NYC NOW - Five Things With Brian Lehrer: The Mayor’s Race Narrows, Vaccine Confusion Grows, and Schools Enforce Cellphone Ban

Episode Date: September 6, 2025

In this edition of Five Things, WNYC’s Janae Pierre and Brian Lehrer break down the mayor’s race after Jim Walden’s exit, including speculation that Mayor Eric Adams and Curtis Sliwa could be pushed aside to clear the field for Zohran Mamdani and Andrew Cuomo. They discuss the divisions within the Democratic Party, the fight for New Jersey’s governorship, the growing battles over vaccines, the rollout of New York’s school cellphone ban, and how the Mets and Yankees are shaping up for the playoffs.

NYC now. Your source for what's happening in and around New York City. From WMYC, I'm Jene Pierre, and I hope your weekend is off to a great start. So today we're picking up our monthly segment, Five Things with WNYC's Brian Lear. Brian, welcome to the show. Always great to be here, Jeney. Well, unfortunately, Brian, summer is coming to a close. I hope you were able to make the most of it, though.

Did you get out of New York? I love summer, by the way. So many people seem to have fall as their favorite season, but maybe because school was out in the summer when I was a kid and I got imprinted that way. I am alike. Give me summer as much of the year as we can. I'll deal with the heat. But yeah, for me, nothing distant this year, but some nice time in the Hudson Valley and the Lamberville, New Jersey area, mostly chilling and riding my bike on rail trails. I love these old railroad beds converted to paved or otherwise smooth bike routes. that are off the road, so no cars to watch out for. So that's my summer highlight.

That is pretty cool. Pretty cool thing to learn about you, Brian Lear. You know who else enjoys a trail ride and who does it competitively? NBA Hall of Famer Reggie Miller. So you're in some pretty good company. Yep, yep, yep. Anyway, I could talk about summer fun all day long, but let's switch on over to politics, shall we?

So the mayor's race is a little less crowded this week, Jim, Walden dropped out of the race, leaving four contenders. We have Democratic nominees Aramam Dani, Republican Curtis Sliwa, and Independence, Andrew Cuomo, and incumbent, of course, Mayor Eric Adams, who has been all over my New York Times notifications, by the way. But what's your take on the race right now? Oh, yeah. Well, all the buzz right now, as your New York Times notifications indicate, is around these stories that the Trump administration is trying to coax Eric Adams and Curtis. to Sliwa out of the race to make it a one-on-one with Cuomo and Mom Dani. Supposedly, Trump will offer them both jobs.

The New York Times yesterday said Adam's job might be ambassador to Saudi Arabia. Really? A snarky listener to my show texted, shouldn't he be ambassador to Turkey? Right. Which, for people who get the joke, as you do, is very funny. Remember, the corruption case against him was about taking bribes from Turkish nationals and then looking the other way on safety inspections for the new Turkish consulate here in the city. So time will tell if any of this is real.

But, you know, I can't help but wonder, Jene, what Trump and the Republican Party generally actually prefer. Like defeating a socialist because they really oppose his policies, or having him in office to kick around next year for the congressional midterm elections and tie every moderate Democrat to Mamdani and A.O.D. see as really pulling their strings. But on the side of Trump wanting to actually see Mom Donnie lose, some reporting says the city's business leaders and wealthiest influencers are leaning on Trump to help with that. And he wants to be responsive to those people, to that crowd. So as Trump himself might say, we'll see what happens. A lot of efforts to make this mayor race,

a two-person race. So Jim Walden didn't endorse anyone as he, dropped out, but he's repeatedly criticized Mamdani for being a Democratic socialist. I want to talk about the divide within the party here in New York, moderate Democrats versus the more liberal ones. Sure, right. I think on economics, it's a classic split between more progressive and more moderate Democrats, whether or not the S word socialist is involved, things like when to raise taxes on upper income people or regulate businesses or be more or less.

aggressive on climate and the environment and safety net programs. There's a Mamdani quote, though, from 2021 about a belief in seizing the means of production, which sounds much more socialist than your basic progressive Democrat, but he's not campaigning on anything like that. And also in this case, Israel, Gaza also divides Democrats and so do approaches to public safety. So I think that's where some of the fault lines are right now, within the Democratic Party, as we speak, Hakeem Jeffries, Governor Hokel, Chuck Schumer.

None of them have endorsed Mobbani, though, of course they're not endorsing anybody else either as of now because he's their party's nominee. Yeah. Now, another interesting race is happening across the river in New Jersey. It's a real fight for the governor's mansion there between Democrat Mikey Sherrill and Republican Jack Shuderelli. What should we be watching for in that race? This race is expected to be close.

Part of the context is that even though Trump law, the state last year. He won five more counties than he did in 2020, largely because Democratic turnout took a dive. He hardly got more votes than he did in 2020, but Kamala Harris got a lot fewer votes than Biden did. So can Mikey Cheryl give those voters a reason to get back in the game? Classic New Jersey issues are in play again, property taxes and the school funding formula, for example, one affordability issue that's emerged as new this year is spiking utility bills. And yes, there are Democratic and Republican ways to fight spiking utility bills, apparently, involving how much direct regulation of prices, how much development of green energy sources

to improve the balance between total supply and demand. Nuclear is a subset of that debate. And many Trump policies are coming into play in the race, from the effect of tariffs on people in the state to his mass deportation effort, to various culture war issues like trans women and women's sports. Cheryl voted with other House Democrats, in fact, the whole New Jersey delegation of Democrats against a national ban. Another culture war touchstone Chittarelli has supported an abortion ban in the state

