Politics
Mamdani’s Nakba Day video that never was
DAYS THE BUDGET IS LATE: 48
WOULD HAVE IF HE COULD HAVE: Mayor Zohran Mamdani planned to appear in a video he released over the weekend to commemorate the displacement of Palestinians that occurred in connection with the State of Israel’s creation.
He only opted against being in the video — which drew backlash from local Jewish leaders — because he fell ill, he said this morning at a Bronx press event.
“I was intending to be there as part of it,” Mamdani told reporters. “However, I did fall sick, and we didn’t want to create any kind of complication for her.”
Mamdani was referring to Inea Bushnaq, a woman who lived in the British Mandate for Palestine as a child and was featured in the video released on the mayor’s official social media handles late Friday.
In the 4-minute video, Bushnaq, filmed in her home in New York City, recalls how she was nine when she and her family had to flee their home in East Jerusalem in 1948 during the “Nakba,” an Arabic word that translates into “catastrophe” and denotes the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians upon the establishment of Israel. “The Zionists were coming into Jerusalem,” Bushnaq says in the video.
Local Jewish leaders, including a member of Mamdani’s transition team, were outraged by the video, arguing it provided a one-sided, overly simplified account of the region’s history.
As noted by The Forward’s Jacob Kornbluh, many Jews around the world contend the displacement of Palestinians did not just occur at the hand of Israeli forces. Rather, they point to neighboring Arab states, including Egypt and Syria, which launched military attacks in response to the new Jewish state’s creation in the wake of the Holocaust.
At his press conference today, Mamdani was asked for a response to the criticism that his team’s video excluded critical context.
“I firmly believe that acknowledging any one people’s pain does not preclude you from the acknowledgement of another people’s,” he said. “When it comes to New Yorkers like Inea and so many others, not only has their pain never been acknowledged, but so often we have seen that even their identity is up for debate, and my message to each and every New Yorker is that this is a city for you and that we will continue to be proud of everyone who calls it home.”
His comments come as he’s set to host a reception commemorating Jewish American Heritage Month at Gracie Mansion tonight. The mayor’s release of the Nakba Day video has led some Jewish leaders to boycott the event. They include Mark Treyger, a former City Council member who now leads the Jewish Community Relations Council, and Rabbi Joseph Potasnik, the FDNY’s chief chaplain and the executive vice president of the New York Board of Rabbis.
Assemblymember Sam Berger, a Democrat who represents large Jewish communities in Queens, was still incensed by the video when asked about it this afternoon.
“The mayor has spent his career bending reality with his policies and his budget, so it’s no surprise he’s trying to bend history too,” he said in a statement to Playbook.
The decision by Mamdani to release the video on Nakba Day is part of his longstanding record of aligning himself with Palestinian rights and struggles.
As a candidate last year, Mamdani, the city’s first Muslim mayor, faced criticism for refusing to initially denounce the phrase “globalize the intifada,” which many see as a call to violence against Jewish people. As mayor, he has said he’s committed to combating all forms of hate, including antisemitism, while also continuing to accuse Israel of perpetrating a genocide against Palestinians in Gaza as part of the war launched in response to Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 terror attack.
Gustavo Gordillo, the co-chair of the New York City Democratic Socialists of America, of which Mamdani is a member, celebrated the video, saying it’s consistent with the chapter’s “history of standing up for Palestinian solidarity.”
“Representing the historic struggle of the people of the city is part of the mayor’s job, and I think that’s what he was doing here,” Gordillo said. — Chris Sommerfeldt and Jason Beeferman
FROM THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL

BETH DAVIDSON VS. BETH DAVIDSON: Beth Davidson’s congressional campaign has made it crystal clear on her website she absolutely supports establishing term limits — but if you ask her in person you may get an answer that sounds completely different.
Davidson, who’s running in the Democratic primary to unseat Republican Rep. Mike Lawler, says on the “priorities” section of her campaign website that she wants to “enact term limits and stronger ethics rules, to keep career politicians and corrupt insiders in check.”
