Andrew Cuomo faces a pile-on and other takeaways from New York City mayoral debate
CNN
Progressives gang up against Cuomo
Andrew Cuomo faced a two-hour pile-on Wednesday as eight other Democrats vying for the party’s nomination for New York City mayor spent their first debate attempting to knock the former governor off his perch. Cuomo faced attacks over his management of the coronavirus pandemic and the sexual harassment allegations that drove him out of the governor’s office. In particular, he sparred with his biggest progressive rival, state assemblyman Zohran Mamdani. All of them sought to demonstrate that they’d be best able to stand up to President Donald Trump, a native New Yorker who has frequently targeted his hometown. The Trump administration earlier in the day escalated its fight with Columbia University, on the city’s Upper West Side, declaring the school doesn’t meet accreditation standards due to its failure to protect Jewish students. Many used the current mayor, Eric Adams, as a foil after Trump’s Justice Department dropped its corruption investigation against him. Adams dropped out of the Democratic primary and is seeking re-election as an independent. Ultimately, in the first of two debates before the June 24 primary, there was no obvious breakout moment to change the dynamics of the race, with Cuomo as the front-runner and Mamdani seen as a leading progressive challenger. The underdogs often talked over each other — and the moderators — as they vied for attention. They wouldn’t answer when asked who they plan to rank second on their primary ballots, even though second-place votes could be crucial as low performers are winnowed out by New York’s ranked-choice system.
Speaker Mike Johnson is a political survivor, weathering crisis after crisis since his unlikely ascent two years ago.
Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Elena Kagan are well matched, rhetorically forceful opposites. And they have been clashing for more than a decade over an increasingly relevant question of presidential power: How easy should it be for the president to fire the heads of independent agencies?
The Army gynecologist described in a recent lawsuit as a “predator in uniform” is now being held in the Bell County Jail in Texas, “after apparently violating conditions of liberty imposed by his commander,” according to an Army spokesperson.
Brian Walshe on Thursday came face-to-face for the first time with the man who had been having an affair with his wife before her death, as he took the stand to testify in Walshe’s murder trial.
The Supreme Court on Thursday allowed Texas to use a congressional map that will boost President Donald Trump’s effort to keep Republicans in control of Congress, blocking a lower court decision that found the new boundaries were likely unconstitutional because they were drawn based on race.
The US military carried out a strike Thursday on a suspected drug boat in the Eastern Pacific, killing four people on board, according to a social media post from US Southern Command.
A grand jury voted against indicting New York Attorney General Letitia James after being asked to look at the mortgage fraud case against her a second time, according to multiple people familiar with the development Thursday.
National Guard troops deployed to Washington, DC, can remain there for now, after a federal appeals court on Thursday temporarily froze a judge’s ruling that would have soon required them to leave the city’s streets.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s bad week just got worse. That’s after the long-awaited release Thursday of an inspector general’s report on his sharing of highly sensitive military attack plans on the unclassified app Signal earlier this year.
President Donald Trump has hired a new architect for the White House ballroom amid disputes between the president and his architect originally contracted to complete the project, several sources have told CNN.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth risked compromising sensitive military information that could have endangered US troops through his use of Signal to discuss attack plans, a Pentagon watchdog said in an unclassified report released Thursday. It also details how Hegseth declined to cooperate with the probe.
If nothing else, the controversy over the Trump administration’s second strike on an alleged drug boat in the Caribbean has surfaced a long-overdue debate about its already legally dubious first strikes.
Two top House lawmakers emerged divided along party lines after a private briefing with the military official who oversaw September’s attack on an alleged drug vessel that included a so-called double-tap strike that killed surviving crew members, with a top Democrat calling video of the incident that was shared as part of the briefing “one of the most troubling things” he has seen as a lawmaker.