3 Sept. 11 Victims’ Remains are Newly Identified, Nearly 24 Years Later

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3 Sept. 11 Victims’ Remains are Newly Identified, Nearly 24 Years Later

Three 9/11 victims’ remains have newly been identified, officials said this week, as evolving DNA technology keeps making gradual gains in the nearly quarter-century-long effort to return the remains of the dead to their loved ones.

New York City officials announced Thursday they had identified remains of Ryan D. Fitzgerald, a 26-year-old currency trader; Barbara A. Keating, a 72-year-old retired nonprofit executive; and another woman whose name authorities kept private at her family’s request.

They were identified through now-improved DNA testing of minute remains found more than 20 years ago amid the wreckage of the World Trade Center after the al-Qaida hijacked-plane attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the city medical examiner’s office said.

“Each new identification testifies to the promise of science and sustained outreach to families despite the passage of time,” chief medical examiner Dr. Jason Graham said in a statement. “We continue this work as our way of honoring the lost.”

Keating’s son, Paul Keating, told media outlets he was amazed and impressed by the enduring endeavor.

“It’s just an amazing feat, gesture,” he told the New York Post. He said genetic material from part of his mother’s hairbrush was matched to DNA samples from relatives. A bit of his mother’s ATM card was the only other trace of her ever recovered from the debris, he said.

Barbara Keating was a passenger on Boston-to-Los Angeles-bound American Airlines Flight 11 when hijackers slammed it into the World Trade Center. She was headed home to Palm Springs, California, after spending the summer on Massachusetts’ Cape Cod. 

Keating had spent her career in social services, including a time as executive director of the Big Brothers Big Sisters of South Middlesex, near Boston. In retirement, she was involved in her Roman Catholic church in Palm Springs.

The Associated Press sent messages Friday to her family and left messages at possible numbers for Fitzgerald’s relatives.

Fitzgerald, who lived in Manhattan, was working at a financial firm at the trade center, studying for a master’s degree in business and talking about a long-term future with his girlfriend, according to obituaries published at the time.

In all, nearly 3,000 people were killed when the hijackers crashed jetliners into the trade center’s twin towers, the Pentagon and a field in southwest Pennsylvania on 9/11. The vast majority of the victims, more than 2,700, perished at the trade center.

The New York medical examiner’s office has steadily added to the roster of those with identified remains, most recently last year. The agency has tested and retested fragments as techniques advanced over the years and created new prospects for reading genetic code diminished by fire, sunlight, bacteria and more.

“We hope the families receiving answers from the Office of Chief Medical Examiner can take solace in the city’s tireless dedication to this mission,” New York Mayor Eric Adams, a Democrat, said in a statement Thursday.

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press.

Trump Authorized Military Operations on Foreign Soil to Target Latin American Cartels

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Trump Authorized Military Operations on Foreign Soil to Target Latin American Cartels

(Dave DeCamp, Antiwar.com) President Donald Trump has ordered the US military to take direct actions against Latin American cartels, including conducting operations on foreign soil. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has labeled Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro the leader of a cartel and is offering a $50 million reward for his capture. 

The New York Times reports, “President Trump has secretly signed a directive to the Pentagon to begin using military force against certain Latin American drug cartels that his administration has deemed terrorist organizations.”

The Times adds, “The order provides an official basis for the possibility of direct military operations at sea and on foreign soil against cartels.”

Since President Donald Trump returned to the White House, the State and Treasury Departments have listed several Latin American cartels as Specially Designated Global Terrorists. The targeted gangs include Tren de Aragua (TdA), Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13), and Cártel de Sinaloa. In July, Cartel de los Soles (Cartel of the Suns) was added to the list.

On Thursday, Rubio explained that placing cartels on the SDGT list allows for the use of “other elements of American power, intelligence agencies, the Department of Defense, whatever, to target these groups if we have an opportunity to do it.” 