But at a candidate forum in Ossining earlier this month, when she and her Democratic rivals were asked whether they would “support term limits for U.S. representatives and senators,” Davidson responded, “I actually don’t.”
“Some districts have members that have served them a long time. Some we’re done with after two years. I think it has to be up to the voters,” Davidson explained.
When asked about the discrepancy, Davidson’s campaign said the language on her campaign website is consistent with her support for term limits in the U.S. Supreme Court.
“Beth has clear plans to take on corruption in DC, including enacting term limits for Supreme Court Justices, banning stock trading by Members of Congress, and ending Citizens United to keep special interests and corporations out of our elections,” her campaign manager Ellen McCormick told Playbook.
Davidson was the only major candidate at the forum who opposed term limits for members of Congress, with her opponents Cait Conley and Effie Phillips-Staley supporting the idea. — Jason Beeferman
From the Capitol

TRAIN DREAMS: Gov. Kathy Hochul this morning visited the state office building in Lower Manhattan where negotiators for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s Long Island Railroad and five striking unions are meeting. As of mid-afternoon, no deal to end the LIRR strike had been reached.
In a video posted on social media, the governor said the morning commute had gone “smoother than expected” and that she was fighting to “protect our taxpayers and our commuters from having to pay hundreds of dollars more.”
Outside, picketers — one of them wearing a t-shirt that said “Fuck You, Pay Me” — chanted slogans like, “New York is a union town, Janno Lieber shut it down.” Lieber is the head of the MTA.
Hochul has so far appeared to stake out a more pro-MTA position than Gov. Mario Cuomo did during the last LIRR strike in 1994, which was also a gubernatorial election year. To quickly end the strike, Cuomo — whose son Hochul succeeded as governor — brokered a deal that gave the unions what they wanted.
But Hochul also appears to be keeping her political distance while blaming President Donald Trump for the strike.
In 1994, The New York Times reported that Cuomo was “positively hyperactive in confronting” the strike by cancelling public appearances, including a ticker-tape parade for the New York Rangers who had just won the Stanley Cup. The Times said he’d also “placed round-the-clock telephone calls to the top negotiators, members of Congress, Long Island leaders and the aides he sent to the bargaining table.”
This time around, Hochul has never publicly mentioned the possibility of Congress intervening. Trying to go that route is a nightmare for labor-friendly Democrats: Railroad unions are still bitter about when President Joe Biden got Congress to head off a freight rail strike in 2022. There were crickets from Congress last year when a union of train engineers went on strike and idled New Jersey Transit trains.
Trump said Sunday that until a day after the LIRR strike had begun he’d “never even heard about it.” (The president in September and again in January issued executive orders to create three-member panels to investigate the dispute and issue reports — a standard move in any rail labor dispute.) On Sunday afternoon, federal mediators summoned both sides to negotiations at the MTA headquarters. Those lasted late into the night and resumed this morning.
Hochul’s argument is that the Trump administration last year released the unions from one part of the mediation process early, a maneuver that set up a series of cooling off periods that ended Saturday, when the strike began. The part of the process she’s referring to allows federal officials to indefinitely keep unions in mediation without the ability to strike as long as there’s a reasonable chance of a settlement. Some of those mediations lasted for years.
This time around, all five unions and the MTA participated in mediation sessions between March 2024 and July 2025 before they were released in August. — Ry Rivard
FROM CITY HALL

FOOD DESERT: Mamdani’s plan to open a city-owned grocery store next year in Hunts Point could be a boon for access to healthy food in the bodega-dominated South Bronx, where diabetes and obesity rates far exceed citywide averages.
Hundreds of bodegas are spread throughout four ZIP codes in the South Bronx, accounting for 35 percent of all food establishments in the area, according to a Health Department analysis released last month. While most of the bodegas offered fresh produce, a third of them sold no fresh vegetables besides onions and potatoes — and, overall, healthy meal and snack options were limited, the analysis found.
For every supermarket in the South Bronx, there are four fast food restaurants and six bodegas, the analysis found.
In Hunts Point, the average cost of a standard grocery basket — which includes staples like eggs, deli beef, tomatoes, lettuce, bread, potatoes, milk and bananas — was $39.20 last year, but up to half of those items were generally unavailable, according to the analysis.
