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2025-11-07 20:30:00

This story was originally published by Slate and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

Last Tuesday, as the strongest Atlantic storm in 90 years slammed the western coast of Jamaica with 185-mph winds, Bill Gates was downplaying climate change.

In a lengthy blog post published on his personal website, Gates purported to offer some “tough truths about climate” ahead of next week’s UN climate conference. Railing against a “doomsday outlook” stemming from “much of the climate community,” the author of 2021’s How to Avoid a Climate Disaster claimed that there’s “too much” emphasis on “near-term emissions goals” as opposed to addressing “poverty and disease.” (The straight line between climate disasters from higher temperatures and the acceleration of both poverty and disease went unnoted.)

While Hurricane Melissa—whose ferocity was supercharged by ocean waters heated by carbon-emissions absorption, as well as increased atmospheric moisture—laid waste to much of Jamaica, Gates followed up with a CNBC interview, excusing Microsoft’s fossil-fueled AI-construction surge and reiterating that global warming “has to be considered in terms of overall human welfare.” (He didn’t touch on the many ways artificial intelligence itself has damaged human welfare.)

The billionaire does not appear to have publicly addressed the disaster in Jamaica, which extended throughout the Caribbean, with Melissa having killed dozens across Cuba, Haiti, the Bahamas, and the Dominican Republic. And his overall point, frankly, does not hold up to scrutiny.

Gates isn’t alone; climate change has slipped down the world’s priority list in the past few years—and it shows. Governments and corporations are shelving emissions goals, budgets are being redirected from climate initiatives to warfare, the media is pivoting away from climate journalism, and even activists are urging a softer, more “hopeful” tone. It all signals a vibe shift in how we talk about climate change, reframing it from the existential risk it actually poses to a less urgent, peripheral issue—even as the floodwaters reach our front doors.

Gates, whose climate nonprofit Breakthrough Energy laid off dozens of staffers earlier this year, is not incorrect to point out that “we’ve made great progress” in fostering climate solutions, and that agriculture and land use should be an especially urgent area of focus. But the person he’s targeting with his post—a government official cutting health and aid funding and redirecting it toward emissions reduction—doesn’t really exist, certainly not at this particular moment.

As the US pulls back on all foreign aid and health funds, to devastating and fatal effect across the Eastern Hemisphere, other rich nations are not filling in the gap but instead following suit, cutting back on climate, health, and development.

In the climate realm in particular, wealthier countries are trimming not just their budgets (e.g., clean-energy exports, startup financing) but even their assistance with long-term adaptation to a warming Earth—something Gates now prizes above mitigation. This despite the fact that the UN secretary-general warns that it is “inevitable” the world will overshoot the decade-old Paris Agreement’s goal of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius—as an explicit means of preventing worst-case scenarios that will require more money and resources to address.

The world order that once notched international climate agreements isn’t just retreating from that fight; it’s pulling back from any globally minded responsibility altogether.

The inherent tension Gates posits between “quality of life” and “lowering emissions” is simply false—and it’s a favored talking point of climate denialists. The most odious exemplar of this may be the pro–fossil fuel activist Alex Epstein, whose books (which I’ve reviewed critically) frame the transition from oil and gas to renewables as an “anti-human” endeavor. These days, Epstein is deeply embedded with congressional Republicans, pushing behind the scenes for the debilitating dents in US clean-energy subsidies that have been effected through this year’s budget bills.

Setting climate action as antithetical to human flourishing is plainly false; the devastated Caribbean citizens now rebuilding from Hurricane Melissa’s destruction would not be in this predicament had carbon emissions not overheated the ocean and messed with wind cycles.

As for finances, the climate is the economy: Skyrocketing insurance and resource costs in the region, along with depleted agricultural yields, are not incidental to climate effects but a direct consequence of their fallout.

At our current level of 1.3 degrees Celsius of warming above preindustrial levels, we see the crushing effects everywhere. It will not be any easier for island nations to recover as more extreme weather comes for their homes (and ours), and as nations of means shirk their mandated responsibilities to those spewing far fewer emissions, yet taking the biggest direct impacts.

