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Politics
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Democrats want to move on from 2024. The Bidens won’t let them.
Former first lady Jill Biden put a glaring spotlight back on the debate that ended her husband’s political career while promoting her new memoir. Former President Joe Biden is drawing attention again to his audio interviews with Special Counsel Robert Hur as he sues the Justice Department to prevent their release. And his scandal-ridden son Hunter Biden, whose past Republicans repeatedly weaponized on the campaign trail, is making headlines again — this time for appearing on a podcast with flame-throwing conspiracy theorist Candace Owens.
Jill Biden’s stunning admission this week that she thought her embattled husband was having a stroke on the debate stage in June 2024 stood in stark contrast to her positive spin and staunch defense in the moment. And it ripped open barely healed wounds from Democrats’ disastrous effort to hold the White House, setting off a fresh round of backward-looking fingerpointing less than a week after the party’s botched autopsy of the 2024 presidential election.
Leading Democrats say it’s an unnecessary distraction as they push to keep their party focused on a critical midterm — and what voters truly care about.
“We don’t need to be distracted by what the DNC says about the autopsy. I don’t need to be distracted about anyone’s book,” New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, a Democrat, told reporters on the sidelines of a Democratic National Committee meeting in Washington on Thursday. “What I need to do is to focus on making a difference in the lives of people. And that’s what I think they’re getting really frustrated about, is all this nonsense. I don’t think the average Democratic voter, honestly, particularly in New Mexico, gives a damn about that book or the debate anymore.”
Lujan Grisham, who sat on the national advisory board for the 2024 Biden-Harris campaign, stressed that she didn’t mean “any disrespect” to Jill Biden and later said she is a “big Joe Biden fan.”
Still, Jill Biden’s confession that she was “frightened” by her husband’s debate performance landed with a thud among former Biden White House and campaign staffers who were told in the moment to treat the then-president’s halting and haphazard debate performance as little more than a blip.
Meghan Hays, a former special assistant to Joe Biden in the White House who left before the 2024 reelection bid, cautioned that the timing and context of the former first lady’s memoir risks dealing Democrats a setback at a time when they’re on an electoral hot streak.
“I think that they need to sell books, and I think that Dr. Biden wants her story out there,” she said on C-SPAN’s “Ceasefire,” hosted by POLITICO’s Dasha Burns.
“It is not welcome from Democrats,” Hays said. “We have a lot of momentum in our favor … and when we get pulled back into conversations about age and the election in ‘24, it’s never gonna be a good place for Democrats. I think it’s a tough place to be.”
Hays wasn’t the only former Biden official who expressed frustration.
“My reaction was basically: ‘Welcome to the club.’ Every person across America and in your administration wondered the same thing, and instead of acknowledging that, we were told for days to ignore it — that it was just a bad night, just an anomaly,” said another former Biden White House staffer, granted anonymity to speak candidly.
Still, several prominent Democratic strategists, former party leaders and past Biden-Harris officials downplayed the significance of this latest bout of 2024 relitigating, dismissing it as little more than white noise that wouldn’t have much effect on the party’s prospects in 2026 or 2028.
“Let everyone finish venting about ‘24 now and get it out of their systems,” former Rep. Susan Wild (D-Pa.), who narrowly lost her reelection that year as Trump carried her state, said in a text message to POLITICO, adding that “voters won’t remember any of this in 2028.”
But, she added, “I am a bit unhappy about the DNC’s delayed release of the autopsy of 2024. We don’t need those reminders in writing and we certainly don’t need to give the Republicans any more oppo to remind voters of everything we did wrong in 2024.”
A spokesperson for the Bidens declined to comment. A former Biden White House and campaign staffer, granted anonymity to speak candidly, said in a text message that the party writ large has moved on.
“While it feels painful and traumatic for those who had to deal with this at the time, the public is focused on the current president and related concerns: high gas prices, immigration concerns, [Jeffrey] Epstein,” the person said.
The renewed firestorm around the two-year-old debate comes as other moves by the Biden clan force Democrats to again confront his decline in real time.
Joe Biden is suing the Trump administration in an effort to block the release of recorded interviews with a ghostwriter that were obtained by the Justice Department during a now-shuttered probe of whether he had mishandled classified information. But his effort to stop the tapes and transcripts from going public is dredging up another painful encounter that derailed his second term hopes.
Hur chose not to charge the president in that investigation because he believed jurors would likely see Biden as an“elderly man with a poor memory,” a moment that set off a political firestorm. The audio of Hur’s interviews with Biden, released last year, backed that up.
As Biden tries to keep those tapes under wraps, his son made recent moves to draw more attention to himself and his family.
Hunter Biden has triggered a raft of headlines in recent days after he taped a podcast with Owens, the conspiratorial conservative influencer who has repeatedly attacked the Biden family and the former president’s mental capacity. In the interview, Owens promised not to disparage Joe Biden and even commended Hunter Biden for defending his father. But the widespread media coverage still generated backlash within the party.
Some Democrats are simply ready to sweep the Bidens into the dustbin of history so their party can move forward.
“Nobody wants to relitigate the worst debate performance since the Greek Republic. Why are we talking about this? Why are we talking about Hunter Biden? Why is Hunter Biden talking about Hunter Biden?” said Pete Giangreco, a longtime Democratic strategist who worked on Barack Obama’s campaigns but was not involved in Joe Biden’s or Kamala Harris’ bids.
“Your time has passed, move on. … The Republicans and all their super PACs are going to outspend us three-to-one, four-to-one — that’s what we need to be focused on,” he added.
But the Bidens — and Harris — show no signs of slinking back into the shadows. Harris, who released a book last year criticizing the president with whom she served, has signaled she could mount a third presidential bid in 2028. Joe Biden, for his part, has begun endorsing his former administration officials who are running in midterm contests; one of his picks, former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, won her gubernatorial primary last week in the key swing state of Georgia. Jill Biden is embarking on a book tour to promote her work.