He added, “We have to start treating them as armed terrorist organizations, not simply drug-dealing organizations.”

Secretary of State Rubio has claimed Venezuelan President Maduro is the leader of Cartel de los Soles. On Thursday, he said the State Department was offering a $50 million bounty on Maduro. 

“The State Department and Department of Justice are increasing the reward for the arrest of dictator Nicolás Maduro to $50 million for violating U.S. anti-narcotics laws,” Rubio wrote on X. “Maduro is the leader of the ruthless Los Soles Cartel, a narcoterrorist organization that has taken over Venezuela. Maduro MUST be brought to justice.”

The Times report did not specify which countries might be targeted or what would happen if local troops resisted the foreign military operations on their soil. Black listed cartels are based in several Latin American countries, including Venezuela, El Salvador, and Mexico.

The Mexican government rejected a proposal from Trump earlier this year that would have allowed the US military to target cartels in Mexico. The Times notes the CIA is currently conducting surveillance flights over Mexico. 

Congress has not authorized Trump to attack cartels, so any military actions would be unconstitutional. However, the President and Congress have long ignored the Constitutional process for war-making. 

This article originally appeared at Antiwar.com.

 

Abbott to Call ‘Special Session after Special Session’ in Response to AWOL Dems

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Abbott to Call ‘Special Session after Special Session’ in Response to AWOL Dems

(Bethany Blankley, The Center Square) Gov. Greg Abbott confirmed what many in Austin speculated: he will call special session after special session until bills are passed.

Abbott called the current special session, which began July 21, to address 18 legislative items, including relief for Hill Country flood victims and Congressional redistricting.

The Texas Constitution authorizes the governor to call a 30-day special session. There are no limits to how many special sessions a governor may call. The constitution specifically requires all state lawmakers to attend special sessions. The governor may also amend the call, meaning the number of bills, at any time. Several lawmakers have asked Abbott to add bills to the call, including protections for Texas cattle, The Center Square reported.

After a House committee advanced a redistricting bill last Saturday, more than 50 House Democrats absconded on Sunday, midway through the special session. Their stated purpose was to prevent the House from reaching a quorum, shut down the legislative process and block all votes from occurring on any legislation.

“Democrats act like they’re not going to come back as long as this is an issue. That means they’re not going to come back until like 2027 or 2028, because I’m going to call special session after special session,” Abbott told NBC News.

He also said law enforcement officials are “in the process as we speak right now of searching for, preparing to arrest Democrats who may be in Texas, may be elsewhere.”

On Thursday, the Texas House sued 33 Democrats hiding out in Illinois after House Speaker Dustin Burrows and Gov. Greg Abbott said they would take action to have them arrested and even removed from office if they didn’t return, The Center Square reported. The Texas Supreme Court set a deadline for 5 p.m. Friday in a lawsuit Abbott filed to remove Democratic leader Rep. Gene Wu, D-Houston, from office.

Also on Thursday, the Texas Senate Special Committee on Congressional Redistricting advanced its redistricting bill, SB 4, filed by Sen. Phil King, R-Weatherford, by a vote of 6-1. It goes to the Senate floor for a vote next week. Prior to the bill passing out of committee, two days of hearings were held. No Senate Democrats absconded throughout this process.

House Republicans say that redistricting is necessary because of population increases and voter patterns changed, The Center Square reported. They’ve also said that Democratic states have an unfair advantage because their congressional districts have far more Democrats than the Democratic voting population, The Center Square reported. Texas’ proposed new maps could flip up to five seats currently held by Democrats to Republicans.

“Both the law and facts have changed since we drew the lines back in 2021,” Abbott said, citing the same Fifth Circuit ruling House Republicans cited in a redistricting hearing. The court ruled that the 1965 Voting Rights Act doesn’t protect a “coalition” of multiple minority groups claiming discrimination.