“Making sure every New Yorker can buy fresh, affordable groceries in their own neighborhood is a key part of our affordability agenda,” Mamdani said in a statement Monday.
The Economic Development Corp. is preparing a request for proposals for private operators to manage the Hunts Point grocery store and an additional store in East Harlem, which was announced in April and is slated to open by 2029. — Maya Kaufman
IN OTHER NEWS
— FRONT AND CENTER: Puerto Rico has emerged as a key issue in the race to succeed Rep. Nydia Velázquez, as rival progressive camps clash over the district’s political future. (THE CITY)
— PRISON REFORM: Still awaiting appointments from Hochul to reach a quorum, New York’s Committee on Correction is unable to meet or vote, delaying jail reform implementations. (New York Focus)
— LUIGI TAKES A HIT: A Manhattan judge ruled that the gun and notebook seized from Luigi Mangione will be admissible at his upcoming murder trial, while excluding items obtained during an initial warrantless search. (The New York Times)
Missed this morning’s New York Playbook? We forgive you. Read it here.
Politics
Blakeman’s uptown fracking fiesta
BLAKEMAN’S (LACK OF) ENERGY PLAN: GOP gubernatorial candidate Bruce Blakeman continued to hammer Gov. Kathy Hochul on rising energy costs today, promising to slash utility bills in half if he’s elected.
The Republican, however, still has not offered up a policy proposal on how he’d go about doing that.
“Kathy Hochul increased our utility rates 48 times in four years,” Blakeman said in upper Manhattan this morning.
The Washington Heights press conference, which included former Gov. George Pataki, was heavy on rhetoric and relatively light on details. Afterward, Blakeman’s campaign would not spell out how exactly he plans to cut consumer utility costs and did not respond to a request for clarification about his claim that Hochul increased utility rates 48 times. (While the state’s Public Service Commission has approved increases in major utility rate cases during Hochul’s tenure, those hikes have been less than what the utilities requested.)
“Donald Trump’s puppet, Bruce Blakeman … wants data centers raising your costs and said Trump was doing an ‘amazing job’ after he jacked up utility bills.” Hochul campaign spokesperson Sarafina Chitika said in a statement. “Two weeks from irrelevance, here’s what Blakeman won’t tell you: Governor Kathy Hochul delivered a billion dollars in energy relief, ten billion in tax relief, and made data centers pay for the energy they use.”
The Nassau County executive described meeting the owner of a Bronx diner who told him the business would need to sell 1,000 burgers a month to pay its $16,000 utility bill. Blakeman said he would legalize fracking to help New Yorkers lower their energy bills fast.
Aside from the fact that fracking doesn’t necessarily lead to lower utility bills and the reality that Blakeman would need buy-in from the state’s Democratic-dominated Legislature to do so, he insists that legalizing fracking could offer near-term relief from high energy costs.
“I met with those same individuals and companies that are doing the extraction of natural gas in Pennsylvania. They told me they can be up and running in 60 days,” Blakeman said. “If Albany has the will to reduce people’s utility bills … we can get it done in 60 days.”
He pointed to Pennsylvania, arguing that the state has lower electric bills because it allows fracking. But he neglected to mention that Pennsylvania is not part of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative — the carbon trading program of 11 eastern states, which Blakeman has pledged to withdraw from if he is elected.
Pataki, the last Republican to serve as governor in the Empire State, spearheaded the creation of that initiative, which is commonly known as RGGI.
“The concept is right, but the way it’s being done in Albany is wrong,” Pataki said at the presser, accusing Albany of using RGGI as a “slush fund.”
Even if New York did withdraw from RGGI, the benefit would amount to a 5% to 6% decrease on an average New York residential household bill, according to an estimate from National Grid — barely making a dent in the 50% Blakeman is promising to slash.
Exactly how the state would cover the rest of his proposed cut remains unclear.
Affordability, though, continues to be a key concern in Washington Heights, a largely Dominican neighborhood that Mayor Zohran Mamdani did well in during his ascent to victory last year.
