Extra: Curtis Sliwa On His Controversial Campaign To Be New York City's Next Mayor

The spirit of innovation is deeply ingrained in America, and Google is helping Americans innovate in ways both big and small. There are hundreds of thousands of skilled trade roles across the U.S. waiting to be filled. To help close this workforce gap, Google is expanding its skill trade support to help train more than 300,000 American workers across over 20 states. This is a new era of American innovation. Learn more at grow. Google slash skill trades. The spirit of innovation is deeply ingrained in America, and Google is helping Americans innovate in ways both big and small. The U.S. Department of Transportation is empowering staff with Google AI tools to rapidly synthesize research and streamline contracting, directly strengthening the safety and reliability of our nation's transit systems. This is a new era of American innovation. Learn more at g.co-slash-American Innovation. This is the Fox News Rundown Extra. I'm Jessica Rosenthal. New York City will pick its next mayor on Tuesday. While the Democrat, Zohran Mamdani, remains the frontrunner. Recent poll suggests independent Andrew Cuomo has cut into his lead a bit. Trailing behind both, however, is Republican Curtis Slua. Critics of Curtis Sliwa, including many in his own party, say his decision to not drop out of the race despite trailing is giving Zohran Mamdani an advantage. Earlier this week, we spoke with him about the campaign, why he says his policies are the best to save New York City, and why he has resisted the pressure to drop out. Curtis Sliwa, a former New York City radio talk show host, also addressed those who say he's responsible for the rise of Democrat Socialist Zohran Mamdani. And he also pushed back against accusations. He's running simply for a financial gain. We made some edits for time, but thought you might like to hear the full conversation. Thank you for listening. If you don't already, please go to Fox NewsRundown.com to follow our daily weekday rundown podcast. Now, here's Republican New York City mayoral candidate, Curtis Sliwa. on the Fox News Rundown Extra. So Curtis Sliwa, a candidate for mayor, let's begin. Thank you so much for joining us. So we know early voting has begun. And we see turnout is, I guess, way up over the prior mayor's race, especially it looks like with voters over the age of 55 leading the numbers here. What do you think that signals, if anything? Well, that's great for democracy because I participated in the last mayoral election when it was just Eric Adams, the Democrat, and yours truly the Republican, and only 24% of the available electorate turned out. There has been a precipitous fall in participation in off-presidential years for all elections. So this is very good to see the people who are engaged. Now, there's no way of knowing who they're voting for. Obviously, internally, I have urged my followers to vote during the beginning of this extended voting period, 10 days early voting, get the votes in. I voted on day number one. The moment the door opened at the Museum of Natural History, which is my polling location, and I hope to have set an example for my supporters. But even if they didn't support me, If they supported my adversaries or on Zohran Mamdani or Andrew Cuomo or any of the other smaller independent candidates, that's a good sign. That means people are wanting to vote, think their votes can make a difference, and they're coming out. And hopefully it'll continue on right into the general final day of election on November 4th.

Yeah, I was reading one thing saying the age of the weekend voters meant something that it's like not good for Zohran Mamdani. I read another article that says it is. Either way, what is your closeout pitch to voters here with less than a week to go? We know you recently wrote an op-ed. We're carrying it on foxnews.com. What can you share with us, though? Well, first off, it's good for all candidates. The more people who come out to vote. So, you know, when people start doing analytics and trying to figure out, is it my vote, is it their vote? That's nonsense. More people are voting. And by the way, Zohran Mamdani now has the institutional support of the mainstream Democratic Party. He didn't have that in the primary. Andrew Cuomo forsaked that. when he didn't run a good race. And he admitted it. He ran a lazy race. So I think you're seeing a collection of all different types showing up to vote. And I think when all is said and done, whoever is elected the mayor, it means that democracy has triumphed because it's proven that people can be engaged, can be involved when they feel. that the outcome of their vote will determine the future of their city. And a lot of people are feeling that now. Now, in my instance, I'm different than the two Democrats running because Zohran Mamdani and Andrew Cuomo are like two pieces apart. They share so many more belief systems than they disagree on. So let's just take the issue of law and order and public safety and quality of life, which is my forte. And the reason that a lot of people are choosing me rather than Andrew Cuomo or Zohran Mamdani. It was Andrew Cuomo, who is the architect of no cash bail, that has led to our crime crisis. And he doubled down in the Democratic primary and his support of it. Zohran Mamdani is his apprentice. It's Andrew Cuomo who led the effort to raise the age. And what this does is, that means Juvenile delinquents, juveniles who do drive-by shootings and commit major serious adult-like crimes will no longer go to criminal court. They go to family court and they get a tap on the wrist. Zohran Mamdani Mantami is the apprentice of that. And I had a personal situation that I brought to everybody's attention in that second debate that I felt was riveting because neither Zohran Mamdani or Andrew would answer. But because of raise the age... My older son, Anthony, was the victim of a brutal attack by those who were 15 and 16. He barely survived what could have been a death experience. And instead of them being arrested and going to criminal court where they would have faced adult charges, they were brought in a family court, they were tapped on the wrist, and they were released immediately. And... You see, this is happening all over our city, and there are so many families who suffer as a result of this. And lastly, Andrew Cuomo 10 years ago called for the closing of Rikers Island or local prison with no replacement, and Zohran Mamdani is a supporter of that. So when it comes to law and order, which is a key, a lot of people say, wow, you're just like Rudy Giuliani. Rudy Giuliani 2.0, and that will be my pathway to victory.

