Mamdani Blasts Cuomo’s “Betrayal” With Trump Phone Call

New York City Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani excoriated Andrew Cuomo’s recent call with President Donald Trump as a “betrayal” to the entire city.

“It is at this very site that we understand the cost of this news, that former Governor Cuomo has been conspiring with President Trump about the fate of this city, about the future of this city, about the facts of this race,” Mamdani said at a Thursday press conference. “It is knowledge that is a betrayal of everything we stand for as New Yorkers. It is knowledge that disappoints us, and yet it does not surprise us. Because it builds on a history that we have seen with this former governor, a history of trying to hide that which he knows is offensive to the values of this city from the people of this city. We see that with this call itself.”

The New York Times reported Wednesday that Cuomo “spoke about the race directly” with the president in recent weeks. Though it’s not clear who initiated the call, or what the two spoke about, Mamdani pointed out that it taking place is enough to condemn Cuomo.

“We know that this former governor has very little regard, whether it be for the Democratic Party, the democratic process, or for Democrats themselves,” Mamdani said. “Because he would rather look past having been beaten by close to 13 points, by a campaign that amassed more votes than any Democratic primary winner in New York City history, to the extent that he would actually have a conversation with the very president who is stealing food from the hungry, who is throwing New Yorkers and Americans from coast to coast off of their health care, and doing so all in service of yet another significant wealth transfer between those who do not have enough in their pocket to those who have more than they know what to do with.”

The Times detailed that Trump and Cuomo’s phone call came as Trump reportedly considers intervening in New York’s mayoral race to help reinforce the anti-Mamdani Wall Street base that has scrambled to get behind either Cuomo or Mayor Eric Adams. Trump has already attacked Mamdani, making unsubstantiated claims about his citizenship and calling him a “communist lunatic.”

It’s clear that Cuomo, who was unable to overcome his sexual harassment and corruption scandals in the primary, is turning back to his true home with the wealthy elites of New York. Trump and Cuomo go way back, as Cuomo’s father, Mario, served as lawyer to the president’s father in the 1980s.

“We know that Andrew Cuomo will sell working people out for his interests, for the interests of the billionaires that supported him, for the interests of Donald Trump. Because all of those interests are lining up as one and the same,” Mamdani continued. “It is time for us to say enough. It is time for us to make clear that what this city deserves is a mayor who when he sees Donald Trump attacking the people of this city, will stand up and fight back against that vision, [and] will not get on the phone with the architect of that vision to speak about a race that we already know should be a referendum on how to make the most expensive city in the United States of America affordable. Not a question of how we can install yet another ambassador for Washington, D.C., in City Hall.”

Unlike Sydney Sweeney, MAGA Representative Mike Collins of Georgia needed AI to generate his great jeans.

Collins shared a cringey AI-generated video on X Wednesday, as a nod to the controversial American Eagle denim campaign that is being fiercely defended by the right, including by President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance.

The video made by Brenden Dilley, a far-right podcaster and seemingly self-proclaimed lead of Trump’s “meme team,” showed Collins’s head pasted on a male model’s denim-clad body. The figure brushes his hand through his hair, glowering at the camera before he turns, strutting away as Charlie Boy’s 2009 song “I Look Good” plays in the background.

The onscreen caption reads, “Mike Collins Has Great Jeans,” but the Georgia Republican added his own message in his repost.

“The Georgia cotton industry supports over 53,000 jobs, has a $3 BN economic impact, and makes some of the finest jeans around. I will always fight for our farmers, growers and producers, and Georgia’s rural culture and economy,” he wrote.

Users on X accused Collins of copying former Senator David Perdue, who donned a faded denim jacket in an attempt to appeal to everyday Georgians in his 2014 campaign ad “The Outsider.” The Washington Post even credited the ad with winning Perdue his seat. In 2020, Perdue wore his campaign-winning jacket again—but was defeated by Democratic Senator Jon Ossoff.

Notably, Collins didn’t actually summon up any folksy charm—a computer did it for him.

Collins recently launched his campaign to “take back control” of one of Georgia’s Senate seats from Ossoff with a video that misspelled the name of his own state.

NPR has obtained police bodycam footage of Trump Justice Department official Jared Wise calling on January 6 rioters to kill police officers.

