Category: Politics

Every week political cartoonists throughout the country and across the political spectrum apply their ink-stained skills to capture the foibles, memes, hypocrisies and other head-slapping events in the world of politics. The fruits of these labors are hundreds of cartoons that entertain and enrage readers of all political stripes. Here’s an offering of the best of this week’s crop, picked fresh off the Toonosphere. Edited by Matt Wuerker.​Politics

DAYS THE BUDGET IS LATE: 51

CROWD CONTROL: State Democrats are aligned on reining in ICE — but there’s sharp disagreements over whether the measures will meaningfully impact the NYPD.

Gov. Kathy Hochul and state lawmakers passed a package of measures this afternoon that seek to curtail federal immigration enforcement agents’ operations in New York.

“Tom Homan can shove it,” Brooklyn state Sen. Andrew Gounardes said at a press conference this morning, referring to the Trump administration’s border czar.

The package aims to restrict the ability of police departments like the NYPD to control crowds while federal officers conduct immigration enforcement actions.

“If ICE or DHS ask a local police department to facilitate their operations — lock down the street, clear out traffic, cordon off an area, put up, ‘do not cross signs,’… those types of actions would no longer be allowed,” Gounardes said of the immigration package.

Also in the agreement: banning masks for federal and local law enforcement and creating a list of “sensitive locations” that ICE won’t be able to enter without a judicial warrant.

The slew of anti-ICE measures are just the latest effort by Democrats in blue states like New York to push back against the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration tactics.

But the push to prohibit local police departments from cooperating with federal immigration authorities is likely to prove messy on the ground — as evidenced by a recent fracas in Brooklyn.

A host of elected allies of Zohran Mamdani pointed fingers at the mayor and police commissioner Jessica Tisch earlier this month when the NYPD took steps to control a crowd of anti-ICE protesters who tried to obstruct federal officers that detained an undocumented man and transported him to Wyckoff Heights Medical Center.

The NYPD says officers were doing their job by responding to 911 calls about disorderly protesters — and they also say these new measures wouldn’t have had any effect on how they operated that evening in front of Wykoff. During those efforts, eight people were arrested due to scuffles with cops and attempts to block the federal officers’ exits. Videos depict a chaotic scene, with the NYPD seen throwing a protester to the ground.

But protesters say the NYPD’s efforts to control the crowd made it so the city’s cops, directly or indirectly, were supporting ICE and clearing a path for their movements.

Brooklyn state Sen. Julia Salazar, a key backer of the immigration measures, insists the new language from the state would’ve stopped the NYPD from interfering with anti-ICE protesters outside the Brooklyn hospital that day.

“Someone was quite violently taken into ICE custody by ICE agents,” Salazar said, recounting the incident. “Then they were taken to Wyckoff Heights Medical Center in Bushwick, and the police officers from the NYPD facilitated the entry and exit of those officers — which would be prohibited going forward.”

An NYPD spokesperson told Playbook the “legislation will not impact the NYPD because we do not engage in civil immigration enforcement, period.”

The actual language of the bill would bar any “informal agreement” with federal immigration authorities “under which an officer or employee may engage in or assist immigration enforcement, or otherwise may perform a function of an immigration officer.” The dispute over its actual effect prompts questions about the role of local cops to ensure order in the face of anti-ICE demonstrations, especially after similar protests turned deadly in Minnesota.

Mamdani’s spokesperson Dora Pekec said city policy already prohibits coordination between the NYPD and ICE and that “the Mayor supports this piece of legislation and has made clear that he believes ICE has no role in promoting public safety here in New York City.”

Tomorrow Mamdani will release a report – resulting from a February executive order – examining all city interactions with federal immigration enforcement efforts.

At a May 12 event hosted by the Association for a Better New York, Tisch slammed critics who said the NYPD was colluding with ICE at Wyckoff.

“NYPD officers, in the middle of the night, amid chaos outside of their control, did their job professionally and skillfully and made sure events did not spiral into a calamity,” she said. “The critics of the NYPD’s actions — those who would have us stand aside and call cops doing their jobs collusion – have lost sight of the lives at stake.”

The Wyckoff incident prompted rare public criticism of the Mamdani administration from left-leaning lawmakers who held an emergency press conference and wrote a letter decrying the NYPD’s actions that evening.

“They provided security for ICE,” City Council member Sandy Nurse, who represents the area, said of the incident.

In a statement, Hochul spokesperson Jen Goodman said the new law “would not ban local law enforcement from actions like crowd control in the interest of protecting New Yorkers.” — Jason Beeferman

FROM THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL

POLL-A-PALOOZA: We’ve got the latest snapshots of the city’s most competitive primaries in a trio of surveys from Emerson College Polling for PIX 11 — rare outside polling in these races.

