Politics
The theme of Adams’ SOTC? He’s alive.
RISING FROM HIS GRAVE: Mayor Eric Adams’ State of the City address had a blaring message: I’m not just here — I’m thriving.
“Even dark moments are not burials, they’re plantings,” Adams said. “Allow your planting to happen and you’ll see the fruits of your labor. Mommy did it, and that’s why I’m mayor.”
The first New York City mayor in modern history to be indicted on criminal charges wants the world to know that the federal corruption indictment, the sinking poll numbers and the flurry of federal raids and mass resignations hasn’t chipped his self-belief one bit — lest there had been any doubt.
“Don’t let anyone fool you,” he said. “Don’t listen to the noise, don’t listen to the rhetoric. New York City, the state of our city is strong.”
“The ultimate measure of a man or woman is not where they stand in moments of comfort and convenience, but where they stand at times of challenges and controversy,” he also said, paraphrasing Martin Luther King Jr. as he thanked the members of his staff who hadn’t resigned.
He delivered the hourlong message of defiance after a brief 54 minutes of introduction that included a Christian prayer, a Muslim prayer, a Hindu prayer, a Sikh prayer, a Buddhist prayer, a Jewish prayer, the National anthem, God Bless America, the Black national anthem, two promotional videos, a youth drum line performance and some waiting.
The address, like all State of the City speeches, highlighted accomplishments — the City of Yes housing plan, the (partial) year-over-year drop in crime, the expansion of early childhood programs and the slowing of the city’s once unrelenting migrant crisis.
He also put two priorities for the upcoming legislative session in Albany front and center.
- He wants fellow Democrat Gov. Kathy Hochul to adopt his version of a bill that would allow chronically homeless individuals suffering from mental illness to be involuntarily removed from the streets. (She is set to announce her own plan on involuntary removals, but has also signaled she will work with him on it.)
- He needs the Legislature to back him in completely eliminating city income taxes for families making up to 150 percent of the federal poverty line. The “Axe the Tax” plan has the backing of Assemblymember Rodneyse Bichotte Hermelyn, who praised Adams in a pre-speech video. (Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie signaled Wednesday he might look to end state income taxes for lower-income New Yorkers.)
For the city, the mayor unveiled some key proposals:
- He laid out his extremely ambitious plan to build 100,000 new homes in Manhattan, though the idea so far lacks some much-needed specifics. (We wrote about it this morning in New York Playbook.)
- He pledged $650 million to combat homelessness, including a facility to serve as a shelter and treatment center for the vulnerable population.
- He is opening schoolyards as community parks on weekends and summers for over 10,000 New Yorkers, and he’s adding more cleaning shifts to city parks.
- He’s expanding free internet for low-income homes in Upper Manhattan and all of the Bronx.
- He’s adding a financial literacy teacher in every school district by 2030.
- He’s clearing student loan debt for city employees and their families.
- He’s allowing rent payments from thousands of low-income New Yorkers to count toward building up their credit score.
And he continued to thank Hochul for their simpatico relationship — even featuring her in his promotional video.
“There were some who said, ‘Step down,’” Adams said. “I said, ‘No, I’m gonna step up. I’m gonna step up. That’s what life presents you.’”
ZELLNOR-CODED: Brooklyn state senator and mayoral candidate Zellnor Myrie has been tapped to lead the Senate Codes committee — a well-timed appointment.
As he prepares for the June primary and begins his seventh year in Albany, Myrie will have a key role in shaping criminal justice policy in Albany while he and his challengers attempt to prove their preparedness on the campaign trail.
An October Siena poll found likely New York City voters identified crime as their biggest concern. Adams has already signaled public safety will again be the crux of his mayoral campaign and he’s likely to call out any left-of-center opponents for prior votes he views as soft on crime.
“I’m grateful the leader has entrusted me to chair this committee, particularly at a time where public safety is on the minds of every New Yorker,” Myrie told Playbook. “As someone who is from New York City, who takes our subways and our buses, who talks to neighbors, I can say confidently this is an issue that is prominent in their minds.”
Myrie most recently helmed the Elections Committee, and his new spot leading Codes — which deals with all things criminal justice — has traditionally been viewed as the third most-powerful committee chair in the Senate. Nevertheless, Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins — who has a cool relationship with Adams — still wields near absolute power in the chamber, deciding with leadership what bills make it to the floor.
