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USA Today
41 minutes ago
- USA Today
Republicans are afraid of Mamdani in New York. That's a good thing.
Republicans think Zohran Mamdani will turn NYC into a socialist mecca because they forgot what a functioning government looks like. We're a few months out from New York City's municipal election, and Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani is still the frontrunner in the mayoral race. It's a positive sign for progressives who want to see democratic socialists transform the party. In a July poll by Zenith Research and Public Progress Solutions, Mamdani received 50% of support while the rest of the candidates trailed behind. Former Democratic governor Andrew Cuomo, who is now running as an independent, received 22% of support, followed by Republican Curtis Sliwa at 13%. Current Mayor Eric Adams, who is also running as an independent, received just 7% support. Mamdani may be polling well, but his path to victory in November is anything but smooth. There are already five anti-Mamdani PACs that have formed since the primary, backed by business moguls and real estate tycoons who warn that the Democratic nominee would be bad for the city's economy. He's also having to answer for some of his previous posts about 'defunding the police' and comments on Israel. Republicans criticizing Mamdani for 'defund police' comment are hypocritical The biggest criticism of Mamdani has come from his previous comments about the New York City Police Department. In the wake of George Floyd's murder in 2020, Mamdani posted to X that the NYPD was 'racist, anti-queer & a major threat to public safety' and called for defunding the force. Mamdani has also proposed creating a Department of Community Safety separate from the police department, which would respond to mental health calls. But the Democratic nominee is attempting to distance himself from these previous claims, calling the posts 'out of step' with his current stance on public safety. He recently met with the family of Officer Didarul Islam, one of the four people killed in a recent shooting in Midtown Manhattan. Republicans criticizing him seem more than willing to ignore the way President Donald Trump pardoned Jan. 6 rioters who attacked police officers, or his own criminal convictions. But he is the "law and order" president, for sure. And the GOP is the "law and order" party, right? Voters are increasingly agreeing with Mamdani on Gaza Another criticism from the right is that Mamdani is too critical of Israel. Fox News recently resurrected a clip of Mamdani from a 2024 panel where the mayoral candidate claimed, 'Israel is not a place, it is not a country.' Mamdani seems to be taking these attacks to heart. He recently said he would not use the phrase 'globalize the intifada,' and would also discourage others from using it. Mamdani had previously refused to condemn the phrase. On the other hand, Mamdani's criticisms of Israel proved to be popular with voters in the Democratic primary. A poll from Data for Progress and the Institute for Middle East Understanding Policy Project found that his 'support for Palestinian rights' was important for 96% of his voters, while his 'willingness to criticize the Israeli government' was important to 88% of his voters. Opinion: People are starving in Gaza. Why are we so comfortable just letting that happen? While conservatives are trying to attack Mamdani for his previous stances on Israel and his sympathy for the Palestinian people, it doesn't seem like it'll work. Democrats should listen to their voters, not conservatives, to know how to approach this issue. Only 8% of Democrats support Israel's actions in Gaza, according to a recent Gallup poll, while 71% of Republicans support it. Some Republicans are even breaking with the party to denounce mass starvation in the region, including Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Georgia, who recently called the crisis a "genocide." Republicans are afraid of what Mamdani stands for. Good. Mamdani won the primary largely thanks to his mobilization of young voters. It worked out for him: voters under 40 made up 40% of early voting turnout. Now, the question is whether they'll turn out for the general election. I'm hopeful that they will. I have personally seen the way my generation has reacted to Mamdani's campaign. There is a palpable excitement reminiscent of Barack Obama's first run for the presidency, an excitement fueled by the idea that the Democratic Party can change, in spite of itself. Opinion: Zohran Mamdani rallied Gen Z voters. We can't abandon him now. The reasons conservatives are criticizing Mamdani are the reasons people my age voted for him. We believe in moving funding from the NYPD into areas like mental health care and community building. We support Palestinian rights. We want to see that working-class New Yorkers can remain in this city. We see taxing corporations and the wealthy as a good thing. Some may call these things unrealistic, and they may have a point. There's no way New York City becomes a socialist utopia if Mamdani is elected, since he must work with the city council, state and national governments to achieve many of his campaign priorities. But his very election could signal to the Democratic Party that they should run to, not from, progressive politics. Mamdani's path to victory is not an easy one. He will continue to face criticism from the right throughout the next few months. But if polling is any indication, he's still likely to be the next mayor of the largest city in the United States. Follow USA TODAY columnist Sara Pequeño on X, formerly Twitter, @sara__pequeno
