New megabill text revives land sales, axes IRA funding
The committee's proposal, unveiled Wednesday evening, contains many of the provisions in the House-passed H.R. 1, the 'One Big, Beautiful Bill Act' — including ones that would target the Department of Energy's Loan Programs Office or charge a one-time fee to speed up permitting for some natural gas projects.
But there are some significant differences. Most notable is a new section favored by Chair Mike Lee (R-Utah) to revive the sale of public lands, reigniting a firestorm of opposition from advocates. The provision goes further than an abandoned proposal in the House, encompassing Bureau of Land Management and Forest Service lands across 11 Western states.
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ENR's text comes as the Senate is racing to tweak and quickly vote on tax, energy and national security legislation after the House approved its version last month. Republicans are working through the reconciliation process, which will allow them to skirt the Senate filibuster and pass the budget-focused bill with simple majorities.
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Los Angeles Times
2 minutes ago
- Los Angeles Times
How a California cloud-seeding company became the center of a Texas flood conspiracy
Two days before the waters of the Guadalupe River swelled into a deadly and devastating Fourth of July flood in Kerr County, Texas, engineers with a California-based company called Rainmaker took off in an airplane about 100 miles away and dispersed 70 grams of silver iodide into a cloud. Their goal? To make it rain over Texas — part of a weather modification practice known as cloud seeding, which uses chemical compounds to augment water droplets inside clouds, making the drops large enough and heavy enough to fall to the ground. But in the hours after the flood swept through the greater Kerrville area and killed at least 135 people, including three dozen children, conspiracy theories began swirling among a small but vocal group of fringe figures. 'I NEED SOMEONE TO LOOK INTO WHO WAS RESPONSIBLE FOR THIS … WHEN WAS THE LAST CLOUD SEEDING?' wrote Pete Chambers, a former U.S. special forces commander and prominent far-right activist, on the social media platform X. The post received 3.1 million views, yet was only one of several accusations that sprang up around Rainmaker's activities and its alleged connection to the flood. 'Anyone who calls this out as a conspiracy theory can go F themselves,' wrote Michael Flynn, former national security advisor under the first Trump administration, atop a repost of Chambers' tweet. The flurry of allegations was quickly debunked, with a number of independent scientists saying that the company's actions could not have produced anywhere close to the amount of rain that triggered the flood. 'It's very clear that they have nothing to do with it,' said Daniel Swain, a climate scientist with the University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources, in a YouTube briefing following the flood. Rainmaker also denied the claims. The storm dropped as much as four inches of rain per hour over Texas Hill Country, and the river in some places rose by 26 feet in less than 45 minutes. But in some ways, the damage was done. Conspiracy theorists who have long alleged that Deep State Democrats are controlling the weather now had a real incident to point to. And researchers, companies and experts working to study and perform weather modification and geoengineering practices — which some say will be needed as climate change worsens — now have an even bigger hurdle to overcome. Within hours of the deadly flood, Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene said she was introducing a bill to make all forms of weather modification — such as cloud seeding — a felony. 'This is not normal,' the Georgia representative said in a post on X. 'No person, company, entity, or government should ever be allowed to modify our weather by any means possible!!' That same week, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency launched two new websites to 'address public questions and concerns ' about weather modification, geoengineering, and contrails, or the thin clouds that form behind aircraft at high altitudes. 'To anyone who's ever looked up to the streaks in the sky and asked,' what the heck is going on?,' or seen headlines about private actors and even governments looking to blot out the sun in the name of stopping global warming — we've endeavored to answer all of your questions,' EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said in a video accompanying the websites' launch. 