I want to ask you about another issue that's we've heard a lot about in this race, and that's affordability. We know there are housing ballot measures before New York voters that it sounds like would take away some power from the city council on approval for building housing, construction of housing. We know you've taken a position against some of these measures. Can you tell us why, and if you believe these wouldn't work, to address housing affordability? Yeah, I'm the only person running for mayor who is opposed to this city of yes. Zohran Mamdani is in favor of it, although he mumbles and stumbles over the answer, as is Andrew Cuomo, who's in the back pockets of the developers and realtors who will profit enormously from their ability. If it passes and the voters... have to determine on the back of the ballot, hopefully when they vote for me as the Republican nominee straight down the Republican line and they flip over the ballot and they vote no, no, no on all these initiatives because immediately all power will be in City Hall. Developers and realtors will be able to bring in bulldozers and wrecking balls and destroy residential property to put up 40-story office buildings, excuse me, affordable housing buildings. with no parking and no infrastructure built whatsoever to support it. And more importantly, put out these lithium-ion battery warehouses, which are a direct threat to the health and welfare of people in residential communities because originally they were supposed to be put in industrial areas. And because of the city of yes, it's been shortcutted and put into cheaper areas where residential property has been purchased. And it's a danger to not only people living in nearby homes, but their schools nearby and small businesses. And I've been in the forefront of trying to stop this. So this initiative of the city of yes is like the city of yes on steroids. And that's why I resolutely stand there and tell everybody, even if you don't vote for me, even if you vote for one of my opponents, you must vote no on all the initiative and referendums because it will destroy residential life in the outer boroughs as we know it today. Now, in terms of affordable housing, we certainly need it. But we have in Manhattan alone, the size has been estimated by the real estate industry. We could fill 25 Empire State buildings with empty office space. 25 Empire State buildings. We need to retrofit those no longer needed office building facilities. Turn them into affordable housing. It'll only take a year to do the retrofitting. And there's already the infrastructure to support it. It's cheaper. You'll be able to do it more quickly. And you'll be able to, at least in the initial year, create 150,000 affordable housing units that will deal with this housing crunch that exists in our city. Interesting. Another, another.

quality of life issue, you know, we're hearing a lot about layoffs. Amazon's laying off 14,000 people, not warehouse workers, mostly people working in like software engineering, cloud computing, HR, more corporate jobs. And Amazon CEO said this year that restructuring is due to AI efficiencies that would be taking place. We know there's an educational company called Chegg. They've announced layoffs. UPS has announced lots of layoffs this year. What? What role is a, does a city mayor have in any state? What role is a mayor going to have moving forward as we might be looking at more and more corporate layoffs due to AI? Well, first off, AI artificial intelligence has not been properly explained to the mass population. It's almost like it's a corporate development that will enable them. not to have to use trained personnel who've dedicated their life to getting four years of education, two years of graduate work. They've become financial analysts, CPAs, attorneys. They did everything we told them to do, took out crushing student loans. They're finally making about $155,000, maybe $200,000 a year. And still, they're having to shack up with their fellow friends and dormitory style housing in an apartment. because they can't afford the cost of living. AI will wipe out those jobs. I don't trust corporate America. They're telling us out of one side of their mouth. Oh, no, no, no, no. Initially, there'll be cuts, but it will actually create jobs. The whole method of AI, artificial intelligence, is basically to eliminate the need of human involvement. We're seeing that already with drivers. We're experimenting with driverless cars now. That means all of these men and women who earn their occupations by driving Uber or Lyft or yellow taxi drivers could eventually be phased out with no alternative way of earning a living. And also AI, once it really gets up and running. Because right now it's on the drawing board and it's being implemented in some of the corporate work experiences. We'll have to double our electrical output by 2030 to handle the overload from artificial intelligence. So I think it's been rushed into service because of the global economy, because of competition. But I think the circumstances are dire towards the workforce. especially the white collar workforce that we told young people they needed to join after getting a premium education, paying vast student loans, and now realizing that there's really no more need for their services. So I'm one that says, at least I can control it in the public sector. I don't have to be... A devoted individual says, yeah, let's see what it could do to cut course in the public sector. And I can do everything I can to slow it down in the private sector because I just don't trust the corporate entities, the billionaires who want it.