Yahoo
3 hours ago
- Yahoo
Kyiv hit with Russian attack: What it felt like on the ground
Robert Sherman is a White House correspondent for NewsNation. He is reporting from Ukraine. Subscribe to his newsletter: Frontlines with Robert Sherman here. (NewsNation) — It almost looks normal. Maybe it's the bustling McDonald's our team got coffee at this morning. Maybe it's the young couple sharing an ice cream cone in Independence Square. Or the police officers stationed on the highway with their radar guns preparing to write tickets to speeders, as if that were the biggest concern in the world. It look little time for reality to sink in for our NewsNation crew. WATCH: Sleepless night in Kyiv Overnight, Ukraine's capital of Kyiv came under fire from a Russian attack. Sirens blared and intercoms urged people to take shelter as people hastily headed for lower ground. For some, that meant taking shelter in the subway station beneath the city for safety. That first missile impact, which rocked the capital, sent a pulsing wave through the whole city, rattling my hotel. It was several miles away, but the laws of physics (and for that matter the might of modern warfare) made it seem anything but. We stayed put in the center of Kyiv, which locals say is about as safe as it gets here. The sunrise couldn't come sooner. But when it did, new clarity came with the beating rays of this Eastern European Thursday morning. Our team made our way to one of the impact sites in Kyiv hours after the attacks subsided, and what we saw was a residential building blown to pieces. Half of the structure was collapsing in on itself as first responders worked hastily to pick through the rubble. Even before we spoke with the local officials leading the operation, we knew what was happening. The giveaway was the countless faces, concealed by cupped hands over mouths, staring incredulously at the site. The anxiety in their eyes, in too much shock to produce tears, could not unglue from the building. Hundreds were waiting for news. Did their loved ones survive? Could there be a harmless reason they were considered 'missing'? VIDEO: Back in Ukraine Moment by moment, as first responders called the surnames of family members, the painful truth became evident. They were gone. Buried beneath the rubble and lost in a single moment in time. The death toll from this one incident alone is still fluid as of this writing Thursday evening, but it's confirmed to be at least 16 including two children, according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. The president also says more than 150 are injured including 16 children and six police officers. It was impossible to know the nature of the drone and missile attack from our vantage point in the early morning hours. Even standing there at the scene, I couldn't possibly get the full scope of what transpired. But when I started to see the videos coming in of the Kyiv skyline and multiple plumes of fire erupting, everything started to come into focus. It was a large-scale attack that even locals called 'crazy.' Just days after President Trump announced he was upping the pressure on Russia to make strides toward peace, imposing a new deadline of 10 or 12 days from Monday which would be sometime in the territory of Aug. 7-9, Russia made it's next didn't sleep last night. And in our conversations with the people on the streets today, they don't anticipate that will be changing anytime soon. Our NewsNation coverage from Ukraine will continue through next week. I'll be filing some exclusive reports in the coming day that I hope will shed some insight on what this war looks like nearly three and a half years in. If you have a question or observation, please write to me at rsherman@ or through any of my social media channels such as Facebook, X, Instagram or TikTok. The views expressed in this article are those of the author and not necessarily of NewsNation. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
5 hours ago
It's Trump's economy now. The latest financial numbers offer some warning signs
WASHINGTON -- For all of President Donald Trump's promises of an economic 'golden age,' a spate of weak indicators this week told a potentially worrisome story as the impacts of his policies are coming into focus. Job gains are dwindling. Inflation is ticking upward. Growth has slowed compared to last year. More than six months into his term, Trump's blitz of tariff hikes and his new tax and spending bill have remodeled America's trading, manufacturing, energy and tax systems to his own liking. He's eager to take credit for any wins that might occur and is hunting for someone else to blame if the financial situation starts to totter. But as of now, this is not the boom the Republican president promised, and his ability to blame his Democratic predecessor, Joe Biden, for any economic challenges has faded as the world economy hangs on his every word and social media post. When Friday's jobs report turned out to be decidedly bleak, Trump ignored the warnings in the data and fired the head of the agency that produces the monthly jobs figures. 'Important numbers like this must be fair and accurate, they can't be manipulated for political purposes,' Trump said on Truth Social, without offering evidence for his claim. 