To drive their message home, the Republicans even attempted to make their pitch in Spanish. Pataki, much more practiced in this than Blakeman, talked about how much he loved the “barrio” when he was governor, describing Blakeman as a leader “muy fuerte.”
“Gracias, hombre grande,” Blakeman exclaimed, before touting what he views as the GOP ticket’s immigrant bonafides — Saritha Komatireddy for attorney general and Joe Hernandez for comptroller.
“Governor, your Spanish is better than my Spanish, and I grew up speaking it,” Hernandez praised Pataki. — Mona Zhang
From the Capitol

LABOR BOOSTS GOV: A coalition of public employee unions is joining the crowded roster of super PACs spending on the gubernatorial election.
The New York Accountability Coalition has received $550,000 in recent weeks from the Civil Service Employees Association, Public Employees Federation, District Council 37, and CWA District One. It’ll soon spend that money to boost Hochul.
The governor “is laser-focused on lowering costs for working families and investing in public services,” AFSCME’s Courtney Brunelle-Kim said. “Bruce Blakeman is just another pay-to-play politician. From now until Election Day, we’ll be working to ensure that voters in key districts know The Blakeman Record.”
The super PAC spent $460,000 this spring helping Comptroller Tom DiNapoli as he faced two Democratic primary challengers. — Bill Mahoney
FROM THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL

AD PULLED: A clean energy super PAC yanked a version of an ad airing in a competitive upstate House district after Republican candidate Anthony Constantino’s attorney complained the spot was defamatory.
The group Invest In Tomorrow Coalition recently began airing the spot in the sprawling North Country House seat that accused Constantino — who runs a custom sticker business — of selling anti-police merchandise.
“What do Anthony Constantino and violent anti-cop extremists have in common? They both think ‘kill the police’ is a good slogan,” the ad’s narrator says.
Constantino’s attorney last week contacted a lawyer for the super PAC alleging the contents of the ad were false and defamatory. On Saturday, the group signaled it would suspend further distribution of the current ad. So far, the PAC has spent some $243,000 in the district in the last three days, according to AdImpact.
“Anthony Constantino may lawyer up, but he can’t sticker over the truth: he’s gotten rich off selling vile merch, including hosting a listing for a ‘Kill the Police’ sticker and other anti-cop listings that are still active today,” said Chris Coffey, a spokesperson for the group. “As a token of our gratitude and recognition of his desire to spread that message, ITC PAC is putting $250,000 more behind the original ad buy to make sure all of NY-21 knows the real Anthony Constantino.”
The fight over the commercial comes as Constantino is trying to retain the seat being vacated by GOP Rep. Elise Stefanik. Polls have shown Democrat Blake Gendebien running competitively against the Republican, however, giving the race a surprising dose of uncertainty in the final two weeks. — Nick Reisman
HOUSE HUNTING: Two New York battleground districts have again moved in Democrats’ favor, according to a nonpartisan election forecaster.
Sabato’s Crystal Ball shifted Stefanik’s upstate seat from “likely Republican” to “leans Republican” today, as well as Democratic Rep. Laura Gillen’s Long Island district from “leans Democratic” to “likely Democratic.”
The Stefanik seat covers a sprawling, deep-red area — though Democrats are feeling bullish in part because of the Trump administration’s tariffs impacting farmers there.
Gillen faces a challenge from Hempstead Receiver of Taxes Jeanine Driscoll. Kamala Harris narrowly won that district in 2024, but Republicans are counting on tailwinds from Blakeman, the Nassau County executive, to boost down-ballot candidates. — Madison Fernandez
IN OTHER NEWS
— REAL ESTATE STRIKES BACK: A new organization called Built For New York hopes to promote the real estate industry’s interests in the wake of a pro-tenant political sweep in New York City. (The New York Times)
— PAC ALERT: A coalition of Jewish Democrats from the Capital Region launched a state-level PAC dedicated to supporting liberal candidates who push back on anti-Jewish and anti-Israel forces. (Jewish Insider)
— BOOZE BUCKS: Lily Fan, chair of the State Liquor Authority and a close Hochul ally, donated $40,000 to a pro-Hochul super PAC that’s run by people who lobby the liquor industry. (New York Focus)
Missed this morning’s New York Playbook? We forgive you. Read it here.