The Texas population has greatly increased since the last redistricting maps were drawn in 2021, waiting until 2030 to redraw maps would disenfranchise voters, Abbott and other Republicans argue. Additionally, after the 2024 election, a record number of Hispanic and Black Texans voted for Republicans, shifting voter demographics.

“A lot of people who voted Republican, who voted for Donald Trump, were trapped into Democrat districts,” Abbott told NBC News. “And so, when you look at the facts, when you look at the law, there is every reason to go ahead and draw the lines so that we can assure that every voter is going to have the opportunity to vote for their candidate of choice.”

The Texas Senate continues to advance bills despite no quorum reached in the Texas House. With 11 days left in the special session it’s likely the bills will die.

“The outlook on these bills this session isn’t promising, as all bills must be approved by both chambers before heading to the governor’s desk for his signature,” the Texas Senate said in a statement. “With no quorum in the House, no business can be transacted in that chamber. As it has in special sessions in 2021 and 2023, the Senate continued to pass legislation that was unlikely to be considered in the House, and will likely be the case for this and any additional called sessions. [Gov. Greg] Abbott is empowered to call as many special sessions as he wants, and it is fairly likely that these bills will return for a second called session that will begin after this session concludes August 19th.”

Abbott confirmed this.

The Texas Senate has passed several bills on the special session agenda, including property tax reform, protecting women’s spaces, banning taxpayer funded lobbying, enhancing title fraud protections, among others, The Center Square reported.

Legislative committees are also meeting. A Senate committee met to discuss replacing the STAAR test; a House committee met to discuss improving flood and emergency response.

New Executive Order Takes Aim at Debanking

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New Executive Order Takes Aim at Debanking

(Morgan Sweeney, The Center Square) Among the executive orders President Donald Trump signed Thursday was one instructing federal banking regulators to shed language from their guidance documents that the administration believes can lead to the debanking of people or institutions for political reasons.

“It is the policy of the United States that no American should be denied access to financial services because of their constitutionally or statutorily protected beliefs, affiliations, or political views, and to ensure that politicised or unlawful debanking is not used as a tool to inhibit such beliefs, affiliations, or political views,” the order reads.

Debanking individuals or institutions on the basis of political and personal views has become more visible in the U.S. since 2020, following similar reported trends in the U.K. and Europe where organizations like BankTrack and Bankwatch have monitored and reported on banks’ clients’ compliance with certain climate and human rights initiatives for decades.

Debanking occurs when a financial institution either closes or restricts an account or refuses to provide services to a potential client. Perhaps the most well-known, large-scale example occurred in 2022, when the Canadian government seized and froze the bank accounts of some participating in the Freedom Convoy, a convoy of thousands of truckers across Canada protesting the country’s vaccine mandates.

Financial institutions can and have also debanked clients independently of government involvement or direction. The order, however, focuses on federal reforms to prevent the government from encouraging or inciting debanking, as it claims it did in Operation Choke Point. The operation, which took place under the Obama administration, designated certain industries as high-risk for fraud and money laundering.

Republicans say the administration used it to target individuals, businesses and industries it opposed politically – like the gun industry – while Democrats say it was simply aimed at protecting consumers.

The Small Business Administration and other federal banking regulators are to “remove the use of reputation risk or equivalent concepts” from documents they use to “regulate or examine” financial institutions to avoid encouraging the debanking of clients for political or “unlawful” reasons.

The order also directs the SBA to ensure the reinstatement of clients’ accounts at financial institutions that debanked them for such reasons.

Thirty-two members of the State Financial Officers Foundation from 24 states signed onto a joint statement commending the executive order.

“President Trump’s executive action directly confronts this abuse of regulatory authority,” they said. “By reaffirming that banks must evaluate customers based on objective financial criteria, not political or religious views, his leadership marks a crucial step toward restoring viewpoint neutrality and putting an end to unlawful discrimination in our financial sector.”

Financial institutions can debank clients if those clients are found to be engaged in illegal activity.

