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Erin Durkin and Anna Gronewold's must-read briefing informing the daily conversation among knowledgeable New Yorkers | | | | |  | | By Sally Goldenberg and Anna Gronewold | New York politicians gathered at Rev. Al Sharpton’s National Action Network to honor the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. on Monday — an event that drew Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, Sen. Chuck Schumer and the 92-year-old Harlem political titan Charlie Rangel, a former member of Congress. But a political rivalry was seeping through the show of unity and uplifting speeches. New York City Mayor Eric Adams, the city’s second Black leader, began his remarks heralding the life of the late, famed actor Sidney Poitier before pivoting to his own frustrations. “What are we doing to our Dr. Kings of today? I think about when I was running for office, all the years I put on fighting abuse and policing, when I became a candidate, I wasn't Black enough,” Adams said, boasting of what he described as his historic commitment to people of color. “And then you hear some of the ancestors who attack[ed] King are now adults attacking me.” He then aimed his attention at city Comptroller Brad Lander, who was no longer on the dais. “I don’t even know the madness of people telling me I shouldn't go speak to my fellow mayor in El Paso to deal with a crisis that the national government is supposed to be dealing with. Stop running for office and do the office you got now,” Adams said. Without naming Lander, he zeroed in on criticism the farther-left Democrat leveled at the mayor’s weekend trip to the border, during which he sought to pressure President Joe Biden to provide more assistance to New York. “There are many ways to demand the help we need from Washington & Albany. But the Mayor’s trip to Texas does little to deliver the $$ NYC needs to provide shelter & services. Instead, it risks reinforcing a harmful narrative that new immigrants themselves are a problem,” Lander tweeted Sunday night. “Far from ‘undermining’ our city, immigrants have been the driving force for NYC's success for centuries.” Lander, who has been relatively measured in his criticism of the mayor given their dueling ideologies, declined to respond to Adams’ remarks. The mayor’s chief spokesman followed up with a tweet accusing the comptroller of playing politics by using his campaign handle, rather than his government one.
|  NEW YORK - MAY 12, 2022: New York Comptroller Brad Lander attends a New York City restaurant workers rally outside Dine Brands shareholder meeting demanding an end to subminimum pay. | Noam Galai/Getty Images for One Fair Wage | IT’S TUESDAY. Got tips, suggestions or thoughts? Let us know ... By email: agronewold@politico.com and sgoldenberg@politico.com or on Twitter: @annagronewold and @sallygold WHERE’S KATHY? In Albany with no announced public schedule. WHERE’S ERIC? Delivering an address on women’s health followed by a Q&A at City Hall, meeting with the mayor of Helsinki and the consul general of Finland, meeting with the African Consuls General Group, delivering remarks at Anatolian Lions Businessmen’s Association’s Summit.
| | | | STEP INSIDE THE WEST WING: What's really happening in West Wing offices? Find out who's up, who's down, and who really has the president’s ear in our West Wing Playbook newsletter, the insider's guide to the Biden White House and Cabinet. For buzzy nuggets and details that you won't find anywhere else, subscribe today. | | | | | |  | WHAT CITY HALL IS READING | | “How Eric Adams Started Mentoring A Con Man,” by New Yorker’s Eric Lach: “About a year ago, not long after Eric Adams was sworn in as the mayor of New York, an old friend and church leader named Lamor Whitehead went to an auto shop in the Bronx, to drop off a Mercedes-Benz G-Class S.U.V. that had been in a crash. Whitehead led a small church in Brooklyn called Leaders of Tomorrow International Ministries. People called him Bishop. The shop he visited, No Limit Auto Body, was operated by a man named Brandon Belmonte, who was involved in real estate. … It occurred to Belmonte that Whitehead wasn’t trying to negotiate—he was asking for a kickback. He promised to make it worth Belmonte’s while. ‘I got City Hall in my back pocket,’ Whitehead said, according to Belmonte. “On a friend’s advice, Belmonte called an investigator at the U.S. Attorney’s office in Manhattan. ‘I said, ‘I think the mayor of New York is on the take,’’ Belmonte recalled. … The next morning, F.B.I. agents arrived at Belmonte’s door. They asked Belmonte to call Whitehead, and began recording. Belmonte told Whitehead that he was ready to do business with him, and with the Mayor. … Adams declined to be interviewed for this article. A spokesperson for City Hall told me that the Mayor and Whitehead had never worked together, or made money together.” From Texas border, New York mayor vows to pressure U.S. government over migrants, by POLITICO’s Joe Anuta: During a press briefing Sunday, he pledged to form a coalition with mayors facing similar situations. “I knew it was time for me, not to try to handle this problem from the city, but to come in to interact with the mayors across the country,” Adams said. “This has fallen on our cities. And I am now going to coordinate my mayors across the entire country to say: How do we respond to this directly?” “Crazy train: MTA, LIRR let $385M fly off the rails, beg Hochul bailout,” by New York Post’s Nolan Hicks: “Wasteful labor deals and mismanagement at the MTA’s commuter lines — predominantly the Long Island Rail Road — are costing the vital suburban connectors nearly $400 million annually, an investigation by The Post reveals. The seven-month examination comes as the MTA seeks a financial bailout from Gov. Kathy Hochul and state lawmakers to fill budget gaps created by dramatic drops in ridership due to the coronavirus pandemic and the slow return of workers to their offices.”