'In fact, EPA shares many of the same concerns when it comes to potential threats to human health and the environment.' The EPA website notes that there is a distinction between geoengineering, which involves a broad range of activities designed to modify global temperatures, and weather modification techniques such as cloud seeding, which are generally short-lived and localized. In fact, the process of cloud seeding was invented in the United States and has existed for nearly 80 years. General Electric scientists Vincent Schaefer, Irving Langmuir and Bernard Vonnegut — older brother of the late novelist Kurt Vonnegut — began experimenting with it as early as 1946. On July 2, Rainmaker's team was working in Runge, Texas, about 125 miles southeast of where the Guadalupe River would soon flood, according to Augustus Doricko, founder and chief executive of the company, which is headquartered in El Segundo. The team flew its plane to an elevation of 1,600 feet and dispersed about 70 grams of silver iodide into the clouds — an amount smaller than a handful of Skittles, Doricko said. The bright yellow compound is known to latch onto water droplets that are already present in clouds, converting them into ice crystals that can fall as rain or snow, depending on the temperature below. Soon after the flight, Rainmaker's meteorologists identified an inflow of moisture to the region and advised the team to suspend operations, which they did, Doricko said. Around 1 a.m. the next day, the National Weather Service issued its first flash flood watch for the Kerr County region. Doricko said there's no chance Rainmaker's actions — which were contracted by the nonprofit South Texas Weather Modification Assn. and on file with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration — contributed to the flood. 'The biggest and best cloud seeding operations we've seen to date have produced tens of millions — and maximally like 100 million — gallons of precipitation,' he said. 'We saw in excess of a trillion gallons of precipitation from that flood. Not only could cloud seeding not have caused this, but the aerosols that we dispersed days prior could not have persisted in the atmosphere long enough to have had any consequence on the storm.' Multiple independent experts agreed. During his briefing, Swain noted that cloud seeding does not create new clouds — it must be conducted on preexisting clouds that already have water vapor or small liquid drops inside of them, essentially enhancing what already had the potential to fall. What's more, its effects last 'minutes to maybe an hour,' Swain said. 'Best-case-scenario estimates — absolute best-case — are that these cloud-seeding operations are able to augment the amount of precipitation by at most 10% to 15% over very limited areas,' Swain said. 'On average, it's a lot lower than that. In fact, in some cases, it's difficult to prove that cloud seeding does anything at all.' Indeed, Andrew Dessler, a professor of atmospheric sciences at Texas A&M University, has gone so far as to call cloud seeding a scam — in part because it can prey on farmers and other people who are desperate for rain, and because it typically delivers only modest results, he said. 'There's no physical way that cloud seeding could have made the Texas storm,' Dessler said, noting that the storm was fueled by extremely high levels of atmospheric water that stemmed from a tropical disturbance in the Gulf of Mexico. 'This is a nonsense argument. There's no debate here about whether cloud seeding played a role in this disaster.' Dessler said the whole dust-up surrounding Rainmaker and the Texas flood is a distraction from the very real issues and challenges posed by global warming. The amount of material injected into the atmosphere during cloud seeding and geoengineering operations pales in comparison to the trillions of tons of carbon dioxide humans have already spewed into the atmosphere, he said. 'The real irony here is that in some sense, the argument they're making is correct — there is a conspiracy to change the climate,' Dessler said. 'It's through the emission of carbon dioxide, and it's by fossil fuel interests and the ecosystem that goes with that. That's the conspiracy.' Such limitations haven't stopped governments and municipalities from investing in cloud-seeding technology. One of Rainmaker's first clients was the Utah Department of Natural Resources, which was interested in cloud seeding as a response to the drying of the Great Salt Lake, Doricko said. His company has also contracted with the Colorado Department of Natural Resources, the Oregon Department of Agriculture and multiple municipalities in California, including the Public Works Departments of Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties. David Spiegel, supervising engineer with San Luis Obispo County's Public Works Department, said the county first began exploring cloud-seeding technology in the early 2000s in response to severe drought conditions and dwindling supplies at the Lopez Lake reservoir, which feeds five city agencies nearby. It took years to get the program off the ground, and it didn't ultimately run until 2019 through 2024 — when the state was dealing with yet another drought — to somewhat middling results. Specifically, San Luis Obispo's cloud-seeding program added about 1,200 acre-feet of water per year to the nearly 50,000 acre-foot reservoir, he said. (An acre-foot is about 326,000 gallons.) In its best year, it added about 2,500 acre-feet. Part of the challenge was that there weren't many clouds in the area to work with, Spiegel said. 