after 20 weeks. That is not currently the law in New Jersey. And there's a sort of professional identity. competition. Cheryl emphasizes her role as a former Navy pilot, Chittarelli, his business background. That's certainly another race that we will definitely be keeping close eyes on. And I want to get back here to New York. There's this emerging battle over vaccines across the country. So some states are, some states are going on their own and finding ways, you know, to change guidance from the feds. Can you shed light on how this impacts everyday New Yorkers? And I'm thinking,

can hear about childhood vaccinations and COVID vaccines as we approach fall. Yeah, let me give it my best shot, Jenae, because we're in a really confusing moment. Let me take COVID first. We did an advice segment on the show with our health reporter, our colleague Caroline Lewis, on Wednesday, mostly for people under 65 who want to get COVID shots because RFK Jr.'s New policies are drawing the line at that age, 65, for automatic approval, and that is sowing nationwide confusion and mixed responses. NJ Spotlight News reported, for example, that at CVS, anyone can still walk into a pharmacy in New Jersey and get vaccinated for this fall. But in some

states, including Massachusetts, CVS won't give them at all for now. We had a caller from New York, 90-year-old person from Rockland County, who said even she was turned away at age 90 without a doctor's prescription. Now, that may not happen again because of the interesting development Thursday that Governor Hockel is ordering pharmacies to allow anyone to be vaccinated, but that still leaves unanswered for now the question of insurance coverage. Will private insurance cover the shot, even if you can get one? Will doctors need to show specific diagnoses for that? A lot might depend on the next meeting on September 18th and 19th of Kennedy's Immunization Advisory Board. And we'll see if the governor can take any action on that at the state level.

As for school kids, the big story of the week to me is Florida announcing it plans to become the first state to ban all school and daycare vaccine mandates. So what might this mean? Well, for the first time in many decades, maybe we'll start to see polio going around again. Polio vaccines are among those mandated. And that could be a threat to babies, for example, even if somebody immunized against polio is protected themselves. There are households we have to remember where there might be babies, where the baby is too young to be immunized yet.

And there are friends of older children coming over who might be polio carriers. I mean, this is a hypothetical, but it's within the realm of possibility if the anti-vax movement, you know, takes hold strongly enough after they. undo the mandate. So will that catch on in more Republican states? Will Americans decide where to raise their kids based even more on political, in this case public health political issues like that? I also will want to hear Jack Chittorelli's position on that for New Jersey since it's a governor-level policy question. So the new school year has just begun. Some kids started the school year off with a fresh pair of kicks. Others may have a completely new uniform,

But guess what all kids will have to turn in their cell phones at the beginning of the school day? That's that bell to bell smartphone ban. And I know you were able to chat with school's chancellor Melissa Avelis Ramos. What does she share about the new smartphone ban? Yeah, the chancellor was on Tuesday's show. She's enthusiastic about the ban. Where we already have seen device restrictions, we know that attendance is generally higher. We know that engagement is higher.

I speak of this from experience when I was a principal. I collected cell phones and my kids actually talked in the cafeteria because they didn't have their phones. So the experiments started Thursday, first day of school. We'll do a call-in segment next week, maybe the week after, to ask people how it's going. Meanwhile, don't tell anybody. But I've already heard via a few parents that kids are figuring out workarounds like setting up Google Docs for group chats with their friends on their tablets or Chromebooks, which are not banned. But, Janae, I mean it.

Don't tell anyone I told you that that workaround exists. Wow, wow, wow. I knew it was only a matter of time before something like that could happen. So let's switch over to sports for a bit. The Mets and Yankees are entering the home stretch of their seasons. And it's looking like both teams will enter the playoffs this year. How do you think each team will make out, considering, you know, how they're playing right now?

Yeah, thing number five in this episode of four. five things. Sports comes last because we're not going to do the weather. And let me say first that I think the Mets and Yankees are having weirdly similar seasons, both dominating through around mid-June, then these major swoons followed by recent recoveries, both probably headed for the playoffs, like you say, more likely wild card births than winning their division. Both have had epic high hopes at the trade deadline at the end of July from the fresh core of relief pitchers they both picked up. But then both teams suffered epic relief pitcher group collapses, which are continuing. And now both have these late call-up starting pitcher phenoms from the minor leagues,

Nolan McLean, for people who haven't heard that name yet for the Mets and Cam Schlittler for the Yankees, adding new hope. It's going to be a very interesting laugh. few weeks of the regular season. And then I won't make a prediction for the playoffs. Either team could get eliminated right away, or they each have rosters who could get hot and go all the way, but so weirdly similar to each other all season. Maybe there will be a subway series yet. It's been a very engaging season for me as a baseball fan with a lot of good stories,

Juan Soto, switching boroughs, and all the rest. And the ending should be interesting, too, whether it's a happy ending or not. Certainly. Indeed, this has been a happy ending of our time together, Brian. Thank you so much for your time. That's WMYC's Brian Lair. Thank you, Janette. Okay, before we go, a quick update on Mayor Eric Adams and his bid for re-election. In a press conference held late Friday, he once again insisted he's staying in the race. He also used the moment to lash out at Andrew Cuomo. He called the former governor a snake. and a liar, accusing him of fueling rumors that Adams was dropping out in exchange for a job in the Trump administration. A Cuomo spokesperson declined to comment. Adams' announcement comes days after he made a trip to Florida where he met with a Trump advisor. On Thursday, President Trump said he wants to see

the mayor's race become a two-person contest. For more on all of this, head on over to our news site, Gothamist. Thanks for listening to NYC now from WMYC. I'm Junae Pierre. Enjoy the rest of your weekend. We'll be back on Monday.