 

DOJ Subpoenas NY AG Letitia James

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DOJ Subpoenas NY AG Letitia James

(Headline USA) The Justice Department has subpoenaed New York Attorney General Letitia James as part of an investigation into whether she violated President Donald Trump’s civil rights, according to people familiar with the matter.

The subpoenas sought records related to a lawsuit James filed against Trump for allegedly over-inflating his property values to obtain loans—even though Trump repaid those loans and even though the banks never complained. The subpoenas also sought records about a lawsuit involving the National Rifle Association. Another person confirmed that the subpoenas are related to a civil rights investigation.

The subpoenas mark an escalation of the Trump administration’s ongoing efforts to scrutinize officials who once waged law fare against the president, including those like James who had investigated him before his election win last November.

A spokesperson for James’ office, Geoff Burgan, declined to confirm the subpoenas.

In a separate statement, James’ personal attorney, Abbe D. Lowell, called the subpoenas “improper.”

A spokesperson for the Justice Department, Natalie Baldassarre, declined to comment.

James, a Democrat,infamously promised on the campaign trail in 2018 that she’d target Donald Trump if elected attorney general. After taking office, she launched a lengthy and broad investigation into Trump and his organization, accusing him of inflating his finances and property values to secure favorable loans.

Last year, she won a $454 million judgment against him in a controversial lawsuit claiming he had lied about the value of his assets on financial statements given to banks. Trump is appealing that verdict.

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press

Reports: DOJ Probing NY AG’s Fraud Case Against Trump

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Reports: DOJ Probing NY AG’s Fraud Case Against Trump

(Chris Wade, The Center Square) The Justice Department has subpoenaed New York Attorney General Letitia James as part of an investigation into whether she violated President Donald Trump’s civil rights during his civil trial on fraud charges, according to published reports. 

The subpoenas, first reported by New York Times, are part of a broader probe of her civil fraud trial against Trump and his family business on charges that he broke the law by inflating the values on his New York City properties. 

That trial ended in a $454 million civil judgment against the Trump organization and several of its executives, which Trump is appealing.

Several media outlets reported the investigation is also looking at whether the National Rifle Association’s rights were violated by James’ civil lawsuits. The probe is being run by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of New York, according to the New York Post. 

“Any weaponization of the justice system should disturb every American,” a James spokesperson said in a statement Friday blasting the move and vowing to fight any allegations of wrongdoing. “We stand strongly behind our successful litigation against the Trump Organization and the National Rifle Association, and we will continue to stand up for New Yorkers’ rights.”

James’ attorney Abbe Lowell accused Trump of “weaponizing” the DOJ “to punish an elected official for doing her job” and called it “an attack on the rule of law and a dangerous escalation by this administration.”

“Investigating the fraud case Attorney General James won against President Trump and his businesses has to be the most blatant and desperate example of this administration carrying out the president’s political retribution campaign,” he said in a statement. “If prosecutors carry out this improper tactic and are genuinely interested in the truth, we are ready and waiting with the facts and the law.” 

James, a Democrat first elected in 2018, has been a frequent critic of Trump and, in addition to the civil fraud trial, has filed several multistate lawsuits against the Trump administration over federal immigration policies, rollbacks in federal funding, and worker layoffs and other actions.

The Democrat is also facing potential criminal charges by federal prosecutors over allegations she engaged in mortgage fraud. In April, the Federal Housing Finance Agency sent a letter to the DOJ accusing James of committing fraud by listing a home in Virginia as her primary residence and identifying her father as her husband on federally backed mortgage loan applications to get a lower interest rate and more favorable terms.

While Eastern Investors Gobble Up Gold, Americans Sit on the Sidelines

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While Eastern Investors Gobble Up Gold, Americans Sit on the Sidelines

(Mike Maharrey, Money Metals News Service) Would you trade fiat dollars for common bottle caps? Probably not, right? Not unless they were some pretty special bottle caps. After all, you’d be trading money for a worthless scrap of metal you can find along the shoulder of pretty much any road.