Politics
Trump is promising farmers $8B. Republicans are praying it will save their campaigns.
Republicans locked in tight races this November are desperately hoping the Trump administration’s last-minute gambit to send farmers $8 billion in taxpayer money will work.
President Donald Trump announced the new round of money, aimed at farmers struggling with high diesel prices, during a Monday rally for at-risk GOP Sen. Roger Marshall in Kansas. The move comes as White House officials have scrambled to address anger in farm states from Republicans. Trump’s decisions to import more foreign beef, his tariff regime and high fuel costs amid the Iran war have riled already strained farmers and ranchers — a key GOP voting bloc.
Farmers won’t know how much money to expect for several more weeks. Even then, if approved, they won’t receive the payments until late November or early December at the earliest, according to three people close to the plans, granted anonymity to share details.
With two weeks to go before the election, the new aid may also arrive too late to convince some voters.
But top Republicans are banking on the announcement to stem GOP bleeding in farm states — especially in the Midwest, where Marshall, GOP Senate nominee Ashley Hinson in Iowa and GOP Senate nominee Mike Rogers in Michigan have been struggling in their election campaigns. In some cases, they’ve broken with Trump publicly on high prices and the war.
“This will go a long way to making sure the folks that feed us have it a bit easier when they most need it,” said Rep. Derrick Van Orden, referring to the farmers in his district. The Republican is locked in a highly competitive race in a rural-heavy stretch in Wisconsin’s 3rd District.
However, the internal USDA taxpayer-funded account Trump is tapping for the payments doesn’t actually have enough money in it right now to make the payments, meaning Congress will have to approve the new funds or the administration will have to take it from another program, according to three Trump officials who were granted anonymity to discuss private conversations.
Marshall — who’s facing a tougher-than-expected reelection campaign in deep-red territory — and Rep. Austin Scott (R-Ga.) were among the Republicans who helped push for the $8 billion, according to the three Trump officials.
Marshall requested the administration allocate money to assist farmers with spiked fuel costs in a letter to Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins in September.
“Roger Marshall is the leader who fought for that to happen,” Trump said during the Monday rally.
Spokespeople for Marshall and for Scott did not respond to requests for comment. The White House referred Blue Light News to USDA’s announcement on the money.
USDA spokesperson Harry Fones said in a statement that the aid package is Trump’s “latest action to deliver” for farmers and the department is actively reviewing the data to determine payments.
Trump’s decision also comes after administration officials realized the president’s previous step to make off-road dyed diesel more widely available had limited benefits for farm country over other options, according to two of the Trump officials and another administration official involved in the matter. Top agriculture lobbyists further warned the dyed diesel plan could actually backfire on farmers, because they could still be required to pay taxes on the product — just further down the road.
So, Trump officials settled on the $8 billion tranche of direct money for farmers, given that similar kinds of payments to farmers — dating back during the president’s first trade war in 2018 — have quelled enough farmer and rural voter anger to shore up necessary support for Republicans during election season.
Trump officials and Republican operatives in the Midwest are banking on the money shoring up support again this cycle — especially for GOP voters who are angry but also don’t want to vote for Democrats. Trump heads this Thursday to Iowa — where top Republicans have been worried about internal polling that warned several weeks ago they could lose all three Iowa House races, key Senate races and other once-safe red seats across farm states.
“It’s going to help bring farmers’ votes out,” Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) told Blue Light News of Trump’s plan on Tuesday.
“This is some way that the federal government can step in to help farmers for problems that they face through no fault of their own,” he said.
Most Hill Republicans weren’t given a heads-up about Trump’s announcement, including appropriators, and many hadn’t received any details from USDA as of Tuesday morning, according to two people familiar with the conversations who were granted anonymity to share private details.