Sen. Jessica Ramos, another mayoral candidate, will remain chair of the Labor Committee. Zohran Mamdani, the other state lawmaker vying to lead City Hall, was not assigned a leadership position in the Assembly.
“We’re at a time where people are going to be using public safety as a political conversation, and I think that there needs to be a seriousness and sobriety in how we talk about actual solutions to this problem,” Myrie added, saying the committee will “be squarely focused on having actual solutions to city problems.” — Jason Beeferman
COMMITTEE ASSIGNMENTS ARE IN: Beyond Myrie, the Senate and Assembly announced all the other new committee leadership positions today, and that came with a host of changes, our colleague Bill Mahoney reported earlier in POLITICO Pro.
The Assembly
- Gary Pretlow will replace the retired Helene Weinstein as chair of the Ways and Means Committee.
- Carrie Woerner replaces Pretlow to lead the Racing and Wagering Committee.
- Marianne Buttenschon succeeds Woerner as chair of the Small Business Committee.
- Ron Kim will succeed the retired Daniel O’Donnell as Tourism chair.
- Rebecca Seawright will take Kim’s place as chair of the Aging Committee.
- Angelo Santabarbara will succeed Seawright on the People With Disabilities Committee.
- Bobby Carroll will become chair of Libraries and Education Technology, replacing Santabarbara.
- Pamela Hunter is succeeding Jeff Aubry as speaker pro tempore.
- Clyde Vanel will replace Hunter as chair of the Banks Committee.
- Jonathan Jacobson will replace Vanel on Oversight, Analysis and Investigations.
- Ed Braunstein will become chair of Corporations, Authorities and Commissions, replacing the retired Ken Zebrowski.
- Pat Burke will take over the Cities Committee, succeeding Braunstein.
- Jo Anne Simon will become Mental Health chair, following the retirement of Aileen Gunther.
- Karen McMahon will take Simon’s place on Ethics & Guidance.
- Billy Jones will replace the retired Fred Thiele on Local Governments.
- Steve Stern will succeed the retired Kimberly Jean-Pierre on Veterans Affairs.
- Alicia Hyndman will become chair of Higher Education, after previous chair Pat Fahy was elected to the Senate.
The Senate
- Jamaal Bailey will take over retired Neil Breslin’s leadership of the Insurance Committee
- Zellnor Myrie will replace Bailey on the Codes Committee
- Kristen Gonzalez will take over for Myrie on the Elections Committee and remain chair of the Internet and Technology Committee.
- Rachel May will lead the Consumer Protection Committee, which was vacated by Kevin Thomas.
- Freshman Christopher Ryan will succeed May as chair of Cities II, a recently added committee that deals with cities north of the Bronx.
- Freshman Pat Fahy will chair Disabilities, formerly helmed by John Mannion.
- Freshman Siela Bynoe will lead Libraries, which had been chaired by Iwen Chu.
THE WINNOWING: GOP leaders in the North Country House seat being vacated by Rep. Elise Stefanik will narrow the field of potential candidates by the end of the weekend, state party spokesperson David Laska said.
As Playbook reported this morning, Republican county chairs in the sprawling district met over Zoom with a dozen possible nominees. GOP officials expect to winnow that field of some 12 people to less than 10. Those preferred candidates will then advance to another round of vetting by Republican leaders.
Jockeying to replace Stefanik, President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee to serve as United Nations ambassador, has been underway for the past two months. A Republican candidate is expected to be heavily favored in a special election — likely to be scheduled for mid-April — given the party’s enrollment advantage in the largely rural seat. — Nick Reisman
— SALT SLOWDOWN: Members of New York’s GOP delegation, once promising a full repeal of the cap on State and Local Tax Deductions, are now tempering expectations as they signal a full repeal is unlikely. (NY1)
— THE WHEELS ON THE TRAIN GO ROUND AND ROUND … EXCRUCIATINGLY: There’s a mysterious defect on the subway tracks of lettered train lines that’s causing subway wheels to be worn down more quickly than ever. (Daily News)
— TOP NY COURT BUCKS TRUMP: The Court of Appeals denied a request to delay Trump’s sentencing in the “hush money” case. (Times Union)
Missed this morning’s New York Playbook? We forgive you. Read it here.
House Democrats’ biggest outside allies have set a new fundraising record for the organizations that will help boost the party ahead of the 2026 midterms.
House Majority PAC, House Democrats’ main super PAC, and its associated nonprofit raised a combined $121 million in 2025, more than they have in any previous non-election year dating back to HMP’s 2011 founding.
