{"id":225048,"date":"2025-09-14T02:10:23","date_gmt":"2025-09-14T02:10:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/225048\/"},"modified":"2025-09-14T02:10:23","modified_gmt":"2025-09-14T02:10:23","slug":"charlie-kirks-death-may-cool-some-political-rhetoric-but-nyc-mayoral-race-likely-to-remain-hot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/225048\/","title":{"rendered":"Charlie Kirk’s death may cool some political rhetoric, but NYC mayoral race likely to remain hot"},"content":{"rendered":"

The killing of MAGA conservative Charlie Kirk<\/a> on Wednesday spotlighted the nation\u2019s polarized and sometimes bloodthirsty political climate<\/a>, prompting calls for bringing down the temperature. But in NYC, mayoral candidates are not talking about switching up their respective strategies as they barrel toward a November showdown.<\/p>\n

The killing comes amid a deeply contentious mayoral election marked by intense rhetoric. The race is the first competitive mayoral general election<\/a> in years, seen by many as an existential moment for New York, and has come with a fair amount of mudslinging.<\/p>\n

Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani<\/a> has repeatedly spoken out about Islamophobic messages <\/a>and even threats on his life that he\u2019s received during the campaign. His opponents, including ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo<\/a>, have said the democratic socialist would be \u201cdangerous\u201d for the city if elected.<\/p>\n

\"ZohranZohran Mamdani speaks at 32BJ SEIU in Manhattan, New York on Thursday, July 30, 2025 (Barry Williams\/New York Daily News)<\/p>\n

Both Cuomo and Mayor Adams have attacked Mamdani for his anti-Israel stance, while Mamdani\u2019s stance on Palestine have been scored by some as antisemitic and hateful.<\/p>\n

Mayor Adams called Cuomo a \u201csnake and a liar,\u201d and the two have duked it out over Twitter.<\/p>\n

Mamdani has launched his own attacks, mainly at Cuomo, not only talking about the sexual misconduct scandal that led to his 2021 resignation, but about his overlap in donors with President Trump and pointing to loose, degrees-of-separation ties to Jeffrey Epstein. Trump, for his part, has called Mamdani \u201cmy little communist<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Speaking in Brooklyn on Friday, Cuomo, who\u2019s running as an independent, called Kirk\u2019s killing \u201chorrendous\u201d and \u201cdisturbing\u201d and an outgrowth of political speech that has become \u201canti-American\u201d and antithetical to \u201ceverything we say about democracy\u201d and the First Amendment<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Still, the former governor said he does not plan to tone down his rhetoric about Mamdani while defending his claim that the Democratic nominee<\/a> is \u201cdangerous\u201d to New York City.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve always been careful about what I say about Mr. Trump, what I say about opponents, I\u2019ve always been careful,\u201d he told the Daily News. \u201cDangerously inexperienced is what I believe, I believe that [Mamdani] is dangerous because he is inexperienced, and he doesn\u2019t understand public safety.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked for comment, Mamdani\u2019s campaign directed The News to a Thursday interview he did with the New York Times<\/a>. Trump and other right-wing figures have blamed the left<\/a> for political violence in the U.S. in the wake of the shooting, although the suspect\u2019s political affiliations were unclear as of Friday evening.<\/p>\n

\"Gov.Gov. Andrew Cuomo Speaks at a press conference at City Employees Union in Manhattan, New York on Thursday, Aug. 14, 2025 (Barry Williams\/ New York Daily News)<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is quite a terrifying time in our country,\u201d the frontrunner told The Times, though the democratic socialist said he doesn\u2019t plan on changing how he campaigns.<\/p>\n

Mamdani said he has received new death threats since the shooting and expressed fear for those close to him, according to the outlet.<\/p>\n

Mayor Adams\u2019 campaign did not respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n

E. O\u2019Brien Murray, a political strategist, said that he \u201chopes\u201d New Yorkers are able to see the difference between politics and calls to arms.<\/p>\n

\u201cWords are words,\u201d he said. \u201cActions are the ones that we have to be fearful of, and we have to be aware of friends, family, associates, people that are having trouble during these times, across the board for any reasons, to make sure that they know it\u2019s not okay to escalate those things. Say what you want, but that doesn\u2019t give you a right to do what you want.\u201d<\/p>\n

Many leaders including Gov. Hochul issued a plea<\/a> to turn down \u201creckless rhetoric\u201d on Friday.<\/p>\n

\u201cPolitical violence has no place in America \u2014 zero,\u201d Hochul said at a press conference in upstate New York. \u201cA democracy thrives on debate, not bloodshed. And as Governor, I know that words matter. It\u2019s not enough for leaders to condemn the violence after the fact.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Governor<\/p>\n

Darren McGee\/Office of Governor Kathy Hochul<\/p>\n

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and Mayor Eric Adams. (Darren McGee\/Office of Governor Kathy Hochul)<\/p>\n

The governor said she plans to bring leaders from across the political spectrum next week for a security briefing and conversation on how to take politics down a notch in the state.<\/p>\n

Former Republican Councilmember Joe Borelli<\/a> also spoke about taking the temperature down: In a CNN appearance Wednesday, the Staten Islander said he disagrees with most of Mamdani\u2019s political persuasions but that the two are still friendly.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe worst thing I want to happen to Zohran Mamdani is I want him to lose the race,\u201d Borelli said. \u201cI want him to lose. I don\u2019t want anything bad to happen to him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jim Walden, a former mayoral candidate<\/a> who stands stanchly against Mamdani and has called the candidate a \u201cradical extremist\u201d and antisemitic, also drew a distinction between words and actions.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have to all be able to address, authentically, our beliefs and principles, me included, without either turning into violent speech or being chilled because others use that reality of the increase of political violence to call on people to muzzle themselves,\u201d Walden said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The killing of MAGA conservative Charlie Kirk on Wednesday spotlighted the nation\u2019s polarized and sometimes bloodthirsty political climate,…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":225049,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,8988,1370,405,403,8989,50,5226,5225,5228,5227,5341,80,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-225048","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-election","10":"tag-latest-headlines","11":"tag-new-york","12":"tag-new-york-city","13":"tag-new-york-politics","14":"tag-news","15":"tag-newyork","16":"tag-newyorkcity","17":"tag-ny","18":"tag-nyc","19":"tag-nyc-mayoral-election-2025","20":"tag-politics","21":"tag-united-states","22":"tag-united-states-of-america","23":"tag-unitedstates","24":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","25":"tag-us","26":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115200224681549003","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225048","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=225048"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225048\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/225049"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=225048"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=225048"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=225048"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}