in New York City with WNYC and Gothamist reporter Elizabeth Kim for our weekly coverage of the latest news in the mayor's race. Typically, the month of August is a slow period for local elections, but the candidates right now are unusually fired up throughout the Democratic primary. Assembly member Zohran Mamdani was the aggressive underdog punching up at the frontrunner, Andrew Cuomo. Now that Mamdani's polling 20 points ahead of the former governor, the roles have reversed.

Cuomo, now running as an independent, is unleashing the fire he kept contained during his frontrunner days with a relentless social media campaign highlighting Mamdani's privileged upbringing in an attempt to underscore the contradictions between his politics and Mamdani's life experience. He's zeroed in on Mamdani's apartment, a $2,300 rental in Astoria, which is presumably a great price in a city where the average cost of a one-bedroom is over $4,000. We'll dive into the so-called "rent-gate" and the Mamdani campaign's counterattack, as well as some more headlines from the mayoral race with my former colleague, Elizabeth Kim. Liz, thanks so much for joining us.

Elizabeth Kim: Hi, Matt. So great to be with you this morning.

Matt Katz: Really happy to chat with you. I'm curious. Have you noticed a vibe shift in the mayoral election now that Mamdani's the frontrunner, Cuomo's on his tail? What are you and political analysts that you're speaking with noticing?

Elizabeth Kim: Well, you set it up perfectly, Matt. August is a typically slow time before the election in November. I think of it as, there's usually this lull before the storm. Things really pick up after Labor Day. It makes sense because voters are away usually in August. A lot of campaigns don't want to expend a lot of energy on messaging when there's no one around to receive it.

This has been a very interesting August. A lot of it are, as you set up, those dynamics and I want to credit this to-- I think a Cuomo spokesperson was the first person that latched on to it. He tweeted a Freaky Friday meme last week. I would say that is essentially the vibe. Like you said, we had this primary. Mamdani was this underdog who was on the attack. Cuomo was the overwhelming favorite, who, we should point out, didn't really pay that much attention to Mamdani until the very end.

Now, we're in the general. We know that Mamdani is the Democratic mayoral nominee. He won very convincingly. He won these broad swaths of the city. Now, he's the favorite, and Cuomo is now this underdog. This flipped relationship is reshaping the general, especially if you accept that it is a two-man race between Mamdani and Cuomo. Now, Eric Sliwa. No, sorry. Eric Adams and Curtis Sliwa might have something to say about this. Sorry, I mashed them together.

Matt Katz: They have something to say about this for sure. The polls, the vibe shift is clear. The polls still show Mamdani as the clear frontrunner, though, right?

Elizabeth Kim: That's right. He's leading the field by nearly 20 points. That was a Siena College poll that came out this week, but we should point out, it was a small sample size. Also, as we know, polling can be unreliable. It depends on the timing. That perhaps is the sentiment now, but we still have a ways to go until the general. With all that said, though, all experts say that this is an overwhelmingly blue city.

If you are the Democratic mayoral nominee, you have a tremendous advantage going into the general. The expectation is that Mamdani should win. I think, for him, there is added pressure. It's not just that he needs to win. I think for him and really any other candidate in his position, you want to win by a large margin because that will eventually help you govern. That's why there is this additional pressure on him.

I think we can say that when you are the nominee, you start looking at a transition, and you start building out a transition team. There's been a little bit of chatter around some of the shakeups on his team. No one has left, but he has added people. He has swapped people into different roles. With all of that happening, his campaign is under a microscope partly because he is the favorite. He is the Democratic mayoral nominee.

I think there is talk among political observers is, how is the campaign changing? He's doing more scripted press conferences. During the primary, he was known as this risk-taking candidate who would be on the ground, who had these viral videos, right? There's not as much of that anymore. I think that is also what is feeding this Freaky Friday conversation. We haven't even gotten into Andrew Cuomo yet. [chuckles]

Matt Katz: Well, about him, so he's left in a role which he's throwing punches, right? Much of that's happening, as it does since it's 2025, on X or on social media. What is the Cuomo account putting out there these days?

