Politics

Jeff Bezos’ mixed bag for Mamdani

Published

4 months ago

May 20, 2026

Amazon founder and billionaire Jeff Bezos endorsed a second homes tax for New York City.

BEZOS’ BLESSING: Mayor Zohran Mamdani found an unlikely supporter today for his push to raise taxes on rich property owners: Jeff Bezos, one of the wealthiest men in the world.

“The pied-à-terre tax is a fine thing for New York to do,” Bezos said in a wide-ranging interview this morning on CNBC.

The billionaire Amazon founder was referring to the new surcharge that the state — after prodding from Mamdani — is expected to levy on individuals who own secondary homes in the city worth more than $5 million. Bezos, who resides mainly in Miami, gave his thumbs up even though he owns multiple homes in the city — reportedly worth well over $5 million each — meaning he’s likely to be impacted by the new tax.

But Bezos, who ranks as the fourth richest man in the world, also had plenty of flack for the mayor and his democratic socialist philosophies.

On pied-à-terre, Bezos blasted Mamdani for releasing a social media video in which he stood outside billionaire hedge fund manager Ken Griffin’s Manhattan penthouse to tout the tax.

“To go stand in front of Ken Griffin’s house and act like he’s some kind of villain — Ken Griffin isn’t a villain,” Bezos said in the interview, which was shot inside his Florida space rocket manufacturing facility. “He hasn’t hurt anybody. He’s not hurting New York. In fact, quite the opposite. And so that piece of it isn’t right, and there was no reason to do that.”

Mamdani’s video stunt has triggered a sustained uproar from business leaders who say the video was in poor taste. They’ve also argued a pied-à-terre tax is flawed because it could drive the rich to sell their properties, depleting the local tax pool.

Griffin himself threatened to pull the plug on a $6 billion office development project in the city in response to Mamdani’s video. The mayor has since taken pains to meet with local business giants, like the chief executives of JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs, though Griffin himself has so far rejected Mamdani’s entreaties for a sit-down.

While Bezos gave Mamdani an unexpected boost on the pied-à-terre front, the Amazon honcho’s gripes with the mayor went well beyond Griffin.

Mamdani has long favored raising income taxes on the rich — on both the state and federal level — arguing such hikes would create more revenue to fund services for the average person.

Bezos contends that’s nonsense and pointed to the fact that the city’s public school system spends about $44,000 on every student annually — a markedly higher sum than other major U.S. cities — with little to show for it in terms of educational outcomes.

“You could double the taxes I pay and it’s not going to help that teacher in Queens, I promise you,” said Bezos.

Instead, he said the focus should be on eliminating taxes altogether for low-income earners. “A nurse in Queens who makes $75,000 a year pays 12 — more than $12,000 a year in taxes. Does that really make sense?” he said. “So, people talk about making the tax system more progressive. How about we start by having the nurse in Queens not pay taxes?”

CNBC anchor Andrew Ross Sorkin pressed Bezos on whether billionaires like himself would need to pay more in income taxes if nurses and teachers are given a pass on their bills, given there might otherwise be a revenue shortfall. Bezos replied that is “certainly a perfectly valid policy debate.”

A spokesperson for Mamdani would not comment on Bezos’ support for the pied-à-terre tax. But responding to a CNBC clip of Bezos criticizing higher taxes on the wealthy, Mamdani wrote on X: “I know a few teachers in Queens who would beg to differ.”

Queens holds a special place in Bezos’ mind. In 2019, Amazon canceled plans to build a massive headquarters in Long Island City after progressives such as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and former Mayor Bill de Blasio fought against awarding the mega-corporation $3 billion in public subsidies for the project.

Indeed, Bezos kept coming back to Queens in his CNBC hit, even while talking about what a great career choice he believes Amazon is for working class Americans.

“Amazon, we have our entry level wage for, in Queens, is $23 an hour,” he said. “That works out to be like $52,000 a year, and this is an entry level job that doesn’t require any educational attainment. It doesn’t require any preexisting skills. We will train you. It’s actually a great first job.” — Chris Sommerfeldt

From the Capitol

State lawmakers are set to give Mayor Zohran Mamdani the authority to dissolve a commission launched by his predecessor.

ZOMBIE FIGHT: State lawmakers are expected to grant Mamdani the power to dissolve a Charter Revision Commission launched by his predecessor, providing him with a clear path to kill the controversial panel.