“You guys are disgusting, man. You guys are disgusting,” Wise can be seen and heard saying on the footage. “I’m former law enforcement, you’re disgusting. You are the Nazi, you are the Gestapo, you can’t see it, cuz you’re chasing your pension.”

“Yeah! Fuck them, yeah! Kill ’em, yeah!” he later cheers as rioters push their way forward.

Wise’s incendiary statements, which he admitted to under oath in January, first made headlines in July after he was appointed senior counselor to Ed Martin, who was working to help January 6 rioters fight against “improper investigative tactics and unethical prosecutions.”

Wise defended his speech as a heat of the moment action influenced by what he saw as “police brutality” on the part of the Capitol officers.

“Those are terrible things to say. Of course. I shouldn’t say those things,” he said in court. “I think I was careless and used, like, terrible words when I was angry.”

Wise worked for the FBI from 2004 to 2017 before moving on to the far-right propaganda machine Project Veritas, where he infiltrated teachers’ unions across the Midwest. Wise was charged with two felonies and four misdemeanor counts in 2023, including trespassing and disrupting the orderly conduct of government, for his actions on January 6. All of his charges (and the charges of hundreds of other rioters) were dropped by Trump.

Wise’s pardoning and senior appointment show that Trump truly sees no wrong in what happened on January 6, and he won’t even pretend to. Rather than display any level of accountability, he rewards and uplifts those, like Wise, who called for violence against police and against the country in his name.

President Donald Trump announced his plan to conduct a new U.S. census that excludes undocumented immigrants on Thursday.

“I have instructed our Department of Commerce to immediately begin work on a new and highly accurate CENSUS based on modern day facts and figures and, importantly, using the results and information gained from the Presidential Election of 2024,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. 

“People who are in our Country illegally WILL NOT BE COUNTED IN THE CENSUS. Thank you for your attention to this matter!” he continued.

The census is counted every 10 years and is the gold standard for population tallying. It’s used to determine how many House seats each state has and allocate federal funding. The census counts everyone living in the U.S., including “foreign-born” residents like naturalized citizens, people with green cards, undocumented immigrants, refugees, and students here on visas. 

Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, an immigration lawyer with the American Immigration Council, called Trump’s proposal  “wildly unconstitutional.”

“The Constitution makes clear that all people must be counted. Not all citizens. People,” he wrote. 

Trump has attempted to alter the census before: In his first term, he tried to add a question about citizenship to the 2020 census and was blocked by the Supreme Court. 

The president’s hope to conduct the census sooner also aligns with his gerrymandering scheme, as redistricting is only meant to take place once every decade, after the census is completed. 

Detainees at “Alligator Alcatraz” are being kept in a “human-sized kennel,” according to a former corrections officer at Donald Trump’s wetland-themed concentration camp.

In an exclusive interview with NBC6, Lindsey, who was identified by only her first name, said that people being held at the hastily constructed immigrant detention facility in the Florida Everglades were being treated like animals. 

“It’s inhumane the way that they’re keeping their residents,” she told NBC6. 

Lindsey described each tent at the facility as having eight large cages, housing 35 to 38 inmates, so around 300 per tent. “They have no sunlight. There’s no clock in there. They don’t even know what time of the day it is. They have no access to showers. They shower every other day or every four days,” she said. 

Detainees have previously alleged identical horrific conditions, claiming that they had no access to water and had not been allowed to bathe.  

Lindsey said that rain had been a problem, sending water pouring into the tents. Last month, there were reports of extensive flooding at the facility. 

She also reported that there had been similar problems with the employee housing, which was a shared trailer. “We had to use the porta-johns. We didn’t have hot water half the time. Our bathrooms were backed up,” Lindsey said.

Human Rights Watch reported nearly 72 percent of people detained by Immigration Customs Enforcement had no criminal history. Lindsey similarly told NBC6 that “not everybody there is a criminal.”

Lindsey said she’d worked at the facility for about a week before contracting Covid-19, after which she was fired, having been accused of “altering medical paperwork” submitted to Gardaworld, the private security company responsible for staffing “Alligator Alcatraz.” She said she was “pissed off” about being fired. 

“But more so than ever, like, they’re doing wrong,” she added.

Judges overseeing lawsuits against the facility are still attempting to determine who has actual authority over it, as the federal government has failed to produce an official agreement between Florida’s Division of Emergency Management and the Department of Homeland Security.