'We didn't have enough storms to seed because we were still in this drought period, so it was kind of unfortunate.' However, he still saw the program as a success because the small water supply gains that came from the cloud seeding priced out to about $300 per acre-foot — far less than the cost of importing supplies from other sources such as the State Water Project, which can run closer to $1,500 an acre-foot. He said he would still consider cloud seeding in the future should the reservoir run low again. 'We definitely see it as a viable option,' Spiegel said. So far, the state isn't investing in its own cloud-seeding programs, though it does keep a close eye on them, according to Jason Ince, a spokesman with the California Department of Water Resources. He said any groups conducting cloud seeding work are required to notify the agency by submitting a notice of intent. An October report published by the department indicates there have been at least 16 cloud-seeding projects across multiple counties and watersheds in California in recent years. Such efforts could become useful as climate conditions keep moving in the wrong direction: Warming temperatures and overuse are sapping groundwater supplies in California, while state and federal officials are still mired in negotiations over use of the Colorado River — a rapidly shrinking water lifeline that supplies 40 million people across the American West. Meanwhile, global average temperatures continue to soar driven largely by fossil fuel emissions and human activity. Many experts say there's a good chance that some form of intervention — weather modification, geoengineering or some altogether new technology — will be needed in the years ahead. 'Weather modification projects are vital resources to enhance fresh water supply for communities within their watersheds,' the Department of Water Resources report says. It recommends that the state continue to support existing cloud-seeding projects in the state and help facilitate new ones. Speigel, of San Luis Obispo County, said laws banning cloud seeding and other weather modification measures — such as the one posed by Rep. Greene — would be a detriment to the region. 'It would be a setback for us, because we are constantly looking for other opportunities for water,' he said. 'It would limit our ability to seek out means of more water in these long drought periods. ... I definitely think it would stifle our ability to help our customers.' Even more controversial than cloud seeding are geoengineering techniques to block the amount of solar energy reaching the Earth. Some involve injecting sulfur into the stratosphere. A 2021 report on geoengineering published by the National Academies of Sciences affirmed that 'meeting the challenge of climate change requires a portfolio of options,' but advised caution around such methods. '[Solar geoengineering] could potentially offer an additional strategy for responding to climate change but is not a substitute for reducing [greenhouse gas] emissions,' the report says. Dessler, who is also the director of the Texas Center for Extreme Weather at Texas A&M, likened geoengineering to airbags on a car — something no one ever hopes to use but that would be good to have in a climate emergency. He said the focus should continue to be on reducing the use of fossil fuels, and that the talk of banning geoengineering, cloud seeding and other forms of weather modification by members of the Trump administration and some lawmakers is more political than scientific. 'It makes no sense — it shows you that this is not an argument about facts. It's an argument about worldview,' he said. The president has taken many steps to undo efforts to address climate change in recent months, including withdrawing from the Paris climate accord, an agreement among some 200 nations to limit global warming to under 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit). The EPA has also removed several barriers and regulations that govern oil and gas drilling in the U.S., and has said it wants to repeal the endangerment finding — a long-held legal and scientific determination that CO2 emissions harm human health and welfare, among other significant changes. Doricko, Rainmaker's CEO, said he was disappointed to see cloud seeding politicized in the wake of the Texas flood. He was taken aback when he saw that Rep. Greene had posted a picture of his face on X — 'insinuating somewhat that cloud seeding, or I, was responsible for the natural disaster in Texas, when any meteorologist or atmospheric scientist could tell you otherwise,' he said. 'Human civilization is unintentionally modifying the weather and the climate all the time,' Doricko said, including through fossil fuel emissions and urban heat islands that warm surrounding areas. 'What Rainmaker is trying to do is bring some intentionality to that, so that we can modify the weather for our benefit and deliberately.' Doricko said he is also an advocate of more transparent reporting, more stringent regulations, and whatever else is needed to build trust with the public about 'a really consequential technology.' He said he will continue to engage with skeptics of the technology in good faith. 'Cloud seeding is a water supply tool, and whether you're a farmer in a red state or an environmentalist in a blue state, water is as nonpartisan as it gets,' he said. 'Everybody needs water.'