Because it'll be cost effective. It will eliminate the need to have people in the workplace. And I think we have to care about workers first and foremost because they are the backbone of our city and the backbone of our country. Wow. Thank you for that. Let me ask you a little bit more about the race. because there are you know you hear them the calls for you to drop out they still continue a city journal article this week called you the most important man in new york city because they write you can determine this race and they set a poll that finds if you were no longer in it that quimel would win by just about four points when you see commentary like that what do you think Well, I didn't know there was more than one Nostradamus. These people ought to focus on what they know best, Wall Street, hedge funds, things of that matter because the polls have been wrong every step of the way. If we just look at the Democratic primary, we look back to March 1st of this same year. Andrew Cuomo officially enters the race to win the Democratic nomination to run for mayor. He's 40 points ahead of the last place person at that point, somebody who nobody knows, Zohran Mamdani, the Assemblyman from Astoria Queens. There are other Democrats in there. Nobody's close to Andrew Cuomo. They're preparing the coronation. He's measuring the grapes and Gracie Mansion. Three and a half months later, Andrew Cuomo loses by 13 points. There's somebody that he was 40 points ahead of just three and a half months before, and he loses by 13 points decisively. So throw the polls out the door. If people want to blame me for the rise of Zohran Mamdani, I'm the Republican. I'm the one who's against everything that he has advocated. The ones who have embraced them are the Democrats. The ones who have failed to take on the socialists within their own party. are the Democrats. So if you want to blame any two people for the rise and the emergence of Zohran Mamdani on the international, national, regional, and local scene, blame first Eric Adams, the failed Democratic mayor. If he had been halfway decent, He would have been the incumbent running for re-election for a second term. I would have been his challenger as a Republican. It would have been round two from 2021. And more importantly, the failed and disgraced Governor Andrew Cuomo, who fled Albany because he feared impeachment from his majority Democrats. All he did, like a zombie, come back from the political dead in order to maintain his relevance and use it as a stepping stone maybe to run for national. office is to decide he was going to run for mayor and he got trounced in the primary. He will be beaten solidly in the general election.

So I blame Eric Adams and I blame the traditional Andrew Cuomo because they've allowed for socialists to take over their party. And they've also allowed them to control the discourse. And they haven't challenged them in primaries. So they become extraordinarily strong within the ranks of the traditional Democratic Party. So now to that point. What do you say to these types of criticisms on social media? Like here's one from Marina Medvin on X. She writes, isn't it possible Sliwer remains in the race because he knows it's helping Zohran Mamdani? That accusation is, of course, you know that staying in helps one individual in this race, in particular, Zohran Mamdani. What do you think of that sort of criticism? Well, we don't have ranked choice voting in the general election, so we haven't teamed up. And in fact, most recently, Zohran Mamdani is accusing me of being an Islamophobe. So I don't think we're working together if he's casting his Persians against me, simply because in our last debate, I used the example of my two youngest sons who are brought up Jewish. who've told me confiding in me that they're scared of Zohran Mamdani, as are their family, their friends, their extended friendships in the community. And I told Zohran Mamdani right on that stage, you are the arsonists. You have spread gasoline on the fire of anti-Semitism that is at an all-time high in New York City. You have embraced those who are supporters of terrorism. And now you expect me to convince my sons and others that I know in the Jewish community that if elected mayor, you'll come back as the firefighter. No, they realize you're the reason that a lot of this anti-Semitism is getting a second life, a third life, and a growing in terms. of its prowess in terms of its impact on the entire community, Jewish and Gentile community. And he was flummoxed by that. And then within a day or two, he accused me of Islamophobia. So I don't know how I could be accused of Islamophobia by some. His support is the Zoranistas and Zohran Mamdani. Yet somebody who just entered a question to you that you posed to me, aren't I helping Zohran Mamdani? No, I'm running a race. I'm the only Republican. And Republican values are completely different than the Democratic Party values. And that's why we'll leave it to the people to determine who the next mayor is on November 4th. The people will vote. Not the billionaires. It won't be their choice or the insiders or the influencers because they've been wrong every step of the way. This episode is brought to you by San Pellegrino Chow.