The good news is, there are many folks on the ground working independently to advance climate solutions and their own welfare at the same time. Countries like Pakistan and Rwanda have put cheap solar-panel imports to great use—even to help with growing food. In the Caribbean, some of the hospitals treating the wounded will be powered by solar panels and battery storage, insulating them from the ongoing electricity outages. The US government planes that have been monitoring Melissa’s path are flown by pilots who aren’t being paid to do so, thanks to the government shutdown. These are the types of admirable missions led by people who understand the situation at a far more intimate level than Bill Gates ever will.

2025-11-07 20:30:00

On Tuesday, California voters passed Proposition 50, Gov. Gavin Newsom’s congressional redistricting proposal in response to Texas Republicans’ gerrymandered map, by a sweeping 28-point margin.

As I reported in October, high-profile Democratic politicians—including former President Barack Obama—were front and center in an advertising blitz to pass the measure, which would tilt five seats in the House of Representatives towards Democrats.

But on the ground in California, often with less media coverage, were legions of campaigners with civil rights and racial justice organizations, many of which tirelessly championed Prop 50 in the final weeks before the election—and are now celebrating its passage as a small step in the long fight for Black political representation.

“There has been a long and steady march to kind of erode our voting rights,” said Phaedra Jackson, NAACP’s vice president of unit advocacy and effectiveness, reflecting on the conservative Supreme Court’s continuing attacks on the Voting Rights Act of 1965. In 2013, the Court eliminated the formula for preclearance, the mechanism by which the VRA prevented certain states and localities from passing discriminatory election laws; six years later, another ruling enabled partisan gerrymandering on a hugely expanded scale.

In the years since, the turnout gap between white voters and voters of color has grown—and it’s done so nearly twice as fast in counties that were previously subject to preclearance, according to the progressive nonprofit Brennan Center for Justice.

“A lot of folks have framed this as a partisan issue,” Jackson said. “We see it [as] an attack on the ability for Black folks and folks of color to actually have representation.”

The California Black Power Network, a coalition of 46 grassroots organizations across 15 counties, entered the fray later in the cycle.

“We understood that it was critical to counter what Donald Trump was trying to do in Texas,” said Kevin Cosney, the coalition’s chief program officer. But the group waited until it could review the proposed new map—and judge its impact on Black voter representation—before entering the campaign. 

Although Proposition 50 would mean 48 of California’s 52 House seats would now likely go to Democrats, the geographic and racial representation of its map is similar to the previous one drawn by the state’s independent redistricting committee, according to the Public Policy Institute of California.

When it was convinced that Black voter representation and seats historically held by Black representatives were secure, the coalition’s members reached a consensus to support the measure through phone banking, canvassing, community events and ads. 

For Newsom, and many of the measure’s backers in Sacramento, Prop 50’s massive success means it’s time to chalk a win. For racial justice campaigners like Jackson, it’s just “triaging a hemorrhaging situation”—even now, the Supreme Court is considering a Louisiana case that’s likely to further erode voting rights—that needs “long-term systemic fixes” like the decade-old John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, which was reintroduced in Congress this summer.

Cosney echoed the need for systemic change. While Prop 50 “sets the stage for what is potentially possible,” he said, “we still have to organize and do the work … to make sure that those districts that have been built out are filled by folks who have our best interest in mind.”

“This was the kind of first opportunity that Californians really had to swing back,” said Cosney. “But it’s not the last.”

2025-11-07 03:45:19

An immigration enforcement officer who shot a US citizen in Chicago last month bragged about the incident in texts afterwards, according to court documents filed in federal court on Wednesday. It’s just one of the latest examples of how, contrary to the Trump administration’s own narrative, the agents helping the supposedly terrified residents of American cities are posing a danger to residents themselves.