Elizabeth Kim: This is very interesting because Andrew Cuomo, the 67-year-old former governor, the way he used social media during the primary was very much like a 67-year-old. It was very traditional, very straight messaging. Now, in recent weeks, he has hired a new social media team. They're putting out memes. They're dunking on people. They're engaging with commenters and critics.

These are things that we've all seen before, Matt, right? It's just that we've never seen them from Andrew Cuomo before. I was looking for one in particular. There was one post on X in which he says, "In case you forgot, I'm Andrew Cuomo, son of Mario, grandson of Andrea. Welcome to the heavyweight bout, Zohran Mamdani. This is a two-man race. You look tired already. It's just the second round." He's bringing some fire.

Matt Katz: Yes, wow. Does this work for a man who's already well-established? People know who he is. Absolute household name. Not someone native to social media, as you mentioned. Is this a winning strategy, or is it really his only option at this point?

Elizabeth Kim: I've spoken to political experts who think that it's not such a good idea for Andrew Cuomo to compete on a medium that his rival really made it his bread and butter. One of Mamdani's assets was his ability to be so good on social media. For Andrew Cuomo, it feels like just reading that tweet to you. It feels inauthentic, but I would say this, though.

If the point for Andrew Cuomo is to come out swinging to get attention, then this is a winning strategy because right now, we're talking about it, right? Reporters are writing about it even though he is 20 points behind in the polls. To that extent, we're talking about it. Does it come off? Yes, some of the tweets come off as a little cringy. It's a little bit overboard, but we are now talking about Andrew Cuomo in the general election.

Matt Katz: We're going to get to rent-gate, so to speak, in a moment. What are the other issues that Cuomo, even Adams, Sliwa are targeting Mamdani with at the moment?

Elizabeth Kim: What's very interesting is this line of attack that I don't think Cuomo started it. I think Mayor Adams also tried to seize onto it, which is, it's a personal attack, is that Zohran Mamdani is a Democratic socialist who's pitching a lot of ideas that are staked in helping low-income New Yorkers, but he himself, and he has acknowledged it, he comes from a privileged background. He went to private school. His mother is an acclaimed filmmaker. His father is a professor at Columbia University.

Make of that what you will, but for someone like Andrew Cuomo, he's trying to make the argument that somehow this is inauthentic. I think one of the terms that one of his aides used was calling Mamdani a champagne socialist. Eric Adams has similarly used a line that's very interesting to me is he has a social media video in which he says-- and he's also said this at his public campaign appearances, which is, "Some people have studied poverty. Mamdani has studied poverty. I lived it."

Both of them, both Adams and Cuomo, are trying to really get at this issue of, can Mamdani pitch these policies if he does not have the lived experience of being working class? I think the interesting difference, though, is how credible are these messengers? You look at Andrew Cuomo. He's paying $8,000 a month for his Upper East Side apartment. We all know who he is. Like he said, he is the son of a former governor. He is a part of a political dynasty. He was married to a Kennedy. There's a little bit of incongruity in him lodging what is essentially like he's trying to say that Mamdani is a nepo baby.

Matt Katz: Yes. At the same time, he's describing himself as--

Elizabeth Kim: Right. I think for Adams, though, I think he has more credibility on that message, but the problem with Adams is he hasn't gotten as much traction as Cuomo has. This will be interesting to watch. Adams will have a campaign event today in which former governor David Paterson is expected to endorse him. We'll see what comes out of that and how Adams-- whether he tries to seize on this message too, or maybe he takes it in a different direction today.

Matt Katz: All right, let's get into the details of this rent-gate, which is getting to what you're describing, is the overarching attack on Mamdani, that he's this privileged young man who is just-- This position was just handed to him where he is. What is Cuomo's attack surrounding Mamdani's apartment? What do we know about this actual apartment, and how does this fit into Cuomo's overall strategy here?