The Hill
2 minutes ago
- The Hill
Epstein saga hangs over Congress's sprint to summer recess
The controversy surrounding the Trump administration's handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files is poised to dominate the conversation on Capitol Hill this week, as Congress sprints to August recess — and prepares to dive into government funding conversations. The House returns to Washington on Monday for its last week before breaking for the long summer recess, while the Senate is in session for its penultimate week, a final stretch that will be inundated by conversations surrounding Epstein, whether the documents related to him should be released and how the Justice Department has dealt with the current uproar. The situation has been a difficult one for Congressional Republicans, who are weighing listening to the MAGA base and calling for the release of the documents against President Trump, who has urged his party to drop the matter. Aside from Epstein, Congress this week will spend some time focusing on government funding, as the Sept. 30 shutdown deadline inches closer. The Senate is expected to consider its first of 12 full-year funding bills, though that effort could be complicated after Republicans passed a bill to claw back $9 billion in federal funding. Also this week, the Senate is scheduled to vote on a number of Trump nominees as the president urges the upper chamber to cancel its August recess. And House Republicans are slated to select a new chair of the Homeland Security Committee following former Chair Mark Green's (R-Tenn.) departure from Congress. Lawmakers confront lingering Epstein scandal The outcry over the Trump administration's handling of the Epstein files is likely to continue this week, as Republicans await the grand jury testimony Trump directed for release and some continue to call for the release of all the documents in the case. Adding to the controversy is a potential — though unlikely — vote in the House on a non-binding resolution, prepared by Republicans, that calls for the release of some materials from the case but gives Attorney General Pam Bondi the ability to exempt some parts. The House Rules Committee advanced the resolution after hours of deliberations last week, delaying a vote on a package to claw back $9 billion in federal funding. Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), however, has not committed to holding a vote on the measure, a posture that will likely spark criticism from Democrats and even some Republicans who want the documents to see the light of day. 'We'll determine what happens with all that,' Johnson said when asked if he will put the Epstein resolution on the floor. 'There's a lot developing. The president made his statements this afternoon, he's asked the attorney general to release the information, I'm certain that she will, and everybody can make their own decisions about that.' Pressed on if he would commit to staging a vote on the legislation, Johnson again stopped short, telling reporters: 'We will see how all this develops.' 'We're in line with the White House, there's no daylight between us,' he added. 'We want transparency, and I think that will be delivered for the people.' Johnson suggested that the vote was a way to give Republicans on the Rules Committee cover after they voted against a different measure last week calling for the release of the documents. In the meantime, reaction is likely to continue rolling in about The Wall Street Journal's reporting that Trump, in 2003, allegedly sent Epstein a 'bawdy' letter for his birthday. Republicans have slammed the report, and Trump sued the outlet and Rupert Murdoch, an owner of the outlet. And lawmakers are awaiting the grand jury transcripts that Trump directed Bondi to release. Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.), who has called for the release of the Epstein files, said, 'I believe that will pretty much cover everything,' referring to the transcripts, but he noted that he still wants all the files to be released. Democrats, meanwhile, are downplaying the importance of the transcripts, arguing that they will only pertain to Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, a convicted sex offender who is serving time for wrongdoing in connection to Epstein. Hanging over the entire controversy is a bipartisan effort, led by Reps. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) and Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), to force a vote on a resolution that calls for the disclosure of Epstein files. The pair is vowing to file a discharge petition for the measure, which already has 10 other GOP supporters. Government shutdown deadline inches closer This week marks the final one that both the House and Senate are in session at the same time before August recess — and before Congress returns to a government funding sprint in September. With less than 10 weeks to go until the shutdown deadline — and less than 20 legislative days until the cliff — Congress is behind the eight ball, staring down a mountain of work that has to be done before funding runs out in Washington. The House has only passed two out of 12 full-year appropriations bills, while the Senate has approved none of the dozen. The upper chamber