| | WHAT ALBANY'S READING | | Progressives may tank Hochul’s pick to lead New York’s top court. She's fighting back, by POLITICO’s Anna Gronewold: Democratic leadership in the state Senate warned the newly-elected governor in early December that, of her seven-candidate shortlist for the judgeship, they could not guarantee the votes for LaSalle. Progressive members were deeply skeptical of the jurists’ values on abortion and labor rights. Hochul nominated him anyway. ... She now faces the prospect this month that LaSalle will become the first top judicial nominee to ever be rejected by the state Senate. — House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, Reps. Nydia Velázquez and Adriano Espaillat, state Sen. Luis Sepúlveda, and former Bronx Borough President Rubén Díaz Jr. on Saturday rallied for LaSalle and slammed their Democratic colleagues who have come out in opposition. — SENATE DEMOCRATS are heated: “I am dismayed by Senator @LuisSepulvedaNY’s remarks at a press conference on the Governor’s Chief Judge nomination. I did not expect a colleague to call me out without attempting to reach out to me directly about our difference in opinion…” Bronx Democrat Sen. Gustavo Rivera tweeted in a thread after the event. “An outmigration crisis? Hochul’s plan to keep people in New York,” by Times Union’s Joshua Solomon: “Over a two-year period, New York state is estimated to have lost nearly half a million people, but the state has returned to about 85 percent of the total jobs it had prior to the onset of the pandemic. The topic is one that Hochul's gubernatorial opponent, then-U.S. Rep. Lee Zeldin, made a focus of his campaign. And it shaped this year's State of the State.” “House oversight committee looking further into NYS unemployment fraud,” by Spectrum’s Susan Arbetter: “Chair of the House Oversight Committee, James Comer of Kentucky, wrote to the Commissioner of the New York State Department of Labor on Friday asking for all information and data relating to fraud in the state’s unemployment insurance.” #UpstateAmerica: A Cheektowaga mechanic who saved more than 20 people during Erie County’s deadly December snowstorm has been awarded Super Bowl tickets.
| | TRUMP'S NEW YORK | | “After Trump Trial Win, Manhattan District Attorney Prepares for Year 2,” by The New York Times’ Jonah E. Bromwich: “On a recent Wednesday afternoon after the Christmas holiday, Mr. Bragg, 49, sat for an interview, reflecting on his first year as he gears up for the second. He begins 2023 with momentum, having won a conviction of Donald J. Trump’s company in December and presiding over a decline in murders and shootings. The furious criticism that he was too timid to confront Mr. Trump and too liberal to make the city safe has eased, to an extent. But Mr. Bragg remains a lightning rod, particularly with the persistence of a pandemic-era rise in crime.”
| | AROUND NEW YORK | | — Two investigators responsible for rooting out sick-leave fraud at Rikers Island are now under investigation over whether they abused their own sick time. — Madison Square Garden Entertainment’s use of facial recognition software could put public support and funding at risk, NYC elected officials warned. — New Yorkers wagered around $16 billion in mobile sports betting during its first year, bringing in about $709 million in taxes. — State Police investigators seized Police Benevolent Association officials’ phones and computers during a raid last week. — Jury selection starts this week in Brooklyn for Mexico’s ex-secretary of public security, who has been accused of taking El Chapo money while on the job. — An attorney for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany accidentally disclosed that the diocese had offered $20 million toward a "global settlement" for alleged child sexual abuse victims. — Rep. Paul Tonko says Congress is off to a “disturbing start.”