The texts were released in court at a hearing requested by the lawyer for the woman, Marimar Martinez, who is facing federal charges of assaulting an officer. According to the government’s account, Martinez allegedly rammed her car into a vehicle driven by Charles Exum, a supervisory Border Patrol agent, on October 4 in Chicago. When Exum got out of the car, Martinez allegedly drove her car “at” him, and the officer then fired five shots at her.

Martinez has pled not guilty, and contests the government’s allegations. In her account, Exum sideswiped her car, and fired the five gunshots at her “within two seconds” of exiting his vehicle, according to court documents filed by her lawyer. After driving about a mile from the scene, Martinez took an ambulance to a hospital, where she was treated for gunshot wounds and later arrested. She has been released from custody on $10,000 bond; a jury trial is scheduled for February.

This all occurred as federal officials were conducting immigration raids in the Chicago area, as part of an action dubbed “Operation Midway Blitz” by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

The texts released Wednesday provide insight into how Exum addressed the incident in its aftermath. In one exchange, the agent sent an article from the Guardian describing the shooting, adding, “5 shots, 7 holes.” In another, he clarified that he was explaining his pride of his abilities as a marksman: “I fired 5 rounds and she had 7 holes. Put that in your book boys.” (Reuters reported that, when asked about these messages at a court hearing on Wednesday, Exum said: “I’m a firearms instructor and I take pride in my shooting skills.”)

In other messages, Exum wrote: “I’m up for another round of ‘fuck around and find out'” and “Sweet. My fifteen mins of fame. Lmao.”

According to CNN, Martinez’s lawyer, Christopher Perente, asked Exum about another text, in which Exum wrote about the incident: “I have a MOF amendment to add to my story.” Exum explained ‘MOF’ meant “miserable old fucker,” a term meant to refer to someone trying to one-up others, per CNN’s account. Exum explained the text by saying: “That means illegal actions have legal consequences.”

Spokespeople for ICE and Border Patrol lawyer did not respond to requests for comment. Martinez’s lawyer did not respond to comment.

Expect more receipts to drop soon: The court ordered the government to turn over the agent’s unredacted texts by the end of day Thursday, records show.

2025-11-06 20:30:00

For low-income people and their families, it’s been a hard, complicated week. On November 1, more than 40 million users of SNAP, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, did not receive their monthly payments after the Trump administration refused to pay full benefits through emergency funding during the ongoing government shutdown. It would be better, the administration has decided, to weaponize hunger against Democrats, blaming the government shutdown, than to feed people.

On Monday, a court ordered that the Trump administration use contingency funds to fund SNAP, although the Trump administration said it would only fund half the regular amount. It’s unclear whether the White House, which has flip-flopped on SNAP several times in recent weeks, will pull a similar stunt in December if the government shutdown continues—or when the funds for this month will reach people.

And it’s not like the system was perfect. A recent report from the National Domestic Workers Alliance found that in September, 91 percent of domestic workers who responded to the survey—including nannies, home health care aides and house cleaners—said their households struggled with food insecurity in September, when SNAP payments were still in effect.

“It’s so clear that it’s always the people who have the least amount of resources and power that end up being hurt the most,” National Domestic Workers Alliance president Ai-jen Poo told me. “When you think about domestic workers and the multiple compounding impacts of these policy decisions that are coming from the federal government right now, the pressures are simply untenable.”

I spoke with Poo about the challenges domestic workers are facing at this time, which include food insecurity, low wages and the devastating chaos brought on by ICE raids.

What have you been hearing about the challenges domestic workers face in getting food with the Trump administration’s kerfuffle over SNAP benefits? 

Even before the SNAP payments were an issue, the cost of food was a huge concern for domestic workers. Wages are not going up, but the cost of food is going up and the cost of everything that domestic workers need to survive, from transportation to housing. A huge number of domestic workers rely on SNAP because wages are so low.

There’s a tremendous amount of fear and concern about what is going to happen. And in an environment where there’s already food insecurity for domestic workers, who, by the way, are primary income earners for their families, the ripple effect on families, children, and communities is going to be enormous.