And other Democrats say they’re less frustrated at the Biden family itself than they are with their party’s most vocal factions, which descend into a circular firing squad with each drip of new information about 2024.
“I would rather not have to talk about it. But they both have the right to do what they’re doing,” Maria Cardona, a prominent Democratic strategist who backed Biden’s reelection bid, told POLITICO on the sidelines of the DNC meeting. “But we also are in control with how we react to it. So let them do their thing. They are no longer in control of the party. We don’t have to rehash every single word that comes out of it.”
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Hochul knocks Trump’s ‘slush fund’
AFTER 57 DAYS, THE BUDGET IS DONE!
TAXING TRUMP’S BUCKS: Gov. Kathy Hochul believes there should be ramifications for anyone who accepts cash from President Donald Trump’s “anti-weaponization” fund — and the money should go toward helping New Yorkers.
“I have no problem with there being consequences for people who accept that money,” she told reporters at an unrelated news conference.
The Democratic governor stopped short today of fully endorsing proposals germinating in the Legislature that would slap a 100 percent tax on payouts from the president’s $1.776 billion fund — a posture she takes with nearly every bill before it’s approved.
But Hochul clearly signaled she would support an arrangement in which payouts are taxed by New York.
“If there’s a tax that goes into a fund that helps New Yorkers, it might be a good way to go,” she said.
POLITICO first reported Wednesday night that New York Democratic state lawmakers are pushing for a vote by next week for a bill that would, in essence, confiscate any payments.
Deputy Senate Majority Leader Mike Gianaris is in the process of introducing a bill in his chamber. Assemblymember Alex Bores, a Democratic House candidate, initially proposed the measure.
Money from the fund is meant for people who are “victims of lawfare and weaponization to be heard and seek redress,” according to Trump’s acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche.
Trump has not ruled out providing some of the money for people who were convicted of crimes in connection to the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol.
In remarks before signing a budget bill, Hochul called the pot of cash “a slush fund.”
“That kind of money — it’s obscene to be setting aside to award people who have committed crimes and injustices, including assaulting police officers on Jan. 6,” she said.
In Albany, lawmakers are racing to get the bill over the finish line by next week. The legislative session is scheduled to end June 4.
New York is among the blue states considering 100 percent taxes on payouts from the fund, which the president announced as part of a settlement with the Department of Justice after he sued the IRS.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom this week embraced fully taxing the money. Democratic state lawmakers in New Jersey and Wisconsin are also pursuing similar measures.
Some Republicans have blasted the fund, and it’s received a cool reception among the GOP in the U.S. Senate.
Republican candidate for governor Bruce Blakeman, though, steered clear when asked about it this morning.
“I haven’t even focused on it,” said Blakeman, the Nassau County executive and a Trump ally. “I’m too busy focusing on state issues where I can actually make a difference in peoples’ lives.”
His response underscores the politically delicate position the fund puts Republican candidates in this election season.
Blakeman, though, insisted Democrats should be trying to spend the remaining session days addressing utility costs and public safety, not a national issue.
“Those are the things people want the Legislature and the executive branch to focus on,” he said. — Nick Reisman
From the Capitol
HOLTZMAN BACKS ANTI-TRAFFICKING BILL: Former Rep. Elizabeth Holtzman worked the halls of Albany today in support of a bill that would allow Jeffrey Epstein’s victims to seek damages from his estate.
“I’ve fought for a long time in Congress and as district attorney against sexual violence against women, so it’s a subject that’s very dear to my heart,” Holtzman said.
The bill is one of several high-profile measures competing for attention in the condensed homestretch of this year’s legislative session where there’ll only be time to pass a handful of complicated bills. But the sponsors have been doing what they can to help raise its profile — state Sen. Zellnor Myrie hosted Epstein’s victims in a committee meeting earlier this month and Assemblymember Linda Rosenthal joined the former representative today.
“The fact that Congresswoman Holtzman made the trip to Albany and talked to members really gives it a lot more prominence and chance of passing,” Rosenthal said. — Bill Mahoney
FROM CITY HALL
ZO TENSE: Mayor Zohran Mamdani and NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch agree that security must be beefed up in Manhattan during this weekend’s Israel Day Parade.
But there was no doubt about the tension bubbling just beneath the surface during a parade security briefing both of them held at NYPD headquarters today.
“It’s the mayor’s decision not to march and it is my decision to march — proudly,” Tisch, the NYPD’s first female Jewish commissioner, said when asked if she’s concerned about Mamdani opting not to join her and thousands of other New Yorkers. Mamdani’s decision to sit out the parade breaks with a long-standing tradition of mayors participating in the annual event.
Standing alongside Mamdani, Tisch said she is also “incredibly proud” that the organizer, the Jewish Community Relations Council, named her an honorary grand marshal of this year’s parade. The event’s theme is “Proud Americans, Proud Zionists.”
Mamdani, the city’s first Muslim mayor and a longtime critic of Israel, insisted he’s committed to making the parade safe for all participants even though he won’t be at it.
“I said on the campaign trail that I wouldn’t be attending the parade, and I’ve made my views on the Israeli government abundantly clear,” he told reporters. “I also said on that same campaign that I would have a responsibility as the mayor of the city to ensure the safety and security of each and every New Yorker, and I don’t believe my presence as the mayor should determine whether or not a New Yorker is safe or secure.”
It would be extraordinarily fraught for Mamdani to attend the parade. His pro-Palestinian supporters would likely be outraged. And parade-goers might be inclined to boo him if he showed up.
Still, Marc Schneier, a Long Island rabbi and frequent critic of Mamdani, said the mayor is signaling by skipping the parade that “the Jewish community of New York is not a constituency he is willing to stand beside.” His takeaway: good riddance.
“We don’t want you anyway,” Schneier said of Mamdani.
