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August 7, 2025 6 mins
What does it mean now that President Trump is trying to stop Zohran Mamdani? Laura and Larry break it down on how it could reshape the landscape in NYC. The New York Times surprised a lot of people with their article about what a Mamdani NYC would look like. 
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Episode Transcript

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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Well, now, let's talk about the story of the day,
Donald Trump being involved in the may oral race in
more ways than we knew. We're going to talk about
that with Laura Curran, political commentator and former NASA County executive.
She's with us every Thursday at this time.

Speaker 2 (00:17):
Good morning, Laura, Hi, good morning. How are you, Larry.

Speaker 1 (00:21):
It was I'm good. It was kind of a surprise.
I'm doing better, I think than Andrew Cuomo and Eric
Adams at this point, because I don't think they saw
this coming and didn't want this out. But The New
York Times quotes four different sources as saying that Donald
Trump behind the scenes has been making phone calls about

(00:42):
possibly consolidating candidates to beat zorin Mom Donnie and had
personal phone calls with Andrew Cuomo and with Eric Adams.
By the way, they're all denying this, but The New
York Times says they have several sources. I'm just going
to lay that out there. You tell me what that means.

Speaker 2 (01:00):
Well, when I first heard that, I was very skeptical
because I would think strategically it would be helpful for
Republicans to have Mom Donnie as the mayor, because then
for the midterms next year, they could tie all of
the Democrats running to a socialist New York City mayor.

(01:21):
But maybe I'm being too cynical. Maybe my eye is
too jaded. And I also don't see Trump, and maybe
I'm not fully understanding him. I just don't see him
as a person who is really concerned about taking a
sort of moderate course and being helpful and being moderate,
like that's sort of off brand for him, unless there's

(01:43):
something going on that I don't know. I mean the
fact that The New York Times has four sources, and
you know that whatever people think about The New York Times,
they are ironclad when it comes to sources, and they're
not going to publish something that they don't think is
true or at least very well sourced. So I just
I this whole thing sort of puzzling, and I'd really
love to know what the truth is, because honestly, I

(02:04):
would think Mom Jhnny would be his pick just for
political purposes, or Adams, because Eric Adams has proven to
be quite loyal and helpful and Adams kind of owes
him for pardoning him from all those corruption charges.

Speaker 1 (02:18):
Yeah, it is interesting. They also have phone calls that
he made with Mark pen and with a former city
councilman that he's friendly with. All these phone calls, they
had a whole lot of information. And let's play chess
with this for a second, because I think you're right.
I think the Republicans, deep down once they're in Mom
Donnie to win nationally, not in the city, but nationally,

(02:39):
they want him to win. So, yeah, exactly, so they
can run against him. Who does this help the most
and who does this hurt the most that this story
is out there that Donald Trump wants Andrew Cuomo?

Speaker 2 (02:53):
Yeah exactly, it could. It sort of smells a little
bit like mischief making because this actually hurts Cuomo and
it hurts Adams. And so maybe in the end it
helps mom Donnie. And he's not wasting any time in
making political hay out of this and scoring points on this.
This is like a slam dunk for him, and he's

(03:15):
already had in the polls. So I don't know, Trump,
It's not popular with a lot of New York City voters.
I don't have to tell you that. And maybe this
is the way to muddy the waters in such a
way to really help Moaney in a very chess like
three D chess.

Speaker 1 (03:28):
Left way, because look what happened to Eric Adams as
soon as he was tied to Donald Trump. He has
no shots. He's in single digits in some of the
polls in running and everybody says it's because he's tied
to Trump.

Speaker 2 (03:42):
Yeah, so maybe the initial thing we were talking about
is true. They want Mom Donnie to win and this
is just a three D chess kind of way to
get to make it happen.

Speaker 1 (03:53):
Yeah. So, Laura, how do you feel about Zora and
Mom Donnie.

Speaker 2 (03:57):
Well? I find him obviously, I'm not a socialist, so
that's not my jam at all. The anti Semitism stuff
is troubling. I have to be honest about that. But
also it's unmistakable that he's a very talented politician. I
mean the way he's been able to communicate so clearly
that people know who he is, they know what he

(04:18):
stands for, They like him. He seems very approachable, he
seems very much of the people, and I think he's
going to be hard to beat. I mean, we are
seeing a newly energized Cuomo campaign, which I think is good.
He is all over the place. He's putting out really
good content. So but he's you know, what is it

(04:40):
ten points behind right now? So I know it's November,
but but it's you know, and this Trump stuff, now,
this is that's going to be such a distraction for
the Cuomo campaign and the Adams campaign. You know, they
have to get through all of this now. It's hard
enough without having to deal with this.

Speaker 1 (04:58):
Yeah. I don't know where this goes from here, but
you're right, this is a bomb that dropped in the
middle of this campaign. It's not just a one off story.
This is going to come up. I'm it's interesting that
Cuomo didn't come out in front of this. He put
out a statement. I don't think he wants his face
on camera right now until he figures out his hell
he's going to handle this, But it is a bombshell.
But I also agree Zura Mamdani is really good. He's

(05:21):
a great politician, and he tapped into something with affordability
that the rest of the Democratic Party is going to
going to follow. He just can't do anything he says
he's going to do. He just can't. It's it defies gravity.

Speaker 2 (05:34):
And you know, the other interesting thing the polls that
Jewish voters favor him by quite a lot compared to Cuomo.

Speaker 1 (05:41):
I don't believe that poll. I don't. I don't buy
that poll for a second.

Speaker 2 (05:44):
May not it may not be true. I don't know.
But but Momdanni is certainly hanging out with a lot
of Jewish people, alives, these people on his campaign. So
I think he sees this as a vulnerability and he's
going to work as hard as you can to mitigate
it as much as possible. And that you know, who knows.
It's one poll, but it'll be interesting to see in
the end who votes for whom.

Speaker 1 (06:02):
Yeah, it's a poll he's tied to, so I you know,
I'm discounting that one completely. Laura Cerrn, political commentator and
former NASA county executives. He's with us every Thursday at
eight oh five. We're gonna be talking about this a lot. Laura.

Speaker 2 (06:17):
Oh yeah, all right, thanks a lot.
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