will try to chip away at their to-do list this week, with an initial procedural vote expected on Tuesday on the bill to fund military construction, the Department of Veterans Affairs and related agencies. Votes on the measures in each chamber, however, are unable to bring Congress closer to averting a government shutdown, since the full-year measures are written at different levels. Adding to the dilemma is the bill Republicans approved this month to claw back $9 billion in federal funding, targeting foreign aid and public broadcasting. Democrats warned that passage of that package would tarnish the appropriations process, setting the stage for a high-stakes stretch to Sept. 30. Earlier this month, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said clearing the legislation — known as a rescissions bill — 'would be an affront to the bipartisan appropriations process.' 'That's why a number of Senate Republicans know it is absurd for them to expect Democrats to act as business as usual and engage in a bipartisan appropriations process to fund the government, while they concurrently plot to pass a purely partisan rescissions bill to defund those same programs negotiated on a bipartisan basis behind the scenes,' he wrote in a letter to colleagues, later adding: 'This is beyond a bait and switch — it is a bait and poison-to-kill.' The current dynamics are making the possibility of a continuing resolution in September more-and-more likely. Senate to vote on nominees as Trump calls for canceling recess The Senate this week is slated to continue churning through Trump's nominees, as the president puts pressure on the upper chamber to confirm more of his picks — and urges Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) to cancel recess for that reason. The focus on nominations comes after the Senate spent considerable floor time on the 'big, beautiful bill' and legislation to lock in cuts made by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which monopolized recent weeks. The Senate will vote on Joshua M. Divine's nomination to be U.S. district judge for the Eastern and Western Districts of Missouri, Cristian M. Stevens's nomination to be U.S. district judge for the Eastern District of Missouri, Aaron Lukas's nomination to be principal deputy director of national intelligence, Bradley Hansell's nomination to be undersecretary of defense for intelligence and security, Arielle Roth's nomination to be assistant secretary of commerce for communications and information, and John Hurley's nomination to be undersecretary for terrorism and financial crimes. The focus on confirming Trump's picks comes after the president over the weekend encouraged Thune to nix the chamber's August recess, which is set to begin at the end of next week and run through the month. 'Hopefully the very talented John Thune, fresh off our many victories over the past two weeks and, indeed, 6 months, will cancel August recess (and long weekends!), in order to get my incredible nominees confirmed. We need them badly!!! DJT' Trump wrote on Truth Social. It remains unclear if Thune will heed the president's advice and cancel recess. While Republicans want to continue confirming Trump's nominees, they are also eager to head home for the month to sell the 'big, beautiful bill' to constituents, which they see as vital as the midterm elections inch closer. House GOP to select new Homeland Security Committee chair House Republicans will vote on a new chairman for the Homeland Security Committee this week, after Green officially resigned from Congress. Republican Reps. Michael Guest (Miss.), Andrew Garbarino (N.Y.), Carlos Gimenez (Fla.) and Clay Higgins (La.) are all vying for the leadership position. The Republican Steering Committee — a group of Republican leaders and regional representatives — is scheduled to meet Monday and recommend a candidate for the job, who will likely be rubber-stamped by the conference later in the week. The four candidates each bring different qualities to the table. Guest, currently serving as chairman of the House Ethics Committee, is a former prosecutor who has held stints as vice chair and a subcommittee chair on the Homeland Security panel. The Mississippi Republican has also underscored that he was an impeachment manager when the House penalized then-Homland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. Garbarino has pointed to his New York roots, arguing that the panel should turn back to its focus on counterterrorism, which was the focal point after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attack. Gimenez, a former mayor and firefighter, has said that his background dealing with emergency planning in Florida, a state prone to hurricanes, has uniquely prepared him for the role. He has also said there should be 'nuance' in some of Trump's immigration policies. And Higgins, a former police officer, is the most senior of the candidates running, giving him a leg up in an environment where seniority is taken into consideration. A number of Louisiana Republicans, however, are already in leadership — Johnson and House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.), for example — which could work against him. Johnson said the candidates have created 'quite a horse race.'