The other issue is that domestic workers make so little that they qualify for SNAP. What about ensuring that wages also go up?

It’s essential. This is a workforce where the demand for the work is increasing because we have a growing aging population, and more people who have illnesses like Alzheimer’s or dementia, or people with disabilities, who need assistance. The demand for this work is growing, but because the wages are so low, people cannot sustain themselves doing this work.

It’s also, by the way, work that can’t be outsourced or automated by AI. We all have an interest in making these jobs good jobs where you can earn a living wage and sustain yourself and your family. But right now, we have a constant turnover. There’s a 26 percent turnover rate for home care workers, for example, because the wages are so low and the people that we count on to take care of us and our families can’t even survive on the wages that they earn, let alone take care of their families. So raising wages for domestic workers is absolutely essential.

How is this uniquely important for undocumented domestic workers, who do not qualify for SNAP?

Undocumented workers are not eligible for public assistance at all. What is so concerning is that this administration is even trying to roll back the basic rights to minimum wage and overtime protections for domestic workers, specifically home care workers. So they’re not only threatening to raise costs and threatening essential programs, but also rolling back basic rights to wage protection that all of us take for granted when we go to work every day.

That is going to put even more pressure on this workforce, now, for undocumented domestic workers who are also being targeted in reckless ICE raids that are tearing families and communities apart with no due process. The pressures are also creating enormous mental and emotional health issues in our communities, and the ripple effects of that will be generational.

That’s traumatizing. Not just for the workers and their families, but also for the families that they take care of. I hear from disabled people and older people who count on immigrant care workers as their main lifeline to dignity and to care. [They are] really just devastated by what is happening right now.

Food insecurity understandably impacts people’s ability to focus on and do their job well.

Having somebody who is hungry and worried about feeding their own children is an enormous amount of stress that will impact anybody’s ability to do their job well. That is why I think we all have an interest in making sure that funds are protected, that people’s health care is protected.

At the end of the day, we are all interconnected, and there’s nowhere that that’s more apparent than in the domestic setting, where we have workers who work inside of our own homes, taking care of the most precious elements of our lives, our children, our parents, our loved ones, and their well-being is fundamentally connected to our own. Food insecurity impacts everybody in that way, and we should all have a stake in making sure that people have the basic nutrition that they deserve.

There are going to be work requirements for SNAP starting soon. Do you have concerns that the administrative burden will impact domestic workers, leading to more food insecurity?

The problem with these work requirements is that, first of all, the vast majority of people who utilize programs like SNAP and Medicaid are working. Those who are not are not working for a reason. They’re either in caregiving situations where they cannot work because their caregiving responsibilities are so intense, or they’re disabled, or any number of very legitimate and valid reasons. There’s a whole myth about people not working that needs to be debunked.

The other thing about this is that the requirements are oftentimes so onerous that people are just unable to [meet them] and overcome all the red tape that is required. You have a lot of people who are falling off of Medicaid as a result of work requirements [in places] where they’ve been implemented already, and you’re going to see that when it comes to SNAP, where people who really do have a legitimate need, who this program was designed for, are going to be pushed off and pushed away, because the requirements [are] going to be so onerous. It just is not possible for people to keep up.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

2025-11-06 20:30:00

This story was originally published by Canary Media and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

US Rep. Mikie Sherrill won the governor’s race in New Jersey on Tuesday, running on a platform of keeping electricity prices down. Environmental groups see Sherrill’s election as a triumph for the Garden State’s struggling offshore wind sector.

Sherrill, a four-term Democrat and a US Navy veteran, arrived on the political scene in 2017 and advocated for offshore wind projects on Capitol Hill. As a gubernatorial candidate, she was one of only three Democrats who explicitly endorsed offshore wind on campaign websites early in the race.

Her Republican opponent, Jack Ciattarelli, ran on a promise to ban future offshore wind development. His campaign website sells ​“stop offshore wind” tote bags, t-shirts, stickers, and beverage koozies. Sherrill handily beat Ciattarelli, winning 56 percent to 43 percent at press time.