Elizabeth Kim: Cuomo pointed out that Mamdani lives in a rent-stabilized apartment. He pays about $2,300 a month for a one-bedroom in Astoria. If you ask any New Yorker, that's a really good deal. He also points out that the assembly member makes around $145,000 a year, which would put him in a position to pay more for his rent. Now, how did Mamdani land this apartment? He did it the way many people land a rent-stabilized apartment.

He looked on StreetEasy, and he found one. That's why he lives there. Cuomo is now using this moment to say in the original tweet in which he started this thing that he's now dubbed "rent-gate." He said that by occupying this apartment, Mamdani was depriving it from someone else who was more deserving, meaning someone who is more low-income than Mamdani.

What this does is that it gets at this very polarizing issue, I think, in New York City, which is around income and around rent, because these rent-stabilized apartments, they're roughly one million units. It's roughly half of all the apartments in New York City because they are so hard to come by. There is this question, but the bigger question is they're very hard to come by. They're also not subject because, like I said to you, how did he find it?

He basically found it on StreetEasy. He presumably applied and he got it, but that was it. There was no request to, "Can I see your W-2s? Do you need to qualify in some way?" That's the question of equity that Cuomo is getting at. That, I think, really does hit a nerve and is polarizing among some New Yorkers. Should someone who makes $500,000 a year be able to get the same kind of apartment or benefit that someone who makes $50,000 a year? This is not a new question, Matt. This has been debated in the city for a really long time.

What some people argue, some housing advocates argue, is, one, it would be very administratively difficult for the city to start doing what is called "means testing." It would basically be asking people to hand in their W-2s every year so that they can check like, "How much money are you making?" They also say that that is not the kind of system we want to set up, because the idea is we want families to be able to afford their homes in New York City and stay in those homes.

That act of being able to grow your family, of sending your kids to the neighborhood school, that is value to a neighborhood. That's how we build neighborhoods is through stability, that the act of somehow saying that, "Oh, well, you made a little too much money this year. You're going to have to give up that apartment," that would be destabilizing to neighborhoods. The other argument is also we don't want to disincentivize people from earning more money and moving up the ladder.

Those are the arguments in favor of the system of not doing any means testing. I should point out, though, Matt, is there is means testing in some affordable apartments in New York City. NYCHA is an example. There is also some initial means testing in some affordable units in New York City that's run through-- You've heard of the affordable housing lottery that the city runs. A lot of these are in new developments.

They cover different bands of income. In order to apply to the lottery, you have to show that you've made under a certain amount of money, right? That's an initial means test. With those types of units, you typically only have to go through the gauntlet once. You don't have to do it again. There's a question there, too, I think that some people would ask, "Well, why do you only have to do it once?" Let's say the next year or the next five years, your circumstances change.

I think there's another question, too, that's fair to ask is, what if it wasn't about asking people to leave their apartments, to give up the apartments? What if there was a fund or a tax on people that do start making more money, and that that fund could be used toward helping the city build more affordable? There's a lot for policy experts to chew on on this question, but I think what Andrew Cuomo was able to do was he ripped open this thing that I think really bothers a lot of New Yorkers because they're saying it's about, "How much do I pay in rent, and is that fair compared to my neighbor," right?

Matt Katz: The theme of his attack certainly would resonate. Rent is a huge issue, for sure. In this case, can you clarify? This is a rent-stabilized apartment, right? It's not rent-controlled. Is there a difference there, and is that a nuance we should think about? Do you know the difference? You're not our housing reporter, but I'm asking.

Elizabeth Kim: I think they're subject to different increases.

Matt Katz: Okay, got it.