But as absurd as paying good money for scrap metal sounds, that’s effectively what a lot of Americans are doing right now. They are exchanging gold and silver – real money – for rapidly devaluing fiat currency.

American Investors on the Sidelines

Gold has been on one heck of a bull run. Since the fall of 2022, the price of the yellow metal has more than doubled. Through just the first half of 2025, the price of gold increased by nearly 26 percent and outperformed every major asset class, including U.S. stocks.

This incredible surge in the gold price occurred with U.S. investors, by and large, sitting on the sidelines.

While gold bar and coin demand increased by 11 percent globally in H1, year-on-year bar and coin demand in the U.S. plummeted by 53 percent. American investors bought a paltry 9 tonnes of gold coins and bars in Q2, the lowest quarterly total since 2019.

According to the World Gold Council, “U.S. net investor demand was again affected by a double whammy of elevated profit taking and subdued levels of new purchases.”

Meanwhile, in China, bar and coin demand grew by 44 percent year-on-year in H1. Chinese investors snapped up 115 tonnes of gold bars and coins in the second quarter alone. It was the strongest H1 for physical gold buying since 2013.

This reflects the general trend during the totality of this gold bull run. Emerging market central banks and investment in the East have dominated. European demand has picked up in recent months, but most Americans continue to wait – for who knows what.

Why Are Americans Selling Gold?

The World Gold Council noted that there has been a significant amount of “profit taking” in the U.S. In other words, Americans are taking advantage of the higher gold price to cash out and take profits.

I don’t understand this. They are literally swapping good money for bad!

Why would anybody exchange rapidly appreciating sound money for paper dollars that are losing purchasing power at an astonishing rate? It’s not unlike swapping dollars for bottle caps.

There is one plausible explanation. Perhaps a lot of Americans need those fiat dollars to keep up with rapidly rising prices. Surveys indicate that while Wall Street is partying like it’s 2005, Joe Main Street is struggling under the weight of debt. Financial stress is at a level not seen since the pandemic. Some investors may be cashing out their gold savings to keep up with debt payments and to cope with relentless price inflation.

Honestly, that’s the only way I can make sense of this phenomenon.

If people are just looking at the price of gold and thinking, “Wow, I can take a profit and put some cash in my bank account,” they are making a dumb mistake. While gold will almost certainly continue its climb as the dollar weakens, those dollars sitting in that bank account will be worth less and less every single week.

There is another possible reason that many Americans still haven’t hopped on the gold bandwagon. It may reflect a generally negative view of gold as an asset here in the U.S.

You’ve likely heard the term “gold bug.” It refers to people like me who believe strongly in the yellow metal.

It’s not meant as a compliment.

Mainstream investment advisors and talking heads on American financial news outlets typically ignore gold if they aren’t actively disparaging it. It isn’t uncommon to hear commentators say ridiculous things such as, “Gold is a useless relic.”

When you think about it, the negativity toward precious metals in the country is pretty crazy. It’s certainly not rooted in the American DNA. Most of the founding generation was wary of paper money. They wanted a hard money standard – that means gold or silver. Thomas Jefferson summed it up.

“Paper is poverty, that it is only the ghost of money, and not money itself.”

I guess you have to give the political class credit. They have successfully soured the majority of Americans on real money. That’s to their benefit. They can print fiat money, and that’s the engine that drives big government.

But here’s what I’m driving at. This anti-gold bias is a very Western phenomenon. You can see that in the demand for gold. And you should be wary of it. Don’t let the powers that be discourage you from holding real money. It’s the only way you can protect yourself from the relentless government devaluation.

Mike Maharrey is a journalist and market analyst for Money Metals with over a decade of experience in precious metals. He holds a BS in accounting from the University of Kentucky and a BA in journalism from the University of South Florida.

