So the cat’s now out of the bag.
John “The Big Cat” Catsimatidis revealed in the New York Post this past week, that President Donald Trump told him he wants New York Mayor Eric Adams and Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa, to drop out of the mayor’s race, and he wants it to happen in a New York minute. Trump wants to clear the field for Andrew Cuomo to take on Zohran Mamdani and his backpack full of socialist fantasies.
All this past week, someone (could it be Andrew?) has been leaking stories to several media outlets that President Trump is exploring the possibility of getting both Adams and Sliwa to withdraw by giving them jobs in his administration.
Adams and Sliwa say they’re in the race till the bitter end. Maybe. We’ll see.
Well folks, Labor Day has passed. The summer’s over. Now, the race for Mayor of New York City is getting real interesting.
After Mamdani’s stunning win in the Democratic primary in June, the city’s elites, its movers and shakers, its real estate and financial kingpins, have been in full panic mode, trying to figure out a way to block him from becoming mayor.
At first, they thought about rallying around Adams. But poll after poll and arrest after arrest of his close advisers, have exposed his candidacy to be as empty as a bottle of Dom Perignon after a night of partying at Zero Bond.
Several polls put him in last place, even behind the now beret-less leader of the Guardian Angels, Curtis Sliwa.
Meantime, the former Democrat-turned-independent Andrew Cuomo, is telling everyone he could pull off a victory over Mamdani in a head-to-head, mano-a-mano, one-on-one race. And some polls agree with him.
But why would Trump help Cuomo beat Mamdani?
Wouldn’t Republicans be better off using Mamdani as a whipping boy in the midterm elections? Wouldn’t it serve GOP interests to paint Mamdani as the new face of the radical Democrat party? Wouldn’t the president find it useful to make hay out of Mamdani’s socialist policies that would distract the ADD media from Trump’s own blunders?
Trump, in the past, has trashed Cuomo.
When Cuomo left the governor’s office in disgrace, Trump tweeted, “Cuomo is a TOTAL LOSER, and New York as well as the entire Country, is better off without him.”
They feuded over the federal government’s resource allocation during COVID. In 2020, Trump cut off New Yorker’s access, for a time, to TSA pre-check when Cuomo approved driver’s licenses for illegal immigrants. And way back in the mid-1990’s, Cuomo in his role as the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, blocked Trump’s bid for federal mortgage insurance for a real estate development called Riverside South.
So what’s going on now?
Some media maestro’s would have you believe there’s some sort of unspoken bond between Trump and Cuomo, both boys from Queens.
Yeah, maybe.
John Catsimatidis told the Post that Trump “is concerned about the New York City race. He does not want a socialist mayor, and he said, ’It’s not going to happen’ under his watch.”
Here’s what I think.
Trump still has New York real estate blood in his veins. It’s in his DNA. He still has investments in buildings in New York. I think he thinks a Zohran Mamdani mayoralty would kill the big apple’s real estate industry. He’s not only feeling it in his gut, he’s probably hearing it from his real estate cronies.
Steve Witkoff, Trump’s personal peace negotiator, is a fellow NYC real estate developer. Tom Barrack is a billionaire real estate investor and Trump’s envoy to Türkiye. Charles Kushner is a real estate mogul and is the ambassador to France, and let’s not forget Charlie’s son and Ivanka’s hubby Jared, who is plugged in to New York’s real estate royalty.
Although he’s not in the administration, real estate titan Richard LeFrak is a longtime Trump friend. His connection to the Trump family goes back a generation to when Richard’s father Sam and Donald Trump’s father Fred, lorded over Queens real estate.
Don’t you think these guys, and others, are telling Trump he has to try to do what he can to get Cuomo elected mayor?
On Wall Street, don’t you think Trump supporters like Blackstone CEO Stephen Schwarzman and billionaire Bill Ackman have dialed the Oval Office about the mayor’s race? Don’t you think they’re worried what a Mamdani mayoralty could do to the city’s tax base when more billionaires pack their bespoke Louis Vuitton trunks and flee to Florida?
And don’t forget who serves in Trump’s cabinet. Howard Lutnick, used to head up Cantor Fitzgerald and he’s Trump’s Commerce Secretary. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessant is highly respected on Wall Street. They both have the president’s ear and would you bet against that they’re telling their boss that Mamdani is wrong for New York and wrong for the all-important financial industry?
There’s also this. Trump is a collector of favors. You do this for me and I’ll do this for you. That’s the way NYC real estate guys think. That’s the way they operate. Trump is smart enough to know that while Andrew Cuomo, if elected mayor, won’t succumb to all his demands, but Trump will be able to pick up the phone whenever his mood moves him and talk to the guy who is running New York City. That’s not trivial. With Mamdani in city hall, there will be zero chance of that happening.
Plus, if he can help Cuomo get elected mayor and then help his close ally Elise Stefanik get elected governor next year, Trump could have an empire of clout in the most important city in the nation, the place he used to call home.
Yeah, Trump may not love, love, love Andrew Cuomo, very few people do, but he does love to loom large. If Cuomo wins with Trump’s help, he would be one helluva large New York loomer.