In an apparent extension of his long-running effort to troll his successor, former Mayor Eric Adams also announced yesterday that he will march in the parade.
Asked by Playbook after today’s security briefing how he feels about Adams’ parade attendance, Mamdani said: “He’s welcome to spend his time as he so chooses.” — Chris Sommerfeldt
NOT ZO FAST: Citizens Union, a New York City-based government watchdog group, is raising concerns about Mamdani’s newly announced Commission on Government Efficiency, warning that its timeline — particularly a push to advance ballot questions this November — risks being rushed.
While calling the commission’s goals “laudable” the group cautioned that a new charter commission “will have less time to seek public input, conduct research, and deliberate than even the highly criticized, rushed commission established by Eric Adams.”
The new commission comes immediately after Mamdani dismantled Adams’ Charter Revision Commission, first reported by POLITICO. The current mayor’s commission is tasked with proposing government efficiency measures to voters this fall. Mamdani’s team says the commission will hold 10 hearings across the city in the coming months ahead of any ballot proposals.
Citizens Union pointed to the clash between the new panel and the Adams-era commission — which has signaled it may sue to continue its work — as emblematic of the use of charter commissions for political reasons. The group noted that five such bodies have been created in three years, a rate they say erodes public trust and participation.
Kayla Mamelak Altus, a spokesperson for the Adams commission who served as the former mayor’s press secretary, pointed to the commission’s work to add open primaries and told Playbook “the idea of New Yorkers having a voice in the future of their city — and the right to vote in open primaries — terrifies City Hall.” The advent of open primaries, which would expand the pool of voters to more moderates, would complicate a reelection run for Mamdani in 2029.
“We are prepared to pursue all available legal remedies to protect the people’s voice,” Mamelak Altus said.
Mamdani said today the commission, known as COGE — a nod to Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency — is part of a “sincere commitment” to improve government.
Asked whether there’s anything he admired and is trying to emulate from Musk’s DOGE, or whether it’s just a similar name, Mamdani told reporters, “It’s just the name, and what it should have been.”
“Elon Musk took that language and used it to cut as many jobs that were as critical as possible for so many of the neediest people across the country and across the world,” he said. “Ours is going to be a focus on actually delivering efficiency.” — Gelila Negesse and Janaki Chadha
FROM THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL
PAC IT UP: VoteVets is investing $1 million to boost Army veteran Cait Conley, one of five Democrats vying to take on Republican Rep. Mike Lawler.
The ad touts Conley’s military service, saying that “after the Towers fell, [she] answered the call,” and that in Congress, she’ll “take on Trump’s corruption, rein in ICE and bring down costs.”
The ad buy makes VoteVets, a Democratic group that backs veterans, the biggest spender in the primary, according to the ad tracker AdImpact. Conley and Rockland County Legislator Beth Davidson have been on the air for weeks, though neither have spent close to as much as VoteVets’ $1 million.
The group also released a poll, conducted by Global Strategy Group earlier this month, showing Conley and Davidson pulling away from the pack — though more than one-third of respondents were still undecided. The survey, which polled 500 likely Democratic primary voters, had Conley with 29 percent of support, Davidson with 22 percent, Tarrytown trustee Effie Phillips-Staley with 6 percent, former TV reporter Mike Sacks with 4 percent and Air Force veteran John Cappello with 2 percent. The margin of error is plus-or-minus 4.4 percentage points.
Earlier this week, two former primary contenders — tech executive and local government official Peter Chatzky and former FBI official John Sullivan — endorsed Davidson, citing her experience as a local elected official. — Madison Fernandez
IN OTHER NEWS
— A CHANGE IN TUNE: Mamdani is considering endorsing Darializa Avila Chevalier, a democratic socialist, in the NY-13 race, despite committing to support incumbent Rep. Adriano Espaillat last year. (The New York Times)
— BUFF UP: Facing a $103 million structural deficit, Buffalo scored a $65 million aid boost in state budget deal. (Buffalo News)
— ‘THIS IS INSANE’: In a federal case brought by immigrants detained at 26 Federal Plaza, internal emails show ICE agents were aware and concerned over conditions there. (Gothamist)
Missed this morning’s New York Playbook? We forgive you. Read it here.
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MACKINAC ISLAND, Michigan — Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer said Thursday that she won’t run for president in 2028 — then backtracked on the statement later.
Whitmer’s initial declaration appeared to remove a marquee name from Democratic primary contention.
“I think there will be a robust group of people running for president,” she told a Detroit television station. “I will not be one of them in 2028, I can tell you that.”
The two-term governor, long seen as a potential contender for the Oval Office, appeared at first to be one of the first major candidates to remove themselves from what’s expected to be a crowded field of candidates looking to succeed President Donald Trump.
Whitmer, speaking from the state’s annual policy conference in Mackinac Island, is barred from seeking another term as governor due to term limits.
She said she was looking forward to taking “a little bit of a break” and had spoken with Democrats Gina Raimondo and Pete Buttigieg, as well as Paul Ryan, the former Republican House speaker, for guidance on transitioning out of the political arena.
A few hours later, she walked it back.
During a panel discussion, she said she needed to “correct the record” on her earlier remarks.
“I never thought I would run for governor, so I guess I should know better,” she said.
Then she added: “Never say never.”
Whitmer said during the panel that she hadn’t intended to make headlines about her political career. “At this juncture, I’ve got nothing to announce.”
Whitmer’s initial statement that she would not run — ahead of the midterms, where her successor will be elected in the battleground state — did come unusually early in the political season. She has hinted before that she may not run for the presidency.
“One of the many reasons she would be a great president is because she is very focused,” said a person familiar with Whitmer’s thinking, granted anonymity to candidly discuss her calculus, referencing her 2014 comments that she would not run for governor. “Sometimes she does change her mind.”
Whitmer’s second term in office has been marked by a productive relationship with the White House, which some Democrats speculate could hurt her future political ambitions. She bristled when the president praised her during an Oval Office visit last April, and covered her face with blue folders as the press snapped photos.