The pair of groups raised a combined $81 million in the final six months of 2025, doubling its haul during the first six months of the year — a sign of donors’ growing optimism for the party tied to its overperformance in a slate of off-year elections. The numbers were first shared with Blue Light News.
“As Democrats continue to expand the map and build momentum for the 2026 midterms, we could not be more excited to announce our record-breaking fundraising in 2025,” said House Majority PAC President Mike Smith. “We look forward to taking back the House in 2026.”
For comparison, House Majority PAC raised $72 million for the entire 2018 election cycle. The group didn’t launch its affiliated nonprofit until 2019. In 2023, the groups raised a combined $76 million.
House Majority PAC, closely aligned with House Democratic leadership, is often the biggest outside spender on the left in House races. Raising cash can help fuel candidates across the congressional map, but it’s not the only decisive factor in a cycle reshaped by aggressive redistricting across the country. Nonetheless, Democrats are increasingly bullish about their chances, pointing to their recent double-digit victories in last fall’s off-year elections.
It’s also not clear if Democrats will hold a cash advantage in outside spending. Congressional Leadership Fund, the super PAC affiliated with Republican House leadership, has not yet released its fundraising totals. CLF and its affiliated nonprofit, American Action Network, outraised its Democratic counterparts over the first six months of 2025, $60 million to $40 million.
House Majority PAC did not release its cash on hand totals, so it’s not clear how much they have in the bank to spend on campaigns in 2026. The super PAC will file its next disclosure on Jan. 31, but its nonprofit will not file until late 2026.
George Conway wants to impeach President Donald Trump. He may soon get a vote to do so.
The attorney, pundit and staunch anti-Trump critic formally launched his bid for a Manhattan House seat today and is framing his run around an all-encompassing effort to oppose the president.
The rollout includes a 2-minute video that features images of Jan. 6, a woman being led away by immigration enforcement officers and photos of Trump with Jeffrey Epstein and Vladimir Putin. In the video, Conway calls Trump “mendacious,” “corrupt” and “criminal.”
He pledges to “not be an ordinary member of Congress” given the extraordinary political moment.
In an interview with Blue Light News, he went even further, saying that Trump’s actions in Venezuela — including the seizure of President Nicolás Maduro to face criminal charges in the U.S. — are among the impeachable crimes he’s committed.
“He completely disregarded the War Powers Act,” Conway said. “He’s abusing his power as commander-in-chief. Don’t get me wrong, Maduro is a bad guy and he’s probably guilty of all the crimes he’s been charged with in the Southern District of New York. But President Trump is doing this without consultation to Congress.”
The White House did not return a message seeking comment.
Conway is a first-time candidate who only recently registered as a Democrat ahead of filing to run in the deep blue district being vacated by Rep. Jerrold Nadler. A former Republican, Conway left the GOP in protest during Trump’s first term.
He’ll face a large field of Democratic contenders, including state Assemblymember Alex Borres, New York City Council Member Erik Bottcher, former Nadler aide and state Assemblymember Micah Lasher and Kennedy scion Jack Schlossberg.
The seat is unlikely to be competitive in the November election, making the winner of the Democratic primary Nadler’s likely successor
Conway’s positioned himself as a forceful Trump antagonist — the kind of aggressive posture that’s popular with Democrats eager for a sharp-edged approach to take on the president. Conway and his wife Kellyanne, a former Trump adviser, announced in 2023 they would divorce.
His House campaign will test the limits of how much Democratic voters want to express their disdain for the president. Many candidates this year are placing a focus on affordability — a buzzy political issue that Trump and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani rode to success in their campaigns.
Yet Conway believes voters’ concerns all flow from one source: Trump.
“The politics of this aren’t divided in my view between talking about Trump and holding Trump accountable and then all the kitchen table issues,” he said. “They’re not separate.”
Conway will still have to persuade Democratic primary voters, though. His recent conversion to the Democratic Party will likely come under scrutiny. But he insisted his ties to the district are strong — adding that his kids were born in the city and that he now lives there.
“I made my life here,” he said. “This district has been the center of my life since I got out of law school.”
A version of this article first appeared in Blue Light News’s New York Playbook. Want to receive the newsletter every weekday? Subscribe to New York Playbook.
Democrats hoping to win higher office this year are seizing on President Donald Trump’s intervention in Venezuela to push a twist on one of his campaign promises: America first.
