Latimer on slain aid workers in Gaza

Apr 04, 2024

By Emily Ngo, Nick Reisman and Jeff Coltin

Presented by

With help from Irie Sentner

Democratic House candidate George Latimer, wearing a suit and standing alone, poses at a campaign stop in the Bronx on April 3, 2024.

Like President Joe Biden, Democratic House candidate and Westchester County Executive George Latimer wants answers from Israel’s investigation. | Emily Ngo/POLITICO

NEW YORK MINUTE: Texas Gov. Greg Abbott will be in Manhattan tonight keynoting the New York GOP’s annual gala.

“Securing the border himself and deploying the National Guard and bussing migrants out of state,” former Rep. Lee Zeldin, another featured speaker, told Playbook, “that seems to be rooted, first and foremost, in utter despair and desperation.” — Emily Ngo

TURNING POINT: Westchester County Executive George Latimer’s staunch support of Israel isn’t without its limits.

Especially as the Israel-Hamas war hits its six-month mark and especially after an Israeli airstrike killed seven World Central Kitchen