But Whitmer has maintained that it has been beneficial for her state.
Trump announced a new F-15 fighter mission for suburban Detroit’s Selfridge Air National Guard Base several weeks later, a maneuver Whitmer’s office said could generate $850 million for Michigan.
“All the grief — this shows you why you put the people first,” she told POLITICO. “They see it, and it pays off.”
Adam Wren reported from Mackinac Island, Michigan.
Politics
Former first lady Jill Biden said then-President Joe Biden’s catastrophic debate performance against Donald Trump in 2024 “frightened” her because she thought he might be experiencing a medical episode.
Jill Biden said in a CBS News “Sunday Morning” interview, a clip of which was released on Wednesday, that the former president “scared me to death” in his June 2024 debate against Trump, which prompted Democrats to begin pressuring Joe Biden to drop out of the race weeks before he ultimately suspended his campaign.
“I was frightened,” Jill Biden said of watching her husband debate Trump. “Because I had never, ever seen Joe like that before or since.”
“I don’t know what happened,” she continued. “As I watched it, I thought ‘Oh my God, he’s having a stroke.’ And it scared me to death.”
Joe Biden’s bumbling, unintelligible answers and sickly appearance in the debate reignited concerns about his age and capacity to carry out the responsibilities of the presidency. The moment triggered an avalanche of calls for the president to drop out of the race despite reassurances from Biden allies in the White House and the campaign, including Jill Biden.
In a post-debate campaign event, Jill Biden told supporters at the time that her husband “did such a great job.”
Joe Biden ended his presidential campaign less than a month after his debate with Trump.
Since Trump’s victory, several former Biden allies, administration officials and campaign staff have criticized how Biden’s age was handled by top officials in the White House and the campaign.
Among those critics was former Vice President Kamala Harris, who wrote in her book that Jill Biden pressured her husband Doug Emhoff to continue backing Biden after the debate in a manner that angered Emhoff. Harris also wrote that she harbored concerns about Biden’s ability to beat Trump.
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Goldman and Lander spar hard over Israel
DAYS THE BUDGET IS LATE: 57
BRIDGING THE GAP: The debate over Israel is proving to be a wedge issue in the competitive primary between Rep. Dan Goldman and former city Comptroller Brad Lander. But the incumbent, who’s fighting for his political life, is making the argument that he and his challenger aren’t so different on the issue after all.
“We are both progressive Zionists who believe in Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state, and we both support a two-state solution to bring peace to the region,” Goldman said earlier today on a WNYC candidate forum. “It’s disappointing to me that he’s using this dog whistle attack, when in reality we really do share the same core principles.”
Lander — who, like Goldman, is Jewish and a Democrat — has positioned himself as more critical of Israel than the incumbent, and some in the party’s progressive wing have sided with him because of it. Lander and his supporters have repeatedly criticized Goldman for his ties to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the pro-Israel group that has become a major player in elections on both sides of the aisle — and a subject of intense debate — especially as the public has an increasingly negative view of Israel.
Progressives have targeted AIPAC in their messaging, a strategy Lander has also embraced. Goldman “can’t unrig the system because he’s part of this system, he takes money from Wall Street, from private equity, from crypto, from AIPAC,” Lander argued at the forum.
Like Goldman, some have raised concerns about the criticism of AIPAC, which has a mixed record in races it gets involved in. In an interview with POLITICO, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, one of a handful of Jewish governors, said he thinks the arguments against AIPAC spending have “been used cynically by some to try and silence certain voices, to try and say that certain people participating in politics shouldn’t count or should be viewed in a toxic way.”
Goldman, who is endorsed by AIPAC, has said he returned the money from the organization. And four weeks out from the primary, there’s no indication that AIPAC’s affiliated super PAC is going to spend in it.
Still, Israel remains a prominent issue in the race — no matter how much Goldman attempts to neutralize it. Last month, the incumbent rolled out an ad denouncing President Donald Trump and Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over the war in Iran.
Public polling in the district, which covers parts of Manhattan and Brooklyn, has been scarce. But a recent Emerson College survey found Lander leading Goldman by more than 30 points. Lander is endorsed by Mayor Zohran Mamdani — whom Goldman did not support during the mayoral election — the Working Families Party and a slew of progressive officials and organizations. Goldman has the backing of Gov. Kathy Hochul and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, along with more than a dozen unions. Goldman also recently received the support of Hasidic leaders from Brooklyn’s Borough Park enclave.
As for Goldman and Lander’s similarities on Israel, the challenger pushed back, pointing to Goldman having “voted for every single U.S. military aid package to Israel.” In a back-and forth during the forum about the boycott, divest and sanctions movement — which both Goldman and Lander said they do not support — Goldman said he agrees with Lander that “Israelis aren’t going to be safe until Palestinians are free,” to which the challenger retorted: “You don’t do anything to make it happen.”
“I believe in the vision of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state, but it’s not acting consistently with Jewish or democratic values right now, and it can’t while it keeps occupying the West Bank and Gaza, and imposing apartheid on Palestinians,” Lander said. “The differences here are strong. If people want someone who is really going to fight to end Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, to make it so that Jewish New Yorkers and Muslim New Yorkers can work together instead of be divided from each other, and try to address the failures of U.S. foreign policy, the choice is clear.”
Much of the forum focused on Israel. When asked if he would vote for the “Block the Bombs Act,” which would prohibit the sale or transfer of military equipment to Israel until the country guarantees compliance with international law, Goldman said it is “not going to come to a vote, because it was written last summer as an effort to support a ceasefire, which was reached in October, and our laws enforce international human rights law already.” When pressed again, he said the legislation has “been overtaken by events, and I think there are other issues with ‘Block the Bombs’” but also that we need to “aggressively enforce international law against Bibi Netanyahu.”