Alleged Would-be Trump Assassin to Have a Pilot Testify as His Firearms Expert

Ken Silva
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Alleged Would-be Trump Assassin to Have a Pilot Testify as His Firearms Expert

(Ken Silva, Headline USA) Alleged would-be Trump assassin Ryan Routh is allowed to have an American Airlines pilot named Michael McClay testify as an expert witness in is upcoming trial, Judge Aileen Cannon ruled Friday.

McClay was an instructor at a U.S. Marine Corps sniper school, a National Guard pilot, and a Palm Beach County Sheriff’s deputy before joining American Airlines.

Routh initially hired him to test-fire the SKS-style rifle that he allegedly used in his Trump assassination plot. When McClay did so in May, the rifle misfired. It was able to fire the first round—but would not feed the subsequent rounds into its chamber, according to McClay’s report.

McClay’s findings undermined an FBI lab report, which said the rifle “functioned normally” when tested last September. The defense previously noted that the FBI disassembled the rifle before they could examine it—with agents having removed the scope, which appears to have been fastened by electrical tape.

After McClay found that Routh’s rifle jammed, the DOJ moved to exclude him as an expert witness.

“What possible relevance could McClay’s testimony about his test-fire have other than to suggest improperly that Routh might not have been able to succeed in killing President Trump if he had required a second shot to do so?” the DOJ said in a June filing.

“We have now moved past the idea that the gun would not have fired at all – so we are well and truly beyond any good faith connection between the rifle’s operability and Routh’s intent,” the DOJ added.

“Testimony casting doubt on the ability of the rifle to fire multiple rounds has no relevance legally to our charges, which of course do not require any degree of firearm operability at all, or the firing of a gun. It is quite frankly hard to conceive how this testimony could aid Routh in any way.”

However, Judge Cannon disagreed with the DOJ in her Friday ruling. Cannon noted that the FBI is allowed to have its experts testify about Routh’s rifle and his so-called sniper perch—and so Routh should be able to do the same.

“McClay proposes to testify as an expert on matters that sufficiently align with the topics identified by the United States’ expert disclosures, albeit with some differences,” she said. “As of a result of that significant overlap, and mindful of the general principle of equal treatment in the context of expert witnesses, the Court is not in a position to declare that McClay’s proposed testimony is wholly irrelevant and warranting full exclusion.”

Routh’s trial is set to begin Sept. 8.

Ken Silva is the editor of Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/jd_cashless.

Trump Orders Federal Law Enforcement to ‘Make DC Safe Again’

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Trump Orders Federal Law Enforcement to ‘Make DC Safe Again’

(Headline USA) The White House said Thursday night that there will be increased presence of federal law enforcement in the nation’s capital to combat crime for at least the next week, amid President Donald Trump ‘s suggestions that his administration could fully take over running the city.

“Washington, DC is an amazing city, but it has been plagued by violent crime for far too long,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement. “President Trump has directed an increased presence of federal law enforcement to protect innocent citizens.”

She added that the increased federal presence means “there will be no safe harbor for violent criminals in D.C.”

Trump has repeatedly suggested that the rule of Washington could be returned to federal authorities. Doing so would require a repeal of the Home Rule Act of 1973 in Congress, a step Trump said lawyers are examining.

“We have a capital that’s very unsafe,” Trump told reporters at the White House this week. “We have to run D.C.”

The White House said the increased law enforcement would “make D.C. safe again” and would be present on the streets starting at midnight — led by U.S. Park Police following an 11 p.m. Thursday roll call at an established command center.

The push will last the next seven days with the option to extend “as needed,” under the authority of Trump’s previous executive order establishing the Making DC Safe and Beautiful Task Force. The added federal officials will be identified, in marked units and highly visible, the White House said.

Participating law enforcement include personnel from the U.S. Capitol Police, Homeland Security Investigations, the Federal Protective Service, the Drug Enforcement Administration, Enforcement and Removal Operations, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the U.S. Marshals Service and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia.

