NYC NOW - Midday News: AG James Sues Trump Administration Over FEMA Cuts, Famous 60’s Pop Singer from NJ Passes Away, and More on Mamdani’s Private Meeting with Power Brokers

Episode Date: July 17, 2025

New York State Attorney Letitia James is suing the Trump administration to try and save a FEMA program that would fund 38 infrastructure projects in the state. The affected programs are meant to help shield against disasters like rapid flooding. Meanwhile, Pop singer and New Jersey native Connie Francis, has died at the age of 87. Also, on this week’s politics segment, WNYC’s Elizabeth Kim and Brigid Bergin give the latest updates on the New York City Mayoral race including candidate Zohran Mamdani’s private meeting with power brokers.

Welcome to NYC Now, your source for local news in and around New York City from WMYC. It's Thursday, July 17th. Here's the midday news from Veronica DeValle. State Attorney General Letitia James is suing the Trump administration to try and save a FEMA program that would fund 38 infrastructure projects in the state. The affected programs are meant to help shield against disasters like rapid flooding. New York is one of 20 states joining the lawsuit as it dries out from this week's intense flooding. Local officials say projects like an initiative to protect about 45,000 people from flooding at the Harlem River are at risk. James says the cuts put millions of New Yorkers in danger from climate disaster.

Pop singer and a New Jersey native Connie Francis has died at the age of 87. Her longtime friend in recording label president Ron Roberts confirmed her death. Francis Foast rose to pop stardom in the 50s and 60s. She was the first woman to top the Billboard Hot 100 with her song Everyone's Fool in 1960. But more recently, the singer had a resurgence when her song Pretty Little Baby went viral on TikTok this year. 85 and mostly cloudy right now with a heat advisory still in effect today, slim chance of mid-afternoon showers, partly sunny and a high of 92, but feeling closer to 97. Warm winds are gusting as high as 25 miles an hour. Tonight, a low around 73, wind gusts up to 24 miles an hour.

Tomorrow, finally cooling off, mostly sunny with a high of 84. Stick around. There's more to come. I'm Sean Carlson for WNYC. It's time for politics brief, our weekly segment where we normally break down the news out of City Hall and Albany, but today we're going to focus on the race for City Hall. We're joined by WMIC's Bridget Bergen and Elizabeth Kim. So just to recap here, we're entering a new stage of the race. Andrew Cuomo announced he's running as an independent. Mayor Eric Adams was denied matching funds again.

And Democratic nominee, Zoran Mamdani, is changing his tune on some things after a meeting with the city's top business leaders. So Liz, we're going to start with that. Maldi's meeting with business leaders. Catherine Wilde, of the partnership for New York City, who arranged the meeting, came on this show and said Mammani appeared, quote, less scary to these titans of industry. But you've learned about what was actually said there. Can you just walk us through what happened? Sure, Sean. This was a meeting with 130 CEOs and senior executives. It was a meeting at the request of Mammondani, as you said, Wilde did arrange. And they discussed a range of topics, affordable housing, public safety, his fiscal policy.

But, and as she said on the show, Wilde said that they spoke, quote, in depth about his relationship with the Jewish community. And they touched on what has been a lingering controversy for Mamdani, which is his position on the slogan, globalize the antifada. Mamdani said at the meeting that he will, quote, discourage the use of this slogan. And that represented a shift from his prior remarks. Now, just to let, you know, just to remind listeners, this was an issue that erupted days before the primary when he gave an interview on the bulwark podcast. He was asked how he feels about certain phrases used in the pro-Palestinian movement. phrases like globalize the antiphata from the river to the sea, slogans that have been scrutinized more since the October 11th attacks on Israel. And here is what he said.

I know people for whom those things mean very different things. And to me, ultimately, what I hear in so many is a desperate desire for equality and equal rights in standing up for Palestinian human rights. And I think what's... I should correct myself, I meant to say October 7th attacks on Israel. So in speaking to business leaders, some of whom expressed concern that he wasn't willing to condemn the remarks. And that was, in fact, the controversy that erupted was why wasn't he willing to say, because these remarks feel threatening to some people in the Jewish community, why wouldn't he go as far as to say that I will condemn these remarks? To be clear, he himself says that he has never used this slogan. So yesterday what he said to these executives was that he had spoken to a Jewish New Yorker

who had related to him her feeling of being triggered when she heard that specific slogan. And that seemed to, you know, that seemed to affect him. And he said, you know, he himself had kind of viewed that slogan as just anti-colonialist. So that is why he has come out with this, you know, he told them that he will now discourage people from using this slogan. Well, what does this move to back away from that slogan say about Mandani as a candidate in the general election versus the primary? Well, practically speaking, he needs to consolidate support from a wide array of stakeholders and some of whom objected to his refusal to distance and condemn the slogan. Now, is this the number one issue in his campaign? No, but speaking out about Palestinian rights has been central to his identity as a left-wing politician. A lot of his supporters were energized by his support for the Palestinian cause. The question that many people are wondering, though, is, is he an ideologue or is he someone who will be this pragmatic leader who makes concessions?