The new authority, set to be approved in a budget bill scheduled for a Thursday vote, will give Mamdani until June 1 to either approve or rescind the commission’s creation by former Mayor Eric Adams, two people familiar with the deal said.

The people, who were granted anonymity to discuss details of the yet-to-be released legislation, said Mamdani asked state officials to insert the language into the tax-and-spending plan. They also said Mamdani — who has for months sought a way to kill the Adams commission — is expected to use the authority to disband the panel once and for all.

Kayla Mamelak, Adams’ former press secretary who’s among several aides and political loyalists he appointed to the commission, told Blue Light News on Wednesday that no one from the panel received a heads up from state lawmakers or the mayor’s administration about the new legislation.

LANDFILL LATTE: A plastic cup tossed into the recycling bin at a Starbucks in Park Slope traveled 463 miles to its final resting place at Apex Landfill in Amsterdam, Ohio.

The cup’s long and winding road from eco-minded, brownstone Brooklyn to a tiny Ohio village underscores how little consumer plastic ends up getting recycled — even through a corporation that touts its sustainability cred.

The journey was tracked by Beyond Plastics, which released a report today documenting how it attached trackers to plastic cups in Starbucks recycling bins to see where they ended up. Not a single cup ended up at a recycling facility.

“When a company tells you something is being recycled and it isn’t, it doesn’t just mislead the customer, it also takes the pressure off for real solutions, which is using less plastic in the first place,” Judith Enck, president of Beyond Plastics, told reporters Wednesday.

The group, a non-profit that advocates for ending plastic pollution, is lobbying for the Packaging Reduction and Recycling Infrastructure Act to pass in Albany this session. The bill is aimed at reducing single-use packaging in New York and is sponsored by Assemblymember Deborah Glick and state Sen. Pete Harckham, both Democrats.

The cups in question are made of polypropylene, or No. 5 plastic. And while they are indeed recyclable, Beyond Plastics could only find a handful of commercial recycling operators in the country that claim to recycle post-consumer polypropylene.

Starbucks is already using fiber to-go cups in hundreds of its outposts across 14 states. The report calls on the coffee chain to use those cups nationwide. Starbucks pushed back on the report.

“Our cups are designed to be recyclable, and the ‘widely accepted for recycling’ designation reflects that,” Emily Albright, a spokesperson for Starbucks, said in a statement. “Obviously, recycling in practice also requires local community infrastructure. That’s why we work closely with others, including the recycling companies, to help expand access and help improve the system.” — Mona Zhang

FROM CITY HALL

Council member Julie Won is running in the Democratic primary to succeed retiring Rep. Nydia M. Velázquez.

EYES ON AI: Council member Julie Won is rolling out legislation that would establish an artificial intelligence oversight office in the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection.

The director of the office would be responsible for investigating “allegations of the use of artificial intelligence in violation of the consumer laws” and for implementing an “outreach and education campaign to raise public awareness regarding the use of artificial intelligence to harm the rights, safety, or interests of consumers.”

The Council has long attempted to regulate AI.

Won is running for Congress in the competitive Democratic primary to succeed retiring Rep. Nydia Velázquez. As part of her campaign, she’s put out a technology policy platform focused heavily on AI and using the technology “responsibly.”

“We have to change the public sentiment from being so afraid of becoming obsolete to making sure there’s protections so that people don’t become obsolete,” Won said in a recent interview.

The debate over the path forward for AI has reshaped elections across the country — especially in the Democratic primary for retiring Rep. Jerry Nadler’s seat, where millions of dollars have poured in from groups on both sides of the regulation conversation.

There’s no indication, though, that those entities are planning to get involved in this race, where Won is up against Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso and Assemblymember Claire Valdez. — Madison Fernandez

BUFFERING, PLEASE HOLD: City Council Speaker Julie Menin is planning to introduce a revised version of the “buffer zone” protest bill for educational facilities, scaling back the proposal after Mamdani vetoed the original measure in late April.

The new legislation narrows the definition of educational facilities to early childhood sites and most K-12 schools, explicitly excluding libraries, teaching hospitals and — notably — colleges and universities.

The bill, similar to the buffer zone protest bill for religious institutions, would require the NYPD to create and publicize security perimeter plans around those schools during protests. Both measures have undergone significant revisions compared to earlier versions, which initially proposed 100-foot buffer zones between protestors and the sites in question.

The changes mark a significant concession from Menin on the bill’s core scope, as she moves to address member concerns rather than attempt an override — despite saying she had the votes to do so.