A gift from Italy to your home. San Pellegrino Chau is a flavored sparkling water made with real fruit juice. Finished with a pinch of Sicilian salt for a perfectly balanced taste. So which flavor will you choose? Peach, lime, blood orange, cherry, or maybe the all-new limoncello. Crafted in Italy with zero grams of added sugar, San Pellegrino Chow. Buy it now. Okay, speaking of billionaires, I know you know this already, but I have to ask you about it because billionaire Bill Ackman has accused you of staying in this race because the campaign gets matching dollars from the city. And in this case, it's close to like $4.5 million. You don't get to keep this money. This is for campaigning. Do you want to set the record straight on that accusation? Yeah, well, first, let's profile Bill Ackman, who is a J-E-R-K, a jerk. This is a guy who originally said, oh, we've got to put all our resource behind Andrew Cuomo. He's going to be the next man. Then when that didn't happen, he resurrected Eric Adams, a corrupt mayor, indicted mayor, the most corrupt in the history of New York City, and that's saying a lot. And then he told all of his associates, hedge fund persons and Wall Street, we got to put all our money behind Eric Adams. How did that work out? One and done. Then he ran back to Andrew Cuomo. In the interim, he was disparaging me every step of the way. I've said from day one of my candidacy, I am not the puppet of the billionaire class. They may know the hedge fund business. They may know Wall Street, but they are so disconnected from the streets of New York City. They have no idea what's going on, even with the people who work for them in their particular endeavors. And I said to him basically stay in Chapicor, the richest suburb in America, because you're compelled. completely unaware of what's happening in the 350 neighborhoods that make up the city of New York and the vast subway system that I take every day, of which obviously he doesn't venture because he has Jeeves and his stretch limo to take him from place to place. I know you were saying that you were spending some money more on like Ubers and taxis because it wasn't safe for you on the subway that you've been, your life's been threatened. How are you feeling these days? Are you back on the subway? Well, we have a full armed security detail of retired NYPD officers for my wife and myself. But every day, I'm spending a few hours in the subway campaigning. The security accompanies me. But remember, I have a staff. I have other people who have to travel from place to place in order for this campaign to go on. So Bill Ackman. He can question my expenditures in this campaign. They haven't been questioned by the campaign financial board. In fact, I've raised more matching funds than Andrew Cuomo double his number from average everyday people, average donation, $19. I would suggest Bill Ackman, he take his spreadsheets, and we can see how he spends his billions of dollars. And I'll make a, I think I favorably will probably be considered much more frugal, much more cost.

effective and more of the people's mayoral candidate than Bill Ackman who has been shilling for the billionaires who, by the way, have proven time and time again that they just don't understand the dynamics of what's going on in this political race to become the next mayor. Okay, before I let you go, I have to ask you one last question. If it's not you, who do you think would do a better job? between Andrew Cuomo and Zohran Mamdani, and if asked, would you work with either administration? First off, I have no intention of working with anybody if I'm the person that doesn't win. So whether it is Andrew Cuomo or Zohran Mamdani, I couldn't stand to be in the same room with them and obviously try to carry out their policies in positions that I disagree with vehemently. To be honest with you, When you tell me Andrew Cuomo and Zohran Mamdani, pick one to be the next mayor, it's like, pick your poison. To me, they're equally bad for the city of New York. Andrew Cuomo has proven he was a disaster for the state of New York. And now he wants to come back and put the final nail in the coffin of New York City. And Zohran Mamdani fills his followers, the Zoranistas full of fantasy, but is completely devoid of reality. They are Democrats. We are in the bad situation that we are now because of the Democratic Party, both in the state and the city. And my role is to put into place the Republican initiatives of law and order, cost effectiveness, cut taxes, cut. the expenditures of what we're paying for in our tax dollars for government. And most importantly, win as the Republican mayor, as Rudy Giuliani did in 1993, and then pave the way for a Elise Stefanik to beat Kathy Hochul next year. So we have this state back on track, the city back on track, the way Rudy did in 93, followed by somebody you couldn't pick out of a police lineup, George Bataki, who beat the much better. Andrew Cuomo, Mario Andrew Cuomo, and then restored sanity, restored day-to-day consistency and no corruption with less crime to the state, as Rudy did likewise to the city. We did it once before. We can do it again. Republican for Mayor Curtis Sliwa and Elise Stefanik, Republican for Governor next year. Curtis Sliwa, New York's Republican candidate for mayor. Thank you so much for joining us, and thank you for all that time. My pleasure. Anytime.

You've been listening to the Fox News Rundown. And now, stay up to date by subscribing to this podcast at foxnewspodcasts.com. Listen ad-free on Fox News Podcasts plus on Apple Podcasts. And Prime members can listen to the show ad-free on Amazon music. And for up-to-the-minute news, go to foxnews.com. Fox News Audio presents Blood Mountain. Deep in the forests of Georgia, one hike turned into a nightmare. Calculated, savage. The Blood Mountain podcast. Listen and follow now at foxtruecrime.com.