The Hill
2 minutes ago
- The Hill
New York establishment Democrats mull over Mamdani charm offensive
New York Democrats cool to their party's Big Apple mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani are weighing their options as the 33-year-old progressive makes his own pitch to centrists that they should back him. The Democratic establishment has been looking for alternatives, but none really satisfy. Former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo last week announced an independent run after losing the Democratic primary to Mamdani, but a number of Democrats who spoke to The Hill have doubts he can win. Some also haven't forgotten past Cuomo controversies. Incumbent Eric Adams is also running as an independent, but he has had a scandal-tarred career and his tilting toward MAGA and Trump World hasn't won him too many friends in the Democratic establishment. Political observers say there aren't enough moderates to go around for one — let alone two candidates — and if the establishment wants to prevail, either Adams or Cuomo should exit the race. 'You can't have multiple alternatives,' said Grant Reeher, the director of Syracuse University's Campbell Public Affairs Institute. 'I just don't see any way that Mamdani doesn't win unless one of these folks drops out.' 'If I was a Democratic strategist for the whole party in New York City, and I commanded authority, I would put Adams and Cuomo in a room, and I would say, 'You guys are going to flip a coin,'' he added. A HarrisX poll out earlier this month — before Cuomo announced his independent bid — showed Adams trailing with 13 percent of the vote and Mamdani leading with 26 percent, followed by Cuomo at 23 percent, and Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa at 22 percent. In a three-way race without Adams, the same poll revealed Cuomo would lead the field by 2 percentage points in front of Mamdani. Mamdani appears to recognize the potential danger to his candidacy if voters opposed to him rally around one independent choice. The left-wing candidate this past week sought to make inroads with business leaders and establishment Democrats, including during a trip to Washington where he met Democrats at an event with liberal star Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.). On Friday, he met with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) in New York. Following the meeting, a spokesperson for Jeffries called the face-to-face 'constructive, candid and community-centered.' The spokesperson said Jeffries and Mamdani also discussed a 'variety of other important issues including public safety, rising antisemitism, gentrification' and the importance of 'taking back the House in 2026.' Mamdani also recently earned the endorsement of Rep. Ro Khanna (Calif.), another rising Democratic star. Some of Mamdani's efforts appeared to be helping him. 'He's already had those conversations, been in those meetings, and it doesn't seem that there is a wholesale public rebuke of him,' said Democratic strategist Basil Smikle, who served as executive director of the New York State Democratic Party. Smikle said that signals 'that a lot of those constituencies and voters are willing to hear more and are likely going to find a way to work with him.' Mamdani has impressed some Democrats who say the party needs fresh blood. 'He is campaigning like he isn't 94 years old,' said Democratic strategist Eddie Vale, who hails from New York. 'He is out hitting the streets and events and talking to tons of people. He is doing press interviews and podcasts and he is young and natively comfortable online for doing his own videos and social media.' By meeting with establishment operatives and backers, Mamdani has been chipping away at a part of the electorate that strategists say is critical to both Cuomo and Adams. The two independents are, 'for a number of moderate voters, the business community, the real estate community, a firewall against more progressive politics,' Smilke said. Some observers in the race differ over who is the stronger challenger to Mamdani. New-York based Republican strategist Susan Del Percio, who worked for Cuomo as a special adviser in 2014, holds the view it is Adams. 'Cuomo has lost once; he probably will lose again,' she said. 'The only one who really has a path when it comes down to Cuomo, Sliwa, and Adams is Adams,' Del Percio added. 'If he's willing to reinvent himself a bit in light of people being scared of Mamdani — it's almost Cuomo's argument, except I think that there's more that Adams can do now.' 'If you tell [Adams] now, 'You may actually be able to win,' he'll twist himself into a pretzel to do it,' Del Percio added. 'If you told him he had to be disciplined, and this is how you do it, and he has a real campaign, I think he could do it.' Other voices who think Cuomo could win more support point to Adams's unpopular tenure as mayor. While Adams was charged with corruption charges last year, a judge permanently dismissed them in April. The dismissal came weeks after the Trump administration asked prosecutors to drop the charges against Adams. Reeher said Adams has been tarnished with financial corruption and incompetency. 'Nobody's really making the argument that Andrew Cuomo is incompetent and doesn't know what he's doing,' he said. Cuomo faces his own hurdles. The former governor's time in Albany came to an end with 13 women accusing of him sexual assault and accusations that the state purposefully under-reported COVID-19 deaths in nursing homes. And his political opponents, particularly Mamdani, have not let him or the New York City electorate forget it. Some criticized Cuomo for reentering the race last week with an ad filmed on the Upper East Side, a sign to political observers that he has learned nothing about appealing to the issue that New Yorkers care most about — and the issue Mamdani won on in the Democratic primary — affordability. But there is still great worry about Mamdani in the party, strategists acknowledge. 'He can't be the future of the party,' one strategist said. 'He's only going to be fodder for Republicans.' Reeher agreed, saying 'If I put myself in the place of a Republican strategist, I'm wanting [Mamdani] to win.' 'I can imagine the advertisement would be … a list of some of the most extreme things that he has stood for … and I would say, 'This is what Democrats do when they're left to their own devices,'' he said.