“We have the ability to do an override, but to jam through an override on an issue where even members who were going to support the override had real concerns — I don’t think that’s a responsible path forward,” the speaker said. “It’s my job as speaker to build consensus.”

Changes to the school-focused bill also include replacing its original prime sponsor, Council member Eric Dinowitz, with Council member Elsie Encarnacion. Under the new version, Dinowitz will appear as second co-prime sponsor.

Menin pushed back on criticism that the revisions weaken the legislation.

“I don’t view it as a watering down. I actually view it as a strengthening,” Menin said. “It means we’re going to get more members involved in supporting this bill.”

The original proposal — part of the Council’s five-point plan to combat antisemitism — was driven in part by concerns over campus protests tied to Israel’s war in Gaza. Mamdani vetoed it in April, citing constitutional concerns and the bill’s broad definition of educational institutions, which he argued could have applied to libraries, museums and hospitals.

“The Mamdani administration has not seen the specific legislative language, and we look forward to reviewing it,” a spokesperson for the mayor said. “The Mayor believes New York City must remain a place where students can access their schools safely as well as exercise their constitutional right to protest.” — Gelila Negesse

IN OTHER NEWS

— CHECKERS, NOT CHESS: OpenAI is pivoting to a state-by-state lobbying strategy to shape AI regulation, aiming to build momentum as federal efforts stall. (POLITICO)

— CASE NOT CLOSED: Citizens Union, a government watchdog group, is urging the Manhattan district attorney to pursue state charges against Eric Adams despite the Trump administration dropping a federal case against him. (The New York Times)

— NO PLAYING AROUND: New York health officials say they are closely monitoring an Ebola outbreak in the Congo as international travel ramps up ahead of the World Cup. (Gothamist)

Missed this morning’s New York Playbook? We forgive you. Read it here.

Politics

Gavin Newsom’s first 2028 test: This fall, in Nevada

Published

22 hours ago

September 7, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

LAS VEGAS — If California Gov. Gavin Newsom runs for president in 2028, next-door Nevada will be a crucial test. This fall’s governor’s race is offering a preview.

As GOP Gov. Joe Lombardo runs for reelection, he’s trying to pin high Nevada fuel prices — a majority of which is imported from California — on “Gavin Newsom’s energy policies.” He lambasts California as too expensive and too regulated. And he’s hammering his Democratic opponent, Attorney General Aaron Ford, for accepting Newsom’s endorsement, betting that it will turn off Nevada swing voters.

“The contrast is simple: I’m fighting Gavin Newsom’s agenda and Aaron Ford is trying to import it into Nevada,” Lombardo said in a statement to Blue Light News.

This could be a test run for 2028, when Newsom may call upon Nevadans — one-fifth of whom were born in California — to deliver him a primary victory in the early-voting state, and possibly a presidential victory.

“They understand California costs more,” Donna West, chair of the Nevada Democratic Party’s senior caucus, said of Nevada’s California expats. “They also understand that California is the fourth-largest economy in the entire world, and that Gavin Newsom ran that as effectively as he possibly can.”

Newsom’s office declined to comment. A person close to the governor, granted anonymity to discuss the sentiment in his orbit, said they are “thrilled” Republicans are spending money to “plaster Newsom’s name across a key early state.”

“Republicans seem awfully concerned about an endorsement from someone who leads the 2028 Democratic field in Nevada by nearly 2-to-1,” the person said, pointing to a November 2025 Emerson poll of a hypothetical 2028 Democratic primary field.

Ford, for his part, shrugs off the attacks.

“Lombardo tries to cast blame elsewhere, but everyone knows that when the war started in February, that we saw our gas prices increase almost immediately,” Ford told Blue Light News after a recent town hall in Las Vegas. “People believe their own eyes, and they remember their experiences.”

The demonization of California is nothing new in Nevada politics: For years, Republicans have blasted their western neighbor as too expensive and too woke.

But the stakes are higher, and the connection more palpable, this year, as Newsom explores a presidential bid. He would likely need to perform very well in Nevada, now second on the Democratic calendar, to build early momentum toward the party nomination. And come November 2028, he’d need to fare well in Nevada again, this time among the state’s general electorate, a plurality of which are independents.

Newsom has stumped for Democrats across the country this cycle, and he blitzed through the South this week, including a swing through South Carolina, whose Democrats will vote first, right before Nevada, in 2028.