The biggest gap: Former City Comptroller Brad Lander, who’s challenging Rep. Dan Goldman, is leading by a whopping 34 points. The survey has Lander with 57 percent support, compared to the incumbent’s 23 percent. One in five likely Democratic primary voters are undecided.

Goldman’s campaign was quick to dispute the results: “This poll is not remotely close to an accurate read of this race,” campaign manager Simone Kanter wrote on X. “The data we’ve seen shows a dead heat after messaging.”

He went on to argue that the survey oversampled college-educated voters and young people, writing that the poll “is assuming an electorate that looks exactly like the once-in-a-generation turnout Mamdani mobilized when he was on the ballot.” (Mamdani has endorsed Lander in the race, which will be a test of the mayor’s political muscle.)

Emily Minster, a spokesperson for Lander’s campaign, said they are “taking nothing for granted.”

A recent internal poll from a pro-Goldman super PAC found the incumbent trailing Lander by 5 points. Goldman has been up on the air for weeks; Lander began advertising today.

The polls showed far tighter races in the other primaries for NY-07 and NY-12, which are being vacated by retiring Reps. Nydia Velázquez and Jerry Nadler, respectively.

In NY-07, state Assemblymember Claire Valdez has 23 percent support, followed by Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso with 21 percent. City Council member Julie Won comes in at 13 percent and public defender Vichal Kumar at 1 percent.

Valdez leads among Hispanic voters and is running about even with Won among Asian voters.

An eye-popping 43 percent of respondents are undecided — giving the campaigns a major opportunity to grow their support.

The race for NY-10 is competitive between state Assemblymembers Micah Lasher and Alex Bores, who come in at 22 percent and 20 percent, respectively. Kennedy scion Jack Schlossberg has 11 percent, while anti-Trump commentator George Conway has 10 percent and public health practitioner Nina Schwalbe has 3 percent. Around a third of respondents are undecided.

Recent surveys — nearly all of which have been internal polls — also showed a tight race, with Lasher and Bores toward the front of the pack. Earlier this year, Schlossberg had a slight lead in polls. Heavy outside spending has occurred in recent weeks in favor of Lasher, as well as groups both spending for and against Bores.

Mamdani has a strong approval rating in all three districts: 78 percent approve of him in the 7th, 79 percent in the 10th and 66 percent in the 12th.

The polls were conducted May 16-17 among likely Democratic primary voters. In the 7th, there were 350 respondents and a margin of error of plus-or-minus 5.2 percentage points. In the 10th, there were 450 respondents and a margin of error of plus-or-minus 4.6 percentage points. In the 12th, there were 425 respondents and a margin of error of plus-or-minus 4.8 percentage points. — Madison Fernandez

NOT THERE: Democrats are feeling good heading into this year’s midterms. But good enough to not donate to battleground Rep. Laura Gillen?

Oath, a donor platform that measures which Democrats it would be most effective to support, shared new recommendations for which candidates should make the cut, our colleagues in D.C. reported this morning. Among those who fall into the do-not-donate category is Gillen, whose Long Island seat that she narrowly flipped in 2024 is widely considered a crucial 2026 contest for control of the House. In a memo, Oath rationalized that Gillen’s seat is “moving into safe Democratic territory” and “does not have a Republican opponent who even raised $100,000.”

However, it’s unclear how much Hempstead Receiver of Taxes Jeanine Driscoll, local Republicans’ candidate of choice, has raised. She entered the race in April — after the second fundraising quarter began — and has not filed a financial report with the Federal Election Commission. Driscoll’s primary opponent, Air Force veteran Marvin Williams, has raised close to $90,000 — most of which was self-funded.

Also adding uncertainty to upcoming elections is a pending case in the Supreme Court that could open the floodgates to massive political spending from the national parties and benefit Republicans.

“Laura Gillen is running in a fiercely competitive Frontline seat,” Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee spokesperson Riya Vashi said in a statement. “The DCCC is committed to ensuring Laura has the resources and support she needs to win this November.” — Madison Fernandez

From the Capitol

THE WHEELS ON THE BUS: The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey has spent months working with other agencies planning for “nightmare scenarios” involving waylaid trains and buses during the World Cup, its executive director said Thursday.

Those plans could come in handy given the history of heat-related problems in the region and a pair of fires that disrupted service in and out of Penn Station in the past week.

New Jersey Transit’s backup plan for waylaid trains is a fleet of buses to carry fans. But those buses also break down in the heat and will need to get through the Port Authority’s tunnels to reach MetLife Stadium where eight World Cup matches will be played. So the Port Authority is working on a backup plan for the backup plan, including freeing up lanes in the Lincoln Tunnel that normally go in one direction to go in another.