Lander has called Israel’s actions in Gaza a “genocide.” Goldman said today it’s “really important that we move away from labels and terminology, especially for legal terms, and focus on how we can arrive at a two-state peaceful solution.”
The incumbent also expressed regret for voting to censure Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) in 2023 over her criticism of Israel, saying “there are better ways of dealing with that that I wish I had pursued” and “it was a very emotional time and sometimes emotion gets the best of you.”
“This is an incredibly, incredibly emotional issue right now for very, very many people, and what I’m worried about is that it is dividing all of us; it is dividing Muslims and Jews, it is dividing Jews,” Goldman said. “This is part of the reason why I disagree a little bit about what the critical issues are in this race. The critical issues are the ones facing the voters, and those are not necessarily what’s going on 6,000 miles away, it’s what’s going on at their kitchen tables.” — Madison Fernandez
From the Capitol
REDISTRICTING REDUX: New York Democrats are expected to introduce bills by Friday to pave the way for new congressional lines in 2028, according to four people familiar with the talks.
Officials are weighing two constitutional amendments — one that would allow some minor tweaks, and another that would permit an aggressive Democratic gerrymander, according to the people, who were granted anonymity to discuss the closed-door conversations.
New York’s cumbersome process to change the state constitution restricts Democrats from redrawing House boundaries in time for the 2026 midterm elections. But House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, a Brooklyn Democrat, has made his home state’s House lines part of a broader, longer-term strategy to pick up seats in the closely divided chamber.
“This is a potentially existential matter for our democracy in the ‘28 elections,” said Assemblymember Micah Lasher, a Democratic House candidate who previously proposed an amendment to allow for mid-decade redistricting. “There’s a broad understanding that in the redistricting arms race New York can’t be on the sidelines.”
Read more from POLITICO Bill Mahoney and Nick Reisman.
HOCHUL BACKS ALT ROCK BAND: The governor’s press shop sent out a release today that heaped effusive and exuberant praise on a ‘90s rock band.
The missive — uncharacteristic of the staid memos typically dispatched by the gov’s press shop — was sent to promote a state-sponsored watch party on Long Island for the U.S. vs. Paraguay World Cup match on June 12, which will feature a pregame concert from Third Eye Blind, or 3EB.
“Participation in the older, untouchable realm of nervous star-making could color a band’s identity,” the governor’s office said. “In the case of 3EB, it often blurred the perception of their brilliant musical creations.”
It’s unclear if the band behind hits like “Semi-Charmed Life” and “Jumper,” which formed in San Francisco, feel the same way about the governor. In 2016, 3EB made headlines when their lead singer said he “repudiates” the Republican party and called Donald Trump’s then-presidential campaign deplorable. But there’s no record of him expressing similar passion — either in support or opposition — for New York’s 57th governor.
“3EB won wide success during a tumultuous group of years when the major-label recording industry was finally losing its grip on an enterprise that for decades it had dominated with steely efficiency,” Hochul’s office also said. “3EB now write, tour, record, and communicate in a fluid new world where their music continues to evolve naturally. Their exchange with their audience is unfiltered and being from the hub of tech, they are using it to develop a closer connection with their audience.”
Perhaps 3EB can release an updated version of its 2000 single “10 Days Late” to inspire lawmakers as they scramble to wrap up the nearly two-month late state budget. — Jason Beeferman
SHARPE SUBMITS: Libertarian Larry Sharpe has filed to run for the “Coalition Party” in this year’s gubernatorial campaign, making him the only candidate seeking to run without major party support.
The odds are long he’ll actually make the ballot — a reality he’s more than willing to concede.
“It doesn’t matter, we’re never going to make it. We’re going to be in lawsuits,” Sharpe said when asked how many signatures he submitted.
One individual familiar with the filing said he believes Sharpe submitted 1,600 of the required 45,000 signatures.
Third parties have become all but extinct in major races in New York since former Gov. Andrew Cuomo hiked the signature threshold from 15,000 in 2019. “Bobby Kennedy Jr. spent a million dollars,” Sharpe said of the now-health secretary’s 2024 presidential campaign. “He’s a fucking Kennedy and he couldn’t get on.”
The only other candidate to file for an additional ballot line in November was Bruce Blakeman, who submitted to add the “Vote Affordable” line to the Republican and Conservative ones he’s already running under. His campaign told the New York Post he submitted 66,345 signatures — not quite the number most experts say is needed to make a candidate immune from challenges. — Bill Mahoney
FROM CITY HALL
RAISING HELL: City Council member Shahana Hanif is under fire from critics for declaring on social media last night that two fellow Muslim women critical of Mayor Zohran Mamdani should be “condemned to Jahannam,” the Islamic concept of hell.
But Hanif, the first Muslim woman elected to the Council, says the criticism against her is overblown — and potentially bigoted.
“Let’s be serious: ‘Go to hell’ is a pretty common expression of frustration or disappointment … but the moment Arabic enters the conversation, suddenly people will act like I said something far more sinister,” Hanif told Playbook today.
Hanif delivered the broadside in an X post last night criticizing the two women, Anila Ali and Zeba Zebunnesa, for participating in a protest held outside Gracie Mansion to call on Gov. Kathy Hochul to remove Mamdani from office over the claim that he’s not doing enough to combat antisemitism.
“May Allah condemn you to Jahannam,” Hanif wrote in the post, which was responding to a message from Ali saying she and Zebunnesa were on their way to the Gracie demonstration.
Ali and Zebunnesa are organizers with a group called American Muslim & Multifaith Women’s Empowerment Council.
In the Quran, Jahannam is portrayed as a place of divine justice where sinners are sent to face punishment in the afterlife. Broken into seven descending levels reserved for different groups of sinners, Jahannam is considered the Islamic equivalent of hell, with punishments becoming more extreme the deeper one goes.
Elchanan Poupko, a rabbi and social media commentator, said Hanif crossed “a red line” with her tweet.