'The Economy is BOOMING.' It's possible that the disappointing numbers are growing pains from the rapid transformation caused by Trump and that stronger growth will return — or they may be a preview of even more disruption to come. Trump's aggressive use of tariffs, executive actions, spending cuts and tax code changes carries significant political risk if he is unable to deliver middle-class prosperity. The effects of his new tariffs are still several months away from rippling through the economy, right as many Trump allies in Congress will be campaigning in the midterm elections. 'Considering how early we are in his term, Trump's had an unusually big impact on the economy already,' said Alex Conant, a Republican strategist at Firehouse Strategies. 'The full inflationary impact of the tariffs won't be felt until 2026. Unfortunately for Republicans, that's also an election year.' The White House portrayed the blitz of trade frameworks leading up to Thursday's tariff announcement as proof of his negotiating prowess. The European Union, Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, Indonesia and other nations that the White House declined to name agreed that the U.S. could increase its tariffs on their goods without doing the same to American products. Trump simply set rates on other countries that lacked settlements. The costs of those tariffs — taxes paid on imports to the U.S. — will be most felt by many Americans in the form of higher prices, but to what extent remains uncertain. 'For the White House and their allies, a key part of managing the expectations and politics of the Trump economy is maintaining vigilance when it comes to public perceptions,' said Kevin Madden, a Republican strategist. Just 38% of adults approve of Trump's handling of the economy, according to a July poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs. That's down from the end of Trump's first term when half of adults approved of his economic leadership. The White House paints a rosier image, seeing the economy emerging from a period of uncertainty after Trump's restructuring and repeating the economic gains seen in his first term before the pandemic struck. 'President Trump is implementing the very same policy mix of deregulation, fairer trade, and pro-growth tax cuts at an even bigger scale – as these policies take effect, the best is yet to come,' White House spokesman Kush Desai said. The economic numbers over the past week show the difficulties that Trump might face if the numbers continue on their current path: — Friday's jobs report showed that U.S. employers have shed 37,000 manufacturing jobs since Trump's tariff launch in April, undermining prior White House claims of a factory revival. — Net hiring has plummeted over the past three months with job gains of just 73,000 in July, 14,000 in June and 19,000 in May — a combined 258,000 jobs lower than previously indicated. On average last year, the economy added 168,000 jobs a month. — A Thursday inflation report showed that prices have risen 2.6% over the year that ended in June, an increase in the personal consumption expenditures price index from 2.2% in April. Prices of heavily imported items, such as appliances, furniture, and toys and games, jumped from May to June. — On Wednesday, a report on gross domestic product — the broadest measure of the U.S. economy — showed that it grew at an annual rate of less than 1.3% during the first half of the year, down sharply from 2.8% growth last year. 'The economy's just kind of slogging forward,' said Guy Berger, senior fellow at the Burning Glass Institute, which studies employment trends. 'Yes, the unemployment rate's not going up, but we're adding very few jobs. The economy's been growing very slowly. It just looks like a 'meh' economy is continuing.' Trump has sought to pin the blame for any economic troubles on Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, saying the Fed should cut its benchmark interest rates even though doing so could generate more inflation. Trump has publicly backed two Fed governors, Christoper Waller and Michelle Bowman, for voting for rate cuts at Wednesday's meeting. But their logic is not what the president wants to hear: They were worried, in part, about a slowing job market. But this is a major economic gamble being undertaken by Trump and those pushing for lower rates under the belief that mortgages will also become more affordable as a result and boost homebuying activity. His tariff policy has changed repeatedly over the last six months, with the latest import tax numbers serving as a substitute for what the president announced in April, which provoked a stock market sell-off. It might not be a simple one-time adjustment as some Fed board members and Trump administration officials argue. Of course, Trump can't say no one warned him about the possible consequences of his economic policies. Biden, then the outgoing president, did just that in a speech last December at the Brookings Institution, saying the cost of the tariffs would eventually hit American workers and businesses. 'He seems determined to impose steep, universal tariffs on all imported goods brought into this country on the mistaken belief that foreign countries will bear the cost of those tariffs rather than the American consumer,' Biden said. 'I believe this approach is a major mistake.'