The police forces for Amtrak and the city’s Metro rail service are also involved.

Trump has long suggested crime and violence is on the rise in Washington, and has lately begun to criticize things like litter and graffiti. But the catalyst for the order to increase police presence was the assault last weekend on a high-profile member of the Department of Government Efficiency by a group of teenagers in an attempted carjacking.

The victim, Edward Coristine, nicknamed “Big Balls,” was among the most visible figures of DOGE, which was tasked with cutting jobs and slashing the federal bureaucracy. Police arrested two 15-year-olds and say they’re still looking for other members of the group.

“If D.C. doesn’t get its act together, and quickly, we will have no choice but to take Federal control of the City, and run this City how it should be run, and put criminals on notice that they’re not going to get away with it anymore,” Trump posted on Truth Social earlier this week.

The president subsequently said he was considering repealing Washington’s limited Home Rule autonomy or “bringing in the National Guard, maybe very quickly.”

Thursday’s announcement comes as Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser’s government can claim to have reduced the number of homicides and carjackings — both of which spiked citywide in 2023.

Carjackings in Washington overall dropped significantly the following year in 2024, from 957 to just under 500, and the number is on track to decline again this year — with less than 200 recorded so far more than halfway through 2025.

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press



Mamdani: Cuomo ‘Conspiring’ with Trump to Rig NYC Mayor’s Race

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Mamdani: Cuomo ‘Conspiring’ with Trump to Rig NYC Mayor’s Race

(Chris Wade, The Center Square) New York City mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani is accusing former Gov. Andrew Cuomo of “conspiring” with President Donald Trump to rig the election in his favor.

Speaking to reporters on Thursday, the Queens assemblyman and self-described socialist mayoral candidate, pointed to a New York Times report claiming that Trump recently spoke on the phone with Cuomo and has been mulling over backing a candidate who has the best chance to beat Mamdani between Cuomo, incumbent Mayor Eric Adams, and Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa.

“The job of mayor is not to audition to be the jester for a want-to-be king,” Mamdani told reporters on Thursday in New York City. “New Yorkers do not want a mayor who is working in tandem with the president to subvert the will of the people of New York City.”

He called the allegations “disqualifying” for the former governor, whom he soundly defeated in the June Democratic mayoral primary, and claimed he would be “Donald Trump’s worst nightmare” if elected mayor.

“The fact is that the president has three candidates in this race: one that he’s directly been in touch with, another that he bailed out of legal trouble and now functionally controls, and the final one literally being a member of the same Republican Party,” Mandani said.

Cuomo shrugged off the claims in a social media post that attacked Mamdani for lacking political experience and pushing left-wing policies that would hurt the Democratic Party.

“As usual, you’re short on facts and long on nonsense,” Cuomo posted on his X campaign account. “And while I’m here, let’s be real—Donald Trump would go through you like a hot knife through butter. You would be a dream come true to the Republican party.”

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt also dismissed the claims about election meddling in a statement to Fox News Digital, saying Trump “has repeatedly stated, he has no intention of getting involved or making an endorsement in the New York City mayoral race.”

New York Democratic Rep. Jerry Nadler has also weighed in on Mamdani’s claims on Thursday, saying the democratic socialist is the party’s nominee for mayor, “and we must ensure he succeeds.”

“He won because he addressed the affordability crisis facing NYC. That’s why I’m supporting him,” Nadler posted on social media. “But courting Trump — the man who wants to destroy our city — is a betrayal of NYers.”

Mamdani’s primary victory sent shockwaves through New York’s political establishment and garnered national attention from Republicans who have criticized the city’s dramatic shift to the left.

Some New York Democrats have suggested they oppose his plans to push for a wealth tax in New York City to cover the cost of free bus service, “tuition-free” college, and other proposals.

But the latest polls show Mamdani is the frontrunner of the mayoral race, ahead of Cuomo and incumbent Mayor Eric Adams. The general election is Nov. 4.

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