“Why is @ShahanaFromBK, an elected official, using religion for targeted harassment against a Muslim woman @anilaali, for exercising her constitutional rights protesting @ZohranKMamdani????” Poupko wrote on X. “This is unacceptable.”
A few hundred people participated in the protest outside Gracie Mansion last night, though no elected officials or mainstream Jewish groups were billed as being in attendance.
The event featured people brandishing Israeli flags and demanding that Mamdani, a vocal supporter of Palestinian rights, do more to combat antisemitism in New York. The event also featured more extreme, bigoted elements, including people shouting that Mamdani, an American citizen born in Uganda, should be deported.
Hanif pointed to the fact that rhetoric like that played out at the protest in justifying her Jahannam jab.
“I can and will criticize MAGA influencers joining a MAGA hate rally full of conspiratorial rhetoric and f-bombs,” Hanif said. — Chris Sommerfeldt
IN OTHER NEWS
— TARGETING GAP: A database of more than 1,200 lawsuits shows more than 93 percent of immigration enforcement arrests in New York and New Jersey targeted Latinos, despite the fact that they make up only 66 percent of immigrants without legal status. (THE CITY)
— NO PLAYING AROUND: New Jersey Attorney General Jennifer Davenport and New York Attorney General Letitia James announced a joint investigation into FIFA’s ticket selling practices. (POLITICO)
— ‘I WAS HURT’: New York’s Legislature is considering bills to amend policies for imprisoned pregnant women after one gave birth while handcuffed in a Brooklyn courtroom. (Gothamist)
Missed this morning’s New York Playbook? We forgive you. Read it here.
Politics
Former Attorney General Pam Bondi is recovering from treatment for thyroid cancer, just weeks after leaving the Justice Department.
Bondi told CNN she had surgery a few weeks ago and is still undergoing treatment, but is “doing well.”
President Donald Trump ousted Bondi in April, having criticized her for failing to bring lawsuits against his perceived political foes. She had also faced bipartisan criticism over her handling of documents related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Bondi, who is scheduled to testify before the House Oversight Committee on Jeffrey Epstein on Friday, will also be joining the administration’s Presidential Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. The council, announced in March, will provide recommendations to Trump on “strengthening American leadership in science and technology.”
“Pam has been an enormously valuable asset to the president’s team, and I’m thrilled for her and for all of us that she’s going to remain involved in confronting some of the most important issues the administration faces,” Vice President JD Vance said in a statement.
Bondi did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Politics
Texas Democrats have wandered in the wilderness for decades. They hope a seminarian-turned-politician will finally lead them out.
Now that Republicans have nominated Attorney General Ken Paxton for U.S. Senate, Democrats see November as their best opportunity this century to flip Texas blue. They have a favorable political environment, aided by nationwide dissatisfaction with the economy and President Donald Trump’s leadership. They see the Texas GOP fractured after a messy Senate primary that took out Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), one of the party’s senior statesmen, and a potentially fatally flawed candidate in Paxton with his significant personal baggage.
They think their nominee, state Rep. James Talarico, is the ideal candidate to break through.
“Democrats have been in the desert for three decades,” said Mark McKinnon, a longtime GOP strategist and adviser to former President George W. Bush. “Talarico could be Moses.”
Cliff Walker, a Texas Democratic strategist and principal at Seeker Strategies, echoed the sentiment: “Folks are pretty damn bullish. I think this is the year.”
The pieces are all aligning, Democratic strategists, lawmakers and activists argue: Talarico is a charismatic candidate who has fundraising prowess and boasts a lead in early head-to-head polling.
Still, it’s a target that has long eluded Democrats in one of America’s most conservative, and costliest, battlegrounds. In election cycle after cycle, they’ve raised their hopes and poured money into trying to flip a statewide seat blue. Try as they might, Texas Democrats haven’t elected one of their own to the Senate since 1988.
Paxton won’t make it easy. The Texas attorney general, who defeated Cornyn by a wide margin in Tuesday’s runoff, emerged from the most expensive Senate primary on record with his eyes trained on November. After securing Trump’s endorsement last week, Paxton announced he’d remove all ads attacking Cornyn from the airwaves and instead focus his gaze on Talarico, who he calls a “leftist lunatic” and “Talafreako.”
“My opponent is the most extreme radical the Democrats have ever nominated,” Paxton said in his victory speech Tuesday. “No matter what he says or how much he raises, the reality is that James Talarico is going to be nothing more than a Texas-based puppet for Chuck Schumer and the national Democrats.”
Texas Democrats have been bullish before. In 2014, former state Sen. Wendy Davis elicited hopes of flipping the governor’s mansion, but her campaign spent $36 million only to lose to then-Attorney General Greg Abbott by a whopping 20 points.
In 2018, national Democrats were hesitant to back former Rep. Beto O’Rourke’s challenge to GOP Sen. Ted Cruz. O’Rourke eventually caught fire in the race’s final months, smashing fundraising records and running neck-and-neck in the polls, before losing by less than three percentage points — and leaving national Democrats wondering what could’ve happened if they jumped in sooner.
In 2020, Cornyn defeated Democratic nominee MJ Hegar by nearly 10 points; in 2024, Cruz toppled former Rep. Colin Allred by eight.
This cycle could be different, Texas Democrats say. Talarico is polling and fundraising ahead of where O’Rourke was at this point in 2018. And Talarico benefits from a Democratic political operation in the state — much of it built by O’Rourke — that was nonexistent when his predecessor ran.
“It’s the best chance Texas Democrats will have to win a statewide race in the entirety of my career,” said Democratic strategist Jeff Rotkoff, who has advised campaigns in Texas for 25 years.
The national headwinds facing Republicans — as voters’ patience for the Iran war and its effect on energy prices has eroded — are blowing especially hard in Texas, said Matt Angle, founder of the Lone Star Project, a Democratic-aligned group.
“At the voter level, what you’ve got is just an overwhelming dissatisfaction with Republicans in a way that you just haven’t seen in Texas in the past,” Angle said.