Elizabeth Kim: Typically, there's a broader swath of apartments that are rent-stabilized that go through this annual examination, where people are looking at the market and the cost of maintaining buildings. It's a board that's appointed that has appointees from the mayor's office. It's controlled by the mayor. They are determining the increases for rent-stabilized apartments. The rent-controlled apartments have a much more restricted rent increase, I believe.

Matt Katz: Got it. I'm just asking, I guess, if there was anything he might have done untoward here or illicit here in terms of getting this apartment when he wasn't entitled to it, but you're saying there's no evidence of that, and there's nothing--

Elizabeth Kim: No, there is no evidence of that. There is nothing that Mamdani did that was-- That's not the way that any other person could have done exactly what he did. Go on StreetEasy. He found this apartment that he liked, and then he applied. One question that has come up was that he did tell The New York Times when he went before their-- I believe it was their opinion panel. He was asked about this apartment. He did say at the time that he was planning to move out of the apartment. That issue has come up again.

He's joked about it by saying, "Yes, I do plan to move out of my apartment. I plan to move to the Upper East Side." The inside joke of that being is that he plans to move into Gracie Mansion. He was pressed on this yesterday by a reporter for The Times about, "What did you mean when you said that you planned to move out of the apartment? Was it because you felt that the apartment was getting too small, or was it because you felt like maybe you shouldn't be living in an apartment that's rent-stabilized when you do earn a good salary?" He didn't answer it.

Matt Katz: We'll get to a Zohran clip in a bit, but let's play Cuomo at the Dominican Day Parade. This is his attack on Mamdani's apartment and his proposal for legislation to fix such situations.

Andrew Cuomo: I'm going to propose not rent that apartment by law, except to a person who actually needs affordable housing. I'm going to call it Zohran's Law because it's an abuse of the system.

Matt Katz: It's interesting. You're totally right, Liz. If you don't zero in on it, it does feel like a line of attack that can resonate with people. It gets to so many questions like, what qualifies it as wealthy? What's the role of the government in controlling the market in this way? Is there anything viable in here as legislation in New York in the future, or is it mostly just a marketing strategy to cut at Mamdani's lead?

Elizabeth Kim: This has been talked about. This comes up every once in a while in New York. The answer is always that it's very difficult. It would be very burdensome for the city to start doing this kind of means testing. I'll give you an example is that within the city's own like what I was talking about, the affordable housing lottery system, right? A lot of those are new developments. There's a lot of demand, right? Imagine to get into a brand-new apartment that is considered affordable.

Now, I should say that there's been criticism of that program in that it's very difficult to qualify. Not all of the rents are affordable to everyone. With that said, there's tremendous demand. Like I said, there is initial means testing to get into that lottery. What has happened is that there are so many forms that people are asked to fill out, so many things they have to supply, things like pay stubs.

I think even certain kinds of receipts that it has slowed down and really bogged down that system, so much so that the city recently said that they were going to streamline that process to make it easier for people to apply. That very much says a lot about bureaucratic hurdles. If that is slowing it down for this existing program where there are units ready to be filled, could you imagine the city doing it for these one million rent-stabilized units where every year, or according to Cuomo's plan, it would be when a person vacates that apartment that the landlord would then be looking to ask people for all of these W-2s, pay stubs. How would the city oversee that with the landlord?

It raises a bunch of questions. I think that the answer has always been that it's just too difficult for the city to do. Now, Andrew Cuomo can come in and say, "Well, no, that's not a sufficient response." Is it just because it's too difficult that government can't do it? I don't know that he has presented a plan with the types of details that we would need to see, to vet it, to have experts vet it. Like you said, he's raised the question.

People are talking about it. I think we'll see. We'll see how much conversation this gets. It was interesting because I was at a Mamdani presser yesterday. One of the reasons I went was I was very curious to see if he would be asked about this again, and he was. It's now been four or five days since this issue first broke out. That was not the first time he held a presser in which he was asked about it. As we say, this story has legs.