| | | | DOWNLOAD THE POLITICO MOBILE APP: Stay up to speed with the newly updated POLITICO mobile app, featuring timely political news, insights and analysis from the best journalists in the business. The sleek and navigable design offers a convenient way to access POLITICO's scoops and groundbreaking reporting. Don’t miss out on the app you can rely on for the news you need, reimagined. DOWNLOAD FOR iOS– DOWNLOAD FOR ANDROID. | | | | | | | SOCIAL DATA BY DANIEL LIPPMAN | | HAPPY BIRTHDAY: former first lady Michelle Obama … NBC’s Gabe Gutierrez and Alex Moe … Patrick Butler … Sam Feder … Maury Povich … Penta’s Rebecca Buck … John Seabrook … Precision Strategies’ Mike Spahn … POLITICO’s Steve Shepard … Jordan Mattos … Becca Sobel … Katherine Wiet … Kurt Hauptman … Jeremy Pelofsky … Kwegyirba Croffie … (was Monday): NYT’s Sheera Frenkel …The Daily Beast’s Kelly Weill … Ed Cafiero of Marathon Strategies … … (was Sunday): Warner Bros. Discovery’s David Zaslav … NYT’s Sarah Kliff … Stuart Eizenstat of Covington and Burling … CNN’s Jeremy Diamond … Chuck Babington … Scott Stanzel of Truist … George Sifakis … Mark Penn of the Stagwell Group … Dan Scavino … The New Yorker’s Jon Lee Anderson … Brooks George … Erin Lardy … Martin Chalfie ... Samantha Massell … … (was Saturday): Maureen Dowd … The New Yorker’s Susan Glasser … Shepard Smith … Margaret Chadbourn … Frank Raines … Doug Michelman … Sinead Casey … Jeffrey Webb … Michael L. Tuchin ... Peter Malkin MAKING MOVES — Brian Phillips Jr. is now comms director for Rep. Yvette Clarke (D-N.Y.). He previously was press secretary for the House Homeland Security Committee. … Jarrod Bernstein has joined Morrison Cohen as of counsel, where he will advise public and private sector clients on issues regarding communications, government relations and disaster management. He most recently worked on the Bloomberg Resilience Team and is a Bloomberg and Obama administration alum.
| | Real Estate | | “All the Developers Who Want You to Want a New York Casino” by The New York Times Stefanos Chen: “As the race for three casino licenses in the New York City region kicks off in earnest this year, the developers behind a number of the multibillion-dollar bids are hoping to improve their chances with some Vegas-style sleight of hand: They’re asking, ‘What casino?’ One bid is proposing a Ferris wheel in Midtown East, steps away from a museum showcasing slabs of the Berlin Wall. There are plans in three boroughs and on Long Island that wax poetic about luxury resorts, surrounded by green space and enlivened by entertainment. ..." ‘The gaming will be less than 10 percent of the resort,’ said Jon Weinstein, a spokesman for Related Companies, the developer of Hudson Yards, which hopes to transform the neighborhood’s western portion into a ‘pre-eminent convention and entertainment district’ with its partner, Wynn Resorts.” “Hochul, Adams have big housing plans; some question whether they can deliver,” by WNYC’s Arun Venugopal: “But for Figueroa, who lives in multigenerational housing on the Upper West Side and yearns for her own apartment, her reaction to the grand policy pronouncements was more muted than hopeful. ‘They keep saying that,’ Figueroa said of the ambitious plans, ‘but what I keep seeing is a lot of luxury buildings going up, all over the place.’ Reactions from policy analysts and other observers were similarly restrained, with some noting the herculean task of changing course in a city where economic inequality is a defining feature from neighborhood to neighborhood.” | | | | Follow us on Twitter | | | | Subscribe to the POLITICO Playbook family Playbook | Playbook PM | California Playbook | Florida Playbook | Illinois Playbook | Massachusetts Playbook | New Jersey Playbook | New York Playbook | Ottawa Playbook | Brussels Playbook | London Playbook View all our political and policy newsletters | | Follow us | | | | |  |