Some point to Texas’ 9th Senate District as evidence, which Trump won by 17 points in 2024 and a Democrat flipped in January. When the Democratic-aligned Texas Majority PAC surveyed voters there, they found that 90 percent of Republican-leaning voters who backed the Democrat in the race said they did it because “they just would not support any MAGA candidate,” said Katherine Fischer, the group’s director.
“It was tough for us last cycle to run in an environment where our president was deeply unpopular,” Fischer said. “Now it’s on them.”
Democrats believe Cornyn’s closing argument: That Paxton and his long trail of controversies will create a drag on the Republican ticket.
“Ken Paxton will be an albatross,” Cornyn said during a Fox News appearance Tuesday. “He could well lose, but even if he doesn’t lose, he will win by such a razor-thin margin that it’s likely to have a negative drag on the down ballot races in Texas.”
It’s a message that has some national Republicans wringing their hands. “The national mood is not great for Republicans right now, and Texas feels even worse,” said one Washington GOP operative close to Cornyn, granted anonymity to speak openly. “We already know we’re heading into a headwind in the state, up and down the ticket, and we just put up the worst possible top-of-the-ticket person.
“I can’t think of a worse person to put on the top of the ticket than Ken Paxton,” he added. “It’s laughable. All I can do is laugh.”
Still, it may be Paxton who gets the last laugh. Although his impeachment, the securities fraud investigation and ethics complaints against him, and his ongoing divorce were played up in the many attack ads Cornyn ran, the attorney general still managed to garner support from a large majority of GOP runoff voters.
“I think Talarico is the only opponent Paxton can beat,” said Tim Edson, the National Republican Senatorial Committee’s former political director. “Democrats are going to wish they had Beto again. … Talarico is a Marxist creep who will make Paxton seem normal after this race is litigated.”
The NRSC backed Cornyn in the primary. In a post-election statement the group blasted Talarico, but didn’t mention Paxton.
“A state President Trump won by nearly 14 points isn’t going to elect James Talarico — a radical leftist who thinks God is nonbinary and that Texas should be a welcome mat for illegals,” said NRSC spokesperson Samantha Cantrell. “He is the most dangerous flank of the far left. Texas isn’t swapping brisket for open borders.”
Paxton is already laser-focused on attacking Talarico as too progressive: A Paxton-aligned super PAC spent the past week running an ad that labeled Talarico as “weird,” clipping the state representative’s statements on gender, race, meat consumption and patriotism.
Those culture war issues are seen as Talarico’s largest liability as he seeks to win over a wide umbrella of progressive and moderate Democrats, independents and Republicans dissatisfied with Trump. Talarico has claimed there are “more than two” biological sexes and said he’s had to “reckon” with his own whiteness and masculinity.
Some of his allies want him to avoid those issues altogether.
“Stay away from it,” said state Sen. Royce West, a Democrat who represents Dallas. “I’m pretty sure he’ll have a strategy to do that, but he’s got to be able to get centrists.”
The same goes for downballot Democrats, who may be hoping to ride the energy of Talarico’s campaign to victory in their own races. The stakes are high: Future control of Congress could run through the Lone Star State, as the post-2030 Census reapportionment is poised to gift additional House seats to Texas while kneebuckling the map for Democrats nationwide. With newly redrawn House maps that favor Republicans and not another U.S. Senate race in the state until 2030, now is the ideal moment for Texas Democrats to notch victories up and down the ballot and send a message that they can play in the state.
“There’s just a ton of evidence to suggest that this is a much more favorable cycle than anything we’ve seen in Texas in the last 30 years. Is it enough to win in November? I don’t know,” said Fischer. “If it’s possible to win in Texas, all of the things are there for us to do it.”
Politics
Categories
The Texas GOP finally turned on Cornyn
The storied career of Sen. John Cornyn came to a swift and decisive end at the hands of the GOP voters who once propelled him to power.
The senator was a towering figure in both national and Texas politics, known for his sober temperament, ability to cut deals and role in shaping the Senate GOP conference during the last four presidencies. Then, just about an hour after polls closed Tuesday, Cornyn lost his primary to Ken Paxton, a scandal-plagued MAGA darling who was boosted by President Donald Trump’s last-minute endorsement.
Cornyn’s defeat is rattling the establishment wing of the GOP, who viewed the brutal primary as a battle for the soul of the party. His supporters mourn his approaching absence in the Senate as another example of an institutionalist who fell victim to the rise of the populist right, what they see as the end of an era of compassionate conservatism.
“It just blows my mind that anybody could look at John Cornyn and somehow call him a secret liberal RINO,” said Josh Schroeder, mayor of Georgetown, Texas, and a Cornyn supporter. “If that guy can’t pass a conservative litmus test, who can?”
Cornyn’s loss stands to further deplete the corps of senators willing to work across the aisle on thorny policy issues, from immigration reform to gun safety — potentially contributing further to increasing polarization on Capitol Hill.
While Cornyn was not a frequent bipartisan operator in the mold of former Sens. Joe Manchin (I-W.Va.) or Rob Portman (R-Ohio), he occasionally dug in to try and find compromise. His loss comes just ten days after fellow Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) lost his own primary to a Trump-backed challenger. Before that, it had been 14 years since the last elected senator lost a primary.
“He’s always been about delivering results for Texas rather than chasing headlines,” said Brian Walsh, Cornyn’s former communications director. “He respects the Senate as his institution and believes deeply in doing the work the right way, even when it’s difficult, or I would say politically inconvenient.”
His participation was often crucial as a member of the GOP leadership team and a key Republican fundraiser who operated with the tacit approval of Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell, who served as GOP leader for nearly all of Cornyn’s tenure.