But Republicans are looking to weaponize Newsom’s Silver State swing in July, where Ford introduced him at a new Las Vegas field office as “the governor of the great state of California.”

“Our next president!” an audience member shouted, eliciting cheers.

The Lombardo-aligned Better Nevada PAC shared polling with Blue Light News in July showing Newsom’s favorability 20 points underwater in Nevada and losing a hypothetical 2028 head-to-head with Vice President JD Vance. Shortly thereafter, the PAC began an ad blitz tying Ford to the California governor.

Billboards touting Newsom’s endorsement of Ford, paid for by the PAC, now line highways across Nevada, and digital and streaming ads have run consistently since the visit. “Newsom and Ford: Shared vision. Shared values,” one ad says.

A person familiar with the PAC’s internal polling, granted anonymity to discuss private data, said it shows Newsom’s endorsement is now the second-most-known datapoint about the attorney general.

“Gavin Newsom is the singular most unpopular elected official in Nevada,” said Jeremy Hughes, a longtime Nevada GOP strategist running the Lombardo-aligned PAC. “Aaron Ford brought him into the state. … There’s no better way to help him out than to put up these signs and run ads, letting people know that he’s excited about being endorsed by Gavin Newsom.”

Republicans in the state have long blamed Californian expats for housing shortages and rising prices and connect their opponents to California liberals. A surge of ex-Californians leaving the state during the Covid-19 pandemic, some fleeing high taxes and cost of living, accelerated the trend.

Sam Brown, the GOP nominee for U.S. Senate in 2022, blasted the “energy policies of Gavin Newsom”; in 2018, GOP governor nominee Adam Laxalt lamented the “Californization” of Nevada, even as Californians bankrolled his campaign. During Lombardo’s first run for governor in 2022, he slammed incumbent Democratic Gov. Steve Sisolak for taking his cues from Newsom: “Don’t let Steve Sisolak turn Nevada into California,” one post said. Republicans tied their opponents to Nancy Pelosi for decades.

Lombardo’s argument this time around is more focused. He notes that the vast majority of Nevada’s gasoline comes from California, and argues that California’s efforts to cut carbon emissions have caused fuel prices to soar. A gallon of gas in Nevada costs nearly $5, according to AAA, one of the highest prices in the nation.

“The policies coming from Gavin Newsom and California Democrats … don’t stop at their state line,” Lombardo said in a statement. “Nevada and other states import a significant portion of our fuel from California, so when Governor Newsom shuts down refineries and imposes regulations that reduce supply and increase costs, Nevada families feel the consequences at the pump.”

It’s a strategy that allows Lombardo — running in a difficult national environment for incumbent Republicans — to acknowledge voters’ economic pain without blaming President Donald Trump or his own party. Indeed, Lombardo shared an April column in the Nevada Independent that placed blame at the feet of both Newsom and Trump. (Lombardo, in his post, blamed only Newsom.)

Democrats don’t think voters will buy it. ‘“As far as gas prices, it’s so obviously increased since the war,” Rep. Dina Titus said. “People in Nevada aren’t stupid.”

Ford has his own millstone to saddle Lombardo with: the president. At a recent town hall in Las Vegas, he repeatedly blasted the “Lombardo-Trump economy” that is “making everything too expensive.”

“Voters absolutely tie the handling of the economy to Trump,” said Mike Noble, an independent Phoenix-based pollster who works in Nevada regularly. “Instead of blaming Trump, why not tie it to the boogeyman next door and blame California?”

Politics

‘We are winning elections’: Bernie Sanders on Democrats’ progressive wing

Published

2 days ago

September 6, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

‘We are winning elections’: Bernie Sanders on Democrats’ progressive wing

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Politics

Trump wants the Postal Service to radically overhaul mail voting. But ballots are already going out.

Published

4 days ago

September 4, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

President Donald Trump’s controversial demands for the Postal Service to overhaul and monitor millions of mail ballots hit another snag on Friday, when North Carolina became the first state in the nation to start sending out ballots for the November election.

In March, Trump signed the initial executive order, which aimed to crack down on mail-in voting — which he regularly alleges without evidence is a vector for widespread voter fraud — and assert an unprecedented amount of federal control over the upcoming elections.

Under this order and the subsequent rule drafted by the U.S. Postal Service, the USPS would refuse to deliver ballots to states that failed to provide lists of eligible mail voters or did not adhere to an approved envelope design style.