Top agriculture groups have warned they’d need at least $50 billion in direct aid this fall to make farmers whole following the impacts of tariffs, weather-related disasters and other high costs linked to the Iran war’s chokehold on agricultural supplies. Farm-state Republicans are pushing to add at least $12 billion in direct farm aid payments to a separate year-end legislative package.
Monday’s aid rollout followed a number of other funding announcements made in swing rural districts. The White House doled out a first round of $12 billion in bailout funds earlier this year for growers of top agricultural commodities who were hit hard by Trump’s tariff agenda.
Alongside Republican Senate candidate Mike Collins in Georgia, Rollins announced a $3.3 billion loan to build a power plant last week. Rollins rolled out $180 million in funding for seed research alongside vulnerable Iowa Reps. Zach Nunn and Marianette Miller-Meeks earlier this month.
Trump also said he would approve long-derailed permanent year-round sales of ethanol during the Kansas rally — which would be a critical boon for corn growers across the Midwest. But the move has been long-stalled in Congress.
“With Roger Marshall in the Senate, we will make year-round E15 permanent. But if Adam Hamilton is in, I’m not doing it,” Trump said. “That’s a big deal for Kansas, actually.”
Rachel Shin contributed reporting.
Politics
Poll: Voters see Republicans as the party of Big Tech tax breaks
Americans are fed up with data centers and Big Tech, and Republicans are poised to take more of the political blame in the Nov. 3 midterms.
The Blue Light News Poll found last week that Americans were far more likely to associate the GOP with giving tax incentives to tech companies at a time when the public’s concerns about artificial intelligence and data center sprawl are only deepening.
Nearly half of respondents — 47% — called Republicans the party of tech tax breaks, more than double the 21% who said the same for Democrats.
Voters are also far more likely to want candidates who propose stripping away tax incentives for the data centers needed to fuel the AI boom, according to the new poll, conducted by PF Global.
About a fifth of respondents said that ending those tax breaks would be among their most important tax issues in the midterms, while only 1 in 10 wanted to offer new preferences for data centers.
The top tax priorities for voters, according to the poll, are hiking taxes on billionaires and curbing breaks for big companies.
The findings come as lawmakers in both parties have scrambled to respond to the growing voter concerns over AI and data centers — and as Americans increasingly associate Silicon Valley titans with the Republican Party.
But in both Democratic and Republican-led states alike, governors have sought to put new limits on tax incentives that were already approved for data centers.
Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio) rolled out a proposal last week that would take that a step further by imposing a 100% tax on any state or local incentive offered to AI data centers.
But it’s Democrats who have gone more on the offensive about the issue.
Former Sen. Sherrod Brown, for instance, has made data center incentives a key issue as he tries to unseat Sen. Jon Husted (R-Ohio), a former state lawmaker and lieutenant governor.
“Jon Husted’s ‘deals’ gave wealthy tech companies a windfall and left Ohioans footing the bill,” Brown recently posted on social media.
Democrats have specifically homed in on Meta, which has cut its tax liability in recent years by billions of dollars as it builds out its AI products. And they have sought to tie expanded tax breaks approved by Republicans in last year’s megabill to the increase in data center construction.
The GOP enacted incentives for companies in a broad array of industries as part of the 2025 tax cuts. But Big Tech has found those tax breaks particularly useful, helping to drive a big decrease in corporate tax payments as AI spending keeps trending upward.
Meanwhile, Democrats with 2028 ambitions have floated new taxes on AI companies, while Democratic lawmakers have teed up legislation that would keep data centers from taking advantage of incentives like Opportunity Zones and bonus depreciation, both of which Republicans expanded in 2025.
In fact, Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.) recently gave last year’s megabill another new name in a recent debate with his opponent, Rep. Mike Collins (R-Ga.).
“I want to know if you will commit to voting to repeal that data center tax scam that you voted for,” Ossoff said.
It’s not clear how much the current anti-AI energy will lead to new legislative limits in the coming months. But the new poll found Americans have a real fear of the unknown with artificial intelligence.
A majority of respondents said that tech chief executives had been secretive about the potential risks of AI, while a plurality of Americans believe both that the risks of artificial intelligence development outweigh the benefits and that the government should strictly regulate the emerging technology.
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