Even though his supporters were long skeptical of his odds in the primary, Cornyn chose to go down swinging. He continued to run negative ads against Paxton throughout Texas until the last minute, harping on Paxton’s indiscretions. And he warned during an appearance on Fox News on Tuesday that the attorney general would be an “albatross” on the rest of the Republican ticket “likely to have a negative drag on the down ballot races in Texas, judges, local officials, House of Representatives, you name it.”
But those moral arguments did not sway a majority of primary voters — or Trump, who chose to endorse the attorney general and cited Cornyn’s decision to wait to endorse his third presidential run as proof he was insufficiently loyal.
Paxton’s supporters have long shrugged off his long trail of criminal and ethics investigations, impeachment by the state legislature and ongoing divorce, complete with accusations of infidelity, believing that his commitment to carrying the MAGA torch was more important than corruption allegations or a messy personal life. Paxton, for his part, has tried to focus the campaign on his qualifications for the Senate — and allegiance to Trump.
Paxton also benefitted from a strong anti-incumbency sentiment rippling throughout Texas. The GOP base was ripe for his argument that Cornyn was too enmeshed in the D.C. swamp to justify sending back to Washington even as those attacks bewildered Cornyn’s supporters, who pointed to his long record of voting for Trump’s agenda.
As majority whip during Trump’s first term, Cornyn helped shepherd the president’s signature tax bill across the finish line. In 2024, he fell just a few votes short of becoming majority leader against Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.). And few Republicans have demonstrated fundraising prowess like Cornyn, the former chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, who has brought in more than $400 million throughout the course of his political career.
“Senate Republicans were very eager to see their friend and colleague continue, and Cornyn is one of those guys that would’ve raised money for his fellow incumbents. That’s unlikely to continue,” said a GOP Senate strategist, granted anonymity to speak candidly.
Trump, after weeks of standing on the sidelines, swooped in at the start of early voting to back Paxton, a reward for the attorney general supporting his efforts to overturn the 2020 election. Cornyn, on the other hand, voted to certify the results.
Throughout the bitter campaign, Cornyn shifted to the right on some issues, adopting the fiery language of the MAGA base, which was seen as an effort to endear himself to Trump in a bid for his endorsement. Most prominently, he ran an ad declaring that “radical Islam is a bloodthirsty ideology.”
When Paxton cleverly declared that he would drop out of the primary if the Senate GOP killed the filibuster to pass the SAVE America Act, Trump’s priority election bill, that staved off the president’s planned endorsement of Cornyn. The Texas senator belatedly announced a reversal of his longheld support of the filibuster. And Cornyn introduced a bill two weeks ago to rename a major U.S. highway Interstate 47 to honor Trump. But it came far too late to save him.
But in a hyper-partisan environment, Cornyn’s decisions to occasionally work with Democrats doomed his standing among the rabidly conservative base in Texas.
Cornyn kept to the outskirts of high-stakes bipartisan immigration talks, such as the “Gang of Eight” that sought a comprehensive overhaul in 2013. But he later partnered with Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona in exploring a narrower, border-security-focused bill.
He also found success reaching across the aisle in 2022 on gun safety legislation in the aftermath of the Uvalde school shooting. The Bipartisan Safer Communities Act was modest relative to Democratic demands for stricter gun control. But it was still the most significant federal gun legislation in a generation — and it provoked intense backlash among hard-right voters in Texas.
“We both know that when we’re doing what’s right, it doesn’t matter what other people think,” Cornyn texted Sinema at the time.
Four years later, Paxton made the legislation a centerpiece of his campaign, accusing Cornyn of shepherding “the worst gun control bill in decades.”
Texas will now be swept up in an expensive and competitive Senate race, with Democrats amped to compete against Paxton, who they view as more vulnerable than Cornyn in a midterm environment favorable to their party. Many believe Democratic nominee and state Rep. James Talarico is their best shot in a generation at flipping a statewide seat.
Schroeder, who represents a small town in Talarico’s former district, said the Democrat is capable of pulling off a strong campaign: “He appears to be campaigning from the high road while the Democratic party is just slicing Paxton to shreds because they got a whole lot of ammunition.”
In the aftermath of the brutal primary, some Republicans fear that the state of the GOP is dire – and potentially unable to unify ahead of November with the possibility that some Cornyn supporters will sit out the race entirely or vote for Talarico. After the race was quickly called on Tuesday, Talarico posted on X: “To Senator Cornyn’s supporters: you have a place in our campaign.”
In his concession speech, Cornyn said he will support the GOP ticket: “I’ve fought the good fight, I’ve finished the race, and I’ve kept the faith.”
“I’ll have more to say later.”
Mike DeBonis and Samuel Benson contributed to this article.
Politics
Former Rep. Colin Allred defeated Rep. Julie Johnson in a runoff that pitted two of the Democratic Party’s rising stars against each other in Texas’ newly redrawn 33rd District.
Allred’s victory Tuesday means he’s all but certain to win the general election in the deep-blue Dallas-area district.
Both candidates boasted substantial bios: Johnson became the first openly LGBTQ+ representative elected in a southern state last year, and Allred is an ex-NFL player, a three-term representative and a two-time U.S. Senate candidate.
When the Republican-controlled Texas Legislature passed a new congressional gerrymander last year, Allred decided to drop his Senate bid and take another shot at the House, setting up a race against a sitting member who had replaced him in Congress. The two have represented about one third of the newly drawn district.
The race turned intoa proxy fight of March’s Senate primary: Democratic nominee and state Rep. James Talarico endorsed Johnson, and Rep. Jasmine Crockett endorsed Allred and rallied with him last week.
Allred ran for Senate in 2024 instead of running for reelection for the House, eventually losing to Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas). He ran for Senate again in 2026 before dropping out and running for the 33rd District.
He attempted to make the race a referendum on corruption in politics, attacking Johnson’s stock trading and donations from corporate PACs. Allred also benefitted from a significant name ID advantage, winning the March primary by double digits and earning the endorsements of the two other primary candidates who failed to make the runoff.
Politics