Since then, the order has faced legal challenges, and it remains paused by a federal judge’s orders. But the Trump administration has asked the Supreme Court to allow the new rule to proceed — something current and former election officials from both parties say would be both a legal nightmare that oversteps the federal government’s traditional role in elections and a logistical one that is happening far too close to the November election to implement even if they agreed with it.

“Why the hell are you rocking the boat this late in the game?” said Stephen Richer, a former Republican recorder of Maricopa County, Arizona, who has clashed with Trump allies for defending the security of the 2020 election.

Still, election officials are trying to project a sense of normalcy for voters, particularly in North Carolina, which serves as a test of whether established local election systems can operate normally amid intensifying federal scrutiny.

“I want to emphasize this point because there has been a lot of outside noise: Our county workers are ready,” Sam Hayes, a longtime Republican lawyer in the state and now executive director of the North Carolina State Board of Elections, said in a Thursday afternoon press conference.

He added, “All we can do is what we’re doing. … It is business as usual as far as I’m concerned.”

Despite the legal challenges, the Trump administration has continued to press the courts to let it proceed. The Trump administration asked the Supreme Court on Thursday to lift an order from a Massachusetts judge which temporarily prevents the USPS from enforcing their rule. It is the second time the Trump administration has asked the Supreme Court to step in, after winning an earlier victory in which the high court dismissed an earlier hold on the rule as premature.

“The uncertainty is coming from a single activist judge who continues to try and obstruct President Trump from implementing commonsense measures to protect the security of mail-in ballots and ensure only Americans vote in American elections,” White House spokesperson Lauren Bis said in a statement. “These safeguards for mail ballots were proposed months ago giving election officials ample time to prepare for the 2026 election.”

The USPS did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Election officials said that if the rule goes into effect this close to November, it would cause chaos and place added strain on the USPS and election officials. And an anonymous federal whistleblower said in a report circulated earlier this week by Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) that the USPS was moving forward in a “secretive, rushed, chaotic, and fundamentally flawed process” to try to implement the new system ahead of the midterms.

In the coming weeks, states across the country will follow North Carolina’s lead. Nine other states will begin mailing ballots in the next two weeks, according to a tracker from the National Conference of State Legislatures — with the biggest day for mailing coming 45 days before the election in mid-September.

“It would be so outrageous to try to let this go into effect. It’s hard to even imagine,” said Ben Hovland, a senior fellow for democracy at the progressive think tank Center for American Progress and former Democratic commissioner with the Election Assistance Commission who was fired by Trump in July.

He added, “It would be a break-glass moment for our democracy.”

The rule would require meticulous changes to ballot handling and tracking practices that Hovland said are impossible to implement before Election Day in about two months, effectively disenfranchising millions of voters.

“Ballots are printed. Envelopes are printed. You can go on and on with all the practical reasons that show that implementing something like this at this time is not feasible,” he said.

Richer said he doubted the new rules would bring about more security. Even if the USPS received lists from the states, according to the postal service’s final rule, it would not do any additional vetting of the list, Richer said.

“It’s just that the mail ballots have to be on that list, and I don’t see what added value for election integrity that does,” he said.

He added, “It creates a lot of administrative burden, and I think it creates a lot more opportunity for error.”

While a decision looms in the courts, election officials and experts cast doubt on the likelihood of the rules going into effect before November. A more pressing issue, they said, is the confusion and uncertainty surrounding mail-in ballots, which could subvert and change the behaviors of voters.

“It makes things seem messy or difficult, and it can dissuade people from participating or coming out to vote,” Hovland said. “It certainly also helps establish a pretext to make bad faith claims about election results.”

Hovland said that while none of these claims of voter fraud are backed up with facts, they could cause Americans to lose faith in the voting process.

Still, some current officials contended they were well-prepared for whatever happens — and that they’d be able to communicate effectively with voters who have become increasingly buffeted by dramatic rhetoric about the once-unmentioned nuts and bolts of actually running an election.

“There’s always a lot of noise around elections, that’s not going to change, and it can be hard to differentiate that from what’s actually going on on the ground,” said Jason Tyson, director of external affairs for the North Carolina State Board of Elections.

As Election Day approaches, Tyson and election officials said they urge voters to check their registration status and make a plan to vote.

He added, “I think we’ve got a really well-trained, solid staff who are ready, and who have gone through all of the checks and balances and points of contact that we need to do to get to where we are.”