Matt Katz: I think it gets to his authenticity, or Cuomo's hoping that it cracks some of this authentic sheen that he's had so far, so that there might be potential for the former governor there. This is The Brian Lehrer Show, and I'm Matt Katz filling in for Brian. My guest is WNYC and Gothamist reporter Elizabeth Kim. We're talking about what's happening in the mayoral campaign this week. We're going to take a quick break. When we get back, your calls. Stick around.

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Matt Katz: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. I'm Matt Katz, filling in for Brian. My guest is WNYC and Gothamist reporter Elizabeth Kim. Liz, we've got a bunch of calls casting doubt on Cuomo's attack on Mamdani and the proposed Zohran's Law, so we'll let Ann from Jackson Heights speak for those New Yorkers. Hi, Ann, thanks for calling in.

Ann: Hey, Matt. Hi, Elizabeth. Thanks for taking my call. I live in Jackson Heights in a rent-stabilized unit. We have a combined income of $150,000. Our rent now is about $2,900. I think that what Cuomo is doing is really disingenuous and trying to, in a way, sneakily revert back before the 2019 housing laws went into effect and, in a way, give, in fact, more power to landlords to kick people out. I also think him and his social media team calling it rent control is very purposeful. He knows. Well, if he doesn't know it's rent-stabilized, then what is he doing running for mayor of New York City if he does not know the difference between rent control and rent-stabilize?

He's really making New York again a place for either the extremely wealthy or people who really need a lot of government assistance, and again making it more difficult for middle-class people to find an apartment and stay in an apartment. My husband and I were very apartment-destabilized, having to go from neighborhood to neighborhood, until we were able to find a rent-stabilized apartment. This was before 2019 when the housing laws went into effect. We are so grateful that we can now build a secure future. That's what Mamdani is promising, and that is what Cuomo is trying to take away.

Matt Katz: Thanks, Ann. If you had to submit your W-2 forms to either Albany or, I guess, to New York in order to prove that you deserve to stay in that apartment, what would that mean for you?

Ann: I could do that, but according to Cuomo, I would no longer qualify for this housing and be kicked out. Also, I think I have-- I'm not the best at math, but I know when people are even qualifying for rent-stabilized apartments and apartments in general, people are asked to give all kinds of income proof that they're making 40 times the rent. 40 times the rent has been-- It's been a long time.

Well, we got this apartment in 2016. I just think the whole thing is really disingenuous. It's trying to create a false divide. Again, I think what Cuomo is trying to do, in a way, he will not say, is to make things better for the extremely wealthy and cut out people and stability for people who are middle class. Middle class is a very controversial term in New York, but I think it is different.

When I heard, I was like, "Oh, $2,300 for a one-bedroom." I was like, "Oh, that's not the cheapest in terms of rent-stabilized apartments. Again, I just think that it's really disingenuous what Cuomo is doing. His team knows exactly what they're doing. I think it is actually out of Trump's playbook to create this false like, "They have privilege. I don't," when he has extreme wealth, and he's not copying to it.

Matt Katz: Thank you, Ann. Thanks for calling in. Liz, it's really interesting because Cuomo is presenting himself now as the man of the poorest and least fortunate New Yorkers. He also had another policy plan that he released, modeled after Mamdani's free buses campaign promise. We have a clip of this, of his new proposal regarding free public transit for certain New Yorkers. Let's hear a little bit of that.

Andrew Cuomo: Fast free buses for all. My question on that proposal is, first of all, what happened to subways? More people ride subways. You just leave that out. Number two, why would you subsidize the rich? I get the theory of socialism and government provides government controls. I get that. Besides playing socialist, why should New Yorkers subsidize the bus fare for rich people? Why? Why should they pay my bus fare, right?

Matt Katz: Playing socialist. That's a funny term. [chuckles] That's a funny phrase. Liz, what do you make of this Cuomo free transit plan, and why he thinks it's a better option for New Yorkers who are struggling to pay the fare?