And if so, what would those concessions be? And this, you can call a concession. Another example is that he's already said he'd be open to keeping Jessica Tisch as police commissioner. She's a technocrat who's very well liked by the business community, but not the kind of reform-minded police leader that the left would prefer. So this, I think, shows that, you know, he is in some ways moderating. But, you know, we're used to when someone becomes a general election candidate having to sort of adjust to this broader base. And particularly when they've tried to make an appeal to maybe a more progressive part of the electorate, you know, talking about issues of income inequality, that there can be a reaction, particularly among business leaders.

Bill de Blasio, you know, would be the first one to tell you. he was elected, you know, very much in response to three years of, excuse me, three terms of Mayor Bloomberg, the billionaire mayor, and faced a lot of pushback, you know, said he was going to confront the tale of two cities. And while he made measurable progress on some of those economic issues by the, you know, final year of his term de Blas, really while he was out trying to mount this presidential campaign, there were business leaders who were so angry with him that they, you know, came out with this open letter attacking his leadership over, you know, the lack of public safety in certain neighborhoods. And so, you know, this is a challenge that, you know, a mayoral candidate

and certainly the mayor, you know, whoever that ends up being, will face. Yeah, yeah. Now, Bridget, you've been keeping your eyes on former governor, Andrew Cuomo. His video and rollout has been quite a departure from his primary campaign, right? You dissected the video in the politics brief newsletter today. Is this a different, Andrew Cuomo? That's a little. that we're seeing? Yeah. I mean, there are definitely differences. But I mean, I think it's really too soon to tell if this is, you know, a whole new Andrew Cuomo. We've heard, you know, Cuomo increasingly acknowledged that they really did not run a good primary campaign. This is from an interview with Arrow Lewis on New York, New York one last night.

All my life, I'm too aggressive, too difficult, too hostily so tall. And then I run a very non-aggressive campaign. Because in the campaign, all the geniuses said I was way ahead for the entire campaign. So the campaign played it safe. So some interesting dynamics there, both someone acknowledging that, yeah, we didn't do the best job we could do, but also kind of blaming some of the people who he had hired to give him guidance to run that campaign. but one of the things that he was more explicit about was he is going to be on the attack against Mamdani. He is going to be criticizing some of his proposed solutions to the affordability crisis.

You know, when he says freeze the rent, one of the things Cuomo said in that conversation was, you know, there are voters who went to the, you know, the poll site and cast their ballot from Mamdani thinking he was going to freeze their rent. Without the nuance of understanding he's talking about freezing the rent for rent-stabilized tenants. And that is a subset of renters here in the city. So I think we're going to hear some more specific attacks from Cuomo. It's unclear if he's got something more positive to offer voters, which was the other appeal Momdani had. Yeah, yeah. We only have like a minute left here, but I want to get to this.

New York City's mayor's race often Gunner's national attention, right? President Trump has weighed in a few times on the race so far. What is the latest from him? Well, yeah, we've talked about how Trump has been very much on the attack against Mumdani. He calls him a communist, even though. he's a Democratic socialist and worse. He's called Eric Adams a good candidate, but most recently this week, President Trump weighed in on Cuomo's return to the race and said that, you know,

he thought he should stay in the race. He thought he had a good shot. And, you know, in a city like New York, it's not clear whether or not that is necessarily going to be helpful for Cuomo. It's a very democratic city, but he is trying to build this sort of anti-Mamondani coalition. You know, Trump really hasn't expressed anything about the Republican in this race, Curtis Sliwa. But Mamdani's campaign really seized on this and said, look, here this, you know, President

Trump is out supporting Cuomo. And he thinks that that is basically red meat for his base, whether Trump is saying good things about Cuomo or good things about Adams. Well, that is politics brief. To hear more from our politics team, be sure to sign up for the politics brief email newsletter at gothamis.com slash newsletters, Liz Bridget. It's a very busy summer. It's going to be very busy.

you fall, you have your work cut out for you. Thanks so much. Stay cool. Thank you. Thanks for listening. This is NYC now from WMYC. Catch us every weekday three times a day for your top news headlines and occasional deep dives. And subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. More soon.