“In-state produced power through offshore wind and other renewable technologies is the only path forward to ensure carbon reduction while prioritizing price stability, economic growth, and resource adequacy,” said Paulina O’Connor, executive director of the New Jersey Offshore Wind Alliance, an advocacy group whose work is funded in part by wind developers.

Sherrill will take office next year without any offshore wind projects operational or under construction along the state’s roughly 130 miles of coastline. That’s in stark contrast to the other East Coast states that, like New Jersey, have incentivized offshore wind development through tax breaks and have planned grid and clean-energy goals around the sector’s growth. Massachusetts, Virginia, New York, and Rhode Island all have installations completed or currently underway.

New Jersey’s incumbent Gov. Phil Murphy, also a Democrat, was once a fierce proponent of offshore wind, but has ostensibly distanced himself from the sector in recent months as President Donald Trump’s war on offshore wind proved, in some ways, insurmountable for a lame-duck governor.

The Trump administration has frozen the permitting pipeline for all of New Jersey’s earlier-stage offshore projects. Atlantic Shores, the state’s only fully approved wind farm, had one of its federal permits revoked in March by the Environmental Protection Agency. Shell, the project’s codeveloper, officially withdrew from the project last week.

As governor, Sherrill’s ability to counter federal anti-wind policies will be limited. But she can make sure the state remains a player in the industry, which is still advancing in nearby New York. In that state, one project, South Fork Wind, is fully operational, and another, Empire Wind, is under construction.

Sherrill, for example, could expand funding for programs that train workers for wind jobs. She could increase legal pressure against the Trump administration for obstructing certain projects, as Rhode Island and Connecticut have done. New Jersey’s Attorney General Matthew Platkin, along with 17 other attorneys general, is already suing the Trump administration over its broad-reaching executive order that froze federal permitting for wind power.

Her campaign promise to freeze New Jerseyans’ utility rates through a State of Emergency declaration on Day 1 and to push back on federal overreach signifies a willingness to come out fighting.

“Governor-elect Sherrill campaigned on the need for bold action to reduce family energy costs. [The American Clean Power Association] welcomes the Governor-elect’s recognition that clean power is key to meeting demand and keeping costs low,” said Jason Grumet, CEO of the trade group, in a statement released shortly after Sherrill’s acceptance speech.

In January, Sherrill will take the reins from Murphy, who set New Jersey on a path to building a zero-emissions power grid by 2035 but ultimately failed to generate any new offshore wind power. New Jersey voted on Tuesday for a candidate who aims to keep the state’s climate ambitions alive. The long-held vision of offshore wind turbines being central to these goals endures—for now. 

2025-11-06 06:32:24

The number one thing everyone at the Curtis Sliwa election night watch party could agree on was loving Curtis Sliwa. The number two thing was hating Andrew Cuomo. Aside from that, it was kind of a mixed bag.

Last night, dozens of Sliwa supporters packed into the basement of Arte Cafe, an old-school Italian haunt on the Upper West Side, to mark the end of a historic New York City mayoral race. Sliwa—the cat-loving, red-beret-sporting Republican nominee for mayor, best known for founding the vigilante crime-fighting group the Guardian Angels in 1979—was always a long shot for Gracie Mansion. Still, he stayed in the race until the bitter end, resisting repeated calls (and, he claims, offers for up to $10 million) to drop out.

The day before the election, President Donald Trump urged his supporters to hold their nose and cast a ballot for former Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo, claiming that a vote for Sliwa was a vote for “Communist Candidate Zohran Mamdani.”

Partygoers at Arte were unfazed by Trump’s Sliwa snub. Supporters bought “Our Heart Beats for Curtis” T-shirts at the merch table. Former Republican Gov. George Pataki showed up, swarmed by news crews and fans. And some danced jubilantly by the bar before the results rolled in. (Not everyone enjoyed this decision: “This is an election party, not a dancehall,” one onlooker grumbled.)