Elizabeth Kim: In listening to the caller, Ann, I think it really does get at this. What we were talking about at the top is this Freaky Friday effect, where it seems really incongruous that Cuomo, who is a multimillionaire, because after he resigned from the governorship, he went on to work as a private consultant, and it was a very lucrative job for him. He's a multimillionaire. We've already established, he's part of a political dynasty, but here he is. He's now casting himself as the man of the people like, "Why are we subsidizing the rich?"

To Ann's point, yes, there's something about it that does almost feel like, is it divisive? If you think about the Democratic Party and the way Mamdani ran, like running a campaign against the rich, against billionaires, now you have Mamdani saying, "Well, Zohran Mamdani, your policies are actually giving the rich a free ride." This is based on the idea that Zohran Mamdani had this signature policy idea. It was something he piloted as an assembly member, which is to make buses free.

The point of that is that there are a lot of poor New Yorkers for which the subway fare is a burden, and that alleviating that could get people on mass transit, and then it could also invigorate the city's economy, helping them get to work, helping them get to the local businesses that they need to, all by encouraging them to take mass transit. Obviously, it has effects on congestion, right?

He is a skeptic of means testing and that one simple way to do this is just make it free for everyone, but Cuomo makes the point, though, and listeners can decide whether they think it's valid or not, that why does someone who lives, I'm just giving an example, on the Upper East Side get to ride a bus for free? Why should the government be subsidizing that person's bus fare?

He's basically saying, "I can maybe understand it. Yes, we do want to help working-class people pay their bus fare, get on mass transit." He pitched this idea is, first of all, he said, "I'm not going to restrict it to buses because more people take the subways, so how about this idea? We make the buses and subways free, but for poor New Yorkers." That was his counterpoint. I think it's something for people to chew on.

Now, there's one caveat, and Mamdani has himself raised this, is that the city already does have a reduced fare program, which is called Fair Fares. The problem with that program, and it goes back to this bureaucratic challenge, is that there's not a lot of uptake in that program. In fact, it's always been very disappointing. It's maybe only about a third of New Yorkers who would qualify for a program like that actually sign up. Again, it's a fair question. Cuomo can come back. I did actually specifically ask Cuomo about that.

His response was, "Well, the city can do a better job advertising," which, I should say, every mayor says that we need to do a better job advertising the program. The other response he made, which I think is interesting, is he thinks that the Fair Fare program offers a 50% discount. He says that if you make it free that that is somehow a lot more tantalizing to New Yorkers, and that a lot more people would be incentivized to go through the application process and get a benefit like that.

Matt Katz: All right. We have talked about Cuomo's attacks on Mamdani. We've talked about Cuomo's policy ideas that are intended as an attack on Mamdani. Let's review what Mamdani is going after Cuomo with. Here's a bit from Mamdani's latest ad released, I guess, last night, aimed at former Governor Andrew Cuomo.

Zohran Mamdani: Four years ago, Andrew Cuomo resigned in disgrace, and you probably know why.

Reporter 1: The governor's office kept the nursing home death data secret.

Reporter 2: Cuomo aggressively groped an aide.

Reporter 3: Inappropriately touched a female state trooper.

Reporter 4: Use of state resources for a COVID-19 memoir.

Zohran Mamdani: Less well-known is what he spent the last four years doing.

Matt Katz: Liz, what did Cuomo spend the last four years doing?

Elizabeth Kim: Well, as I said before, he had a very lucrative job as a consultant. If you listen through to the rest of that attack ad is he's basically demanding that Cuomo release his list of clients so that New Yorkers can know who exactly did Andrew Cuomo work for in those intervening years between resigning the governorship and now running for mayor. He has not done so. I think it is a fair question.