Across the country, candidates and lawmakers are slamming Trump’s decision to capture Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and are using the moment to hammer their domestic affordability message.
“Ohioans are facing higher costs across the board and are desperate for leadership that will help deliver relief,” former Sen. Sherrod Brown, who is running to reclaim his seat, said on X. “We should be more focused on improving the lives of Ohioans – not Caracas.”
The frame from Democrats shows how potent the party views affordability as an issue in the midterms, one that Trump and his team have grown increasingly preoccupied by after across-the-board losses in 2025.
“The problem Trump was already having was that he looked like he was focused on everything other than what matters in people’s daily life,” said longtime Democratic strategist Jesse Ferguson, a former spokesperson for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. “And now he’s just supercharged that.”
Trump won in 2024 largely by running on affordability, and his less interventionist “America First” approach helped him win over more isolationist voters who had been alienated by the neoconservative approach of the Republican Party in the Iraq War era. But continuing economic uncertainty and persistent inflation, combined with his second-term shift towards a more aggressive foreign policy approach, threaten to hurt the president and his party at the ballot box.
Polling shows that cost of living will remain top of voters’ minds before November, something that Ferguson said “transcends every subgroup.”
In some of the party’s most competitive 2026 midterm primaries, Democrats are coalescing around messaging on Venezuela.
In Michigan, where the war in Gaza drew clear fissures between Democratic opponents, all three candidates sang the same domestically-focused tune.
“Americans have made themselves crystal clear: they don’t want to risk sliding into another costly war abroad. Families are struggling to buy groceries. People are skipping doctor’s visits because they can’t pay for healthcare,” state Sen. Mallory McMorrow said in a statement.
“Make no mistake, this is about enriching his oil executive donors who want access to Venezuela’s oil — not about democracy or Maduro or narcotics. Meanwhile, they tell us we can’t afford healthcare at home,” Abdul El Sayed, the former head of the Wayne County Department of Health, wrote on X.
“Taking over another country while Americans can’t afford their rent and groceries is unacceptable,” said Rep. Haley Stevens (D-Mich.).
The issue isn’t just being used by midterm hopefuls. Potential Democratic 2028 candidates are bringing affordability to the forefront of their Venezuela messaging.
“As of this week, millions of Americans are now paying thousands more for health insurance,” former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said Monday. “If the President and Congressional GOP think Washington has the capacity to ‘run’ Venezuela right now, why won’t they fix the insurance cost crisis they’ve created here at home?”
Longtime Miami-based Democratic strategist Christian Ulvert thinks his party is right to remind voters of what they see as failures in Trump’s domestic agenda as he sets his sights abroad, including on cost of living issues — as long as that messaging doesn’t overshadow a cogent perspective on how they would approach relations with Venezuela. South Florida is home to one of the biggest Venezuelan communities in the country, which has been shaken by Trump’s recent revocation of Temporary Protected Status for those fleeing Maduro’s regime.
“Democrats need to also appreciate that many things can be true. It’s not a single issue, especially in this moment, and we have to talk about it in a way where you can join Venezuelans in speaking up that Maduro being gone is a victory for Venezuelans,” Ulvert said.
Some Democrats who served in foreign wars have also chosen to center a critique of American interventionism in addition to joining in on the party’s pivot back to cost of living.
Graham Platner, a veteran of the wars in both Iraq and Afghanistan who is now running to unseat Sen. Susan Collins in Maine, has seized on Trump’s vague suggestions that the U.S. will run Venezuela following Maduro’s forced ouster.
“Bullshit. This has never worked,” Platner posted in response to a clip of the president’s Saturday morning remarks. “I watched my friends die in Iraq in the wake of speeches like this one.”
Arizona Sen. Ruben Gallego — an Iraq War veteran — has been outspoken on the American military action in Venezuela, flooding social media and cable news with broadsides aimed at Trump. He expressed a similar frustration: “I fought in some of the hardest battles of the Iraq War. Saw my brothers die, saw civilians being caught in the crossfire all for an unjustified war. No matter the outcome we are in the wrong for starting this war in Venezuela.”
Republicans, however, are backing Trump and praising the action he took against Maduro.
“Nicolas Maduro is responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Americans after years of trafficking illegal drugs and violent cartel members into our country — crimes for which he’s been properly indicted in U.S. courts and an arrest warrant duly issued — and today he learned what accountability looks like,” House Speaker Mike Johnson said on X the day the operation became public.
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