At first, the event felt like a portal to the recent past: an idealized vision of a big tent Republican Party, pre-MAGA takeover. A man in a navy suit tapped my arm to thank me for helping him identify Pataki. “Thanks to you, I was able to get a selfie with him,” he said. The man told me his name was George, and he’d canvassed for Sliwa in Queens.

George wasn’t concerned about his candidate’s likely loss, because, he said, he was a Christian and he voted his conscience. “We need to be concerned about the poor, the homeless, regular people—not just billionaires and millionaires,” he said.

George, like several people I chatted with at the party, wasn’t a fan of Trump.

“He’s doing bad shit, like shooting up boats that he says got drugs on them,” a man named Brad in a God Bless America baseball cap told me. “Like you can’t do that. What if they’re just fishermen or something?” 

Others said that they didn’t like Mamdani but were disappointed by Trump’s last-minute endorsement; they could not fathom voting for “Killer Cuomo” who “lost his own primary.” (There were plenty of red berets, but not a red MAGA hat in sight.)

Related

I Checked in With Curtis Sliwa. He Still Doesn’t Care What You Think.

Still, some attendees sported idiosyncratic merch. I saw a shirt that said “Anti Mamdani Social Club” and a red yarmulke with Trump’s face on it. Akiva Mandel, a 30-year-old accountant from Beverly Hills who is now based on the Upper East Side, told me he’d purchased the latter item in Israel. He was “scared shitless” of Mamdani and his supposed threat to Jews in New York City, because the democratic socialist has said he’d arrest Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for war crimes if he visits.

Mandel admitted that he did not know much about Sliwa’s policies. But his father, a native New Yorker, had instructed him to vote for anyone but Mamdani. Still, he just couldn’t bring himself to turn that into supporting Cuomo.

“One of my best friends happens to be an African American woman. Her father was in a nursing home,” Mandel said. “Her father was unfortunately literally killed because of Andrew Cuomo.” (Cuomo has maintained that he followed federal guidelines when responding to the Covid-19 pandemic. New York’s Attorney General found that his administration undercounted nursing home deaths by several thousand.)

Mandel called himself a “die-hard” Trump fan, but said he would “call [Trump] out when [he doesn’t] like what he does”—like when the president said there were “some very fine people” on both sides of the white supremacist Unite the Rally in 2017.

I asked Mandel if he’d heard about Mamdani’s pledge to increase funding to combat hate crimes. 

“Anti-hate? This dude is full of hate,” Mandel said. “He doesn’t like gay people. He doesn’t like Black people.”

I was confused. I asked Mandel what Mamdani had said about Black people. He turned to his friend, Russell Miley, who is Black. “You wanna get this one?” Mandel asked. “Because I don’t remember.”

Miley also didn’t remember. 

“Okay, fine, never mind,” he said. “I’m not Black, so I can’t comment.”

I eventually pieced together that Mandel and Miley were part of a sizeable cohort of people at Sliwa’s watch party who knew each other from counterprotesting at pro-Palestine events and drag queen story hours. Some had been arrested alongside Sliwa at the anti-migrant shelter protests in 2023; Brad, who didn’t agree with the Venezuelan boat strikes, told me he’d tried to stop the migrant buses from arriving in New York City because they were filled with people who he believed to be rapists and criminals.

Many of the counterprotesters were introduced to each other through a woman named D’anna Morgan, who was at Sliwa’s event, too. When I met her, she enthusiastically complimented my bangs and I was later disturbed to discover that she’d been arrested in 2022 for breaking into the apartment building of a New York City councilmember and vandalizing his office building with homophobic messages. 

As I spoke to supporters, a guy from Infowars circled the room like a vulture. I saw a man in a Hot Wheels baseball cap chat with a blonde woman wearing red leather fingerless gloves, blue eyeliner, and a fur-trimmed jacket. A second person complimented my (normally unremarkable) bangs. Then, I was suddenly pulled into a three-way conversation with Shery Olivo—director of membership of the Washington Heights–based Dominican American Republican Club—and an energy healer named Marilyn, who was holding a chihuahua in a little red coat. 