“It’s going to be July, it’s going to be hot, on any given day we have bus break downs because the engine gets too hot,” Port Authority head Kathryn Garcia told reporters following a board meeting today. “We need to be able to be very flexible.”

Port Authority Chair Kevin O’Toole said during the hottest day last week he was behind a bus that broke down in the Lincoln Tunnel. Within five minutes a tow truck was there and another bus came to pick up the passengers.

“We are going to anticipate certain breakdowns and hopefully we can do our best to accommodate the public,” he said. — Ry Rivard

FROM CITY HALL

NOTHING IN LIFE IS FREE: Mamdani announced a deal today to provide 1,000 World Cup tickets to New Yorkers at $50 a pop.

The mayor unveiled his discount ticket scheme this morning at a beer garden in Harlem, rattling off teams, players and moments from World Cups of yore before getting to the meat of his announcement.

“We’re so excited, frankly, because we know that there are so many New Yorkers who thought that there was no way they could afford to go to this tournament, and now there is that glimpse of an opportunity,” the mayor said.

But New Jersey Democrats were having none of it. They attacked FIFA – soccer’s global governing body – for the discounted tickets, which are only available to New York residents, even though the matches are being played in the Garden State.

“This publicity stunt does nothing to address the cost of tickets,” New Jersey Democratic Reps. Nellie Pou and Frank Pallone said in a joint statement.

New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill’s spokesperson, Stephen Sigmund, said “FIFA not caring about costs for New Jersey residents isn’t new.”

FIFA said the agreement was between the local host committee and the mayor’s office, and that FIFA was only involved in ensuring the tickets went to fans who genuinely planned to attend rather than sell tickets.

New York and New Jersey officials have repeatedly sparred over how to run the upcoming tournament, despite being co-hosts. Most of that dust up to date has been over dueling bus and train services to get fans to matches. — Ry Rivard and Joe Anuta 

In Other News

— SUITED UP: Mamdani’s top lawyer, Ramzi Kaseem, brings a history of suing the NYPD and defending high-profile civil liberties cases to City Hall. (The New York Times)

— ICED OUT: A Manhattan parking garage removed federal vehicles after protesters alleged they were being used by immigration enforcement agents. (Gothamist)

— SHEIK UP: The Mamdani administration distanced itself from the views of an Islamic leader who has cast doubts on basic facts about the Holocaust. The mayor has met with the controversial figure at least three times since January 2025. (Washington Free Beacon)

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

​Politics

Colorado Democrats censured Gov. Jared Polis late Wednesday for his decision to grant clemency to Tina Peters, a former county clerk who is serving a prison sentence after being convicted of allowing unauthorized access to voting machines in the aftermath of the 2020 election.

The two-term governor’s decision, which he made last week, “materially harmed the Colorado Democratic Party’s institutional credibility and efforts to defend democratic institutions and election integrity,” the party said in a statement.

“Colorado has spent years building trust in our elections and proving they are secure,” the party said. “At a time when democracy and voting rights are under attack across the nation, weakening accountability for someone convicted of undermining that trust is a mistake.”

Peters was sentenced to roughly nine years in prison in 2024 after being convicted of state charges of assisting in the breach of state election equipment. Peters allowed a man affiliated with Mike Lindell, a conspiracy theorist aligned with President Donald Trump, to access Mesa County election systems.

The state was forced to spend nearly one million dollars to replace it all, Secretary of State Jena Griswold said.

In the years since, her case has become a rallying cry for Republicans who continue to falsely insist that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from Trump. Trump himself has championed Peters’ cause.

“The Governor made this decision based on the facts of the case and what he believed was the right thing to do,” Eric Maruyama, Polis’ press secretary, said in a statement. “Sometimes the right thing isn’t the popular thing with everybody. Democracy is strongest when disagreement is met with debate and dialogue, not censorship.”

Polis shortened Peters’ sentence from nine years to 4.5, and she is eligible for parole soon. The governor, who has been careful to insist that his move to halve Peters’ prison term did not constitute a pardon, told CNN last week that the 2024 sentence was draconian and connected to Peters’ political beliefs.

“There should be no consideration of what we say — how unpopular it is, how inaccurate it is — in sentencing or in criminal proceedings,” he said.

But Democrats, including Polis’ potential successor in Colorado, were harshly critical of his decision.

Sen. Michael Bennet, who is running for the state’s governor post in November, told CNN this week that Polis’ “terrible” Peters decision would disqualify him from being considered for the open Senate seat should Bennet win.

“She is a stone-cold election denier,” Bennet said. “She’s never said anything other than that.”

​Politics

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

From the Capitol

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

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

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

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

Read more from POLITICO Pro’s Nick Reisman and Chris Sommerfeldt.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

FROM CITY HALL

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

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

The Council has long attempted to regulate AI.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

IN OTHER NEWS

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

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

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

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

​Politics