It was interesting because that was released yesterday. It comes on the heels of Mamdani being a little bit more on the defensive, and it showed very much that he was trying to be proactive. He's trying to go after Cuomo, but, again, a little bit of Freaky Friday there. It's a very negative attack ad. You hear the ominous music. It sounds like a very traditional attack ad.

If you think back on the primary, not that Mamdani didn't attack Cuomo. He did. He had videos in which he did attack Cuomo. A lot of the videos that people remember Mamdani for were, "I'm going to freeze the rent," jumping inside the ocean at Coney Island. Those stunty viral videos that I think a lot of people thought were very funny, very joyful, is what gained him a lot of traction and made him so watchable on social media.

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Elizabeth Kim: This is a very different persona for him to try on. We'll see how it works.

Matt Katz: You've mentioned a couple of times the Freaky Friday bit. Can you just explain that to those of us who might not be as caught up?

Elizabeth Kim: Oh, I'm not the biggest expert on this, but it was a movie that came out, I want to say-- did it originally come out in the '50s?

Matt Katz: '70s.

Elizabeth Kim: '70s. All right, sorry, '70s. It was about a body swap between a young girl and her mother. It's based on a book. It's a book called Freaky Friday. It's a very good book. Then they remade the movie with Lindsay Lohan and-- I'm blanking on the name. Jamie Lee Curtis, right? That was very popular. I believe it was a Disney movie. They recently did a sequel, which is, I think, out now. It's called Freakiest Friday. I think this whole Freaky Friday thing, it's a cultural meme right now, I think, that politics has borrowed because it's on our brains.

Matt Katz: That is what our modern politics is like. The politicians borrow whatever the popular meme is and try to do it as best as possible without being too cringy. They do it with mixed success probably. Later in the show, we're going to be talking about Trump's takeover of the Washington, DC, police department. The events occurring in that big city recently have obviously spilled over to New York and what that might mean for New York going forward. How are the candidates talking about the federal takeover in DC? How are they pitching themselves as best equipped to either deal with such a situation in New York or really just deal with Trump and himself?

Elizabeth Kim: Well, this is really a pressing question for Mayor Adams. Mayor Adams has not taken a lot of questions at his press conferences lately. He's no longer doing that weekly blue room presser that he used to do. He's basically now consigned all questions to when he's doing an event as mayor. He's not taking a lot of questions, and I haven't heard him ask that yet. You can imagine it's going to be rather uncomfortable for him, right? He has said publicly that he would like to work with the President. Well, how does he work with the President on something like this, especially when public safety is his domain as an ex-police officer? How does he allow the President to encroach on that without looking weak?

Matt Katz: Right, right. Is Mamdani chimed in on this? Does he have an overarching strategy in terms of what he's saying about how he would deal with Trump? It seems that he's most vulnerable on the Trump question because, in my mind, Trump would love to prop up a Democratic socialist as mayor of New York City and use that as a means of attacking the city in any which way.

Elizabeth Kim: That's true. That's basically what Cuomo has tried to argue. During one of the debates, I think one of his winning lines was, "Trump would cut through you like a hot knife through butter," meaning that because he is a Democratic socialist, Trump would do everything to try to intervene in New York City, right? He has made a different argument, which is that Mayor Adams is compromised because under Trump, his federal corruption indictment was dropped, as we all know.

Then recently, he's tried to really draw attention to this New York Times story that reported that Cuomo had a conversation with President Trump about the mayoral race. Exactly what they said is unclear. Cuomo has denied it, but he's trying to say these two candidates are beholden to Donald Trump. He's currently actually doing something what he's dubbed the "Five Borough Tour" against Trump. He's really trying to rally a lot of Democratic support around him against this common enemy for the party.

Matt Katz: Liz, thanks for all the time today. It's great to chat with you again. My guest has been WNYC and Gothamist reporter Elizabeth Kim. Brian usually says, "Talk to you next week." I won't talk to you next week, Liz, but Brian will. Thanks so much.

Elizabeth Kim: Thanks, Matt.

 

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