Olivo told me she’d helped start the club to give a voice to the conservative members of her community and demonstrate, “You’re not born a Democrat or Republican. These are decisions you make based on your values.” I asked her to describe those values.

“First of all, we believe there’s two genders,” Olivo said. “We don’t believe in all these genderologies.” She told me she supports Trump because of his policies on immigration. “I won’t allow the Dominican Republic to open its borders to Haiti,” she said, by way of explanation. Then her brash demeanor shifted, becoming more somber. “I lost my nephew eight months ago to gun violence, due to illegal immigrants that crossed the border and are in New York,” she told me. “The people that killed him are out there committing other crimes, while my sister cries every day.”

In light of all this, I asked Olivo how she felt about Trump endorsing Cuomo. “At the end of the day, it’s all politics. Whatever the president does, why he betrayed his party, I have no idea,” Olivo told me, adding that, “Trump is smart, and instead of having a communist, he would’ve preferred Cuomo.” So, I pressed her on whether she ever considered voting for Cuomo herself, if she feared having a so-called communist in City Hall. 

“Absolutely not. I am a woman that respects herself. I know my worth,” she said. Marilyn nodded along. “I would never vote for a man who disrespects women. I have no respect for a man who doesn’t know where his hands belong.”

I asked her about the allegations that Trump has also disrespected women—to put it lightly—and how she feels about the Jeffrey Epstein stuff.

“Those are all distractions,” Marilyn chimed in. 

“Distractions from what?” I asked.

“Whatever the agenda is,” said Marilyn. “There’s forces behind Trump, and there’s forces behind Mamdani. These are just faces.”

“But what are the forces?” I asked.

Marilyn gave me a knowing look.

“At the end of the day, Trump’s agenda is a national agenda,” Olivo explained, and with that she stalked off in her eggshell pantsuit to strike up a conversation with someone else nearby. 

In the end, Sliwa’s exit from the race looks like it would not have made up the difference. Mamdani defeated Cuomo by nearly nine points, and with more than 50 percent of the vote, in an election that saw the highest voter turnout since 1969.

Sliwa began his concession speech ahead of schedule, at 9:24 p.m., when most major news outlets had not yet called the race for Mamdani. During his address to us, he spoke highly of the record-breaking voter turnout and railed against unnamed figures for trying to bribe him out of the race. 

“From the time I declared my candidacy, the masters of the universe—the billionaires—decided that I should not have the right to represent all of you,” a teary-eyed Sliwa proclaimed. He recounted how someone had told him, “‘C’mon Curtis, everyone has a price.’” But he reiterated his commitment to representing the people that make up his movement: First on the list were “animal lovers,” which were then followed by “people who’ve been disenfranchised, people who have been pushed to the side, whose voices have not been heard, the homeless, the emotionally disturbed, the veterans, the people who ride the subways.”

Here was his version of the Republican Party as a big tent.

It’s hard not to find Sliwa’s eccentric delivery, and his old-school New York bonafides, a little endearing. Sliwa did not name Mamdani, but he noted, “I wish him good luck, because if he does well, we do well.” Still, before I could start feeling too warm and fuzzy, Sliwa issued a warning: “If you try to implement socialism, if you try to render our police weak and impotent … we are mobilizing and we will become the mayor-elect and his supporters’ worst enemy.”

Those threatening words didn’t really match the vibe of many Sliwa supporters in the room, who decried socialism but couldn’t muster as much hate for Mamdani as they have for Cuomo. Even Miley and Mandel, of the far-right counterprotest crew, conceded to me that Mamdani is “polished” and “a good-looking dude.”

“He dresses well, he’s slim. I’ll give him credit,” Mandel said. “But he’s an asshole and an antisemite.”

In the end, Mamdani told NY1 that he didn’t get a congratulatory call from either Andrew Cuomo or Eric Adams last night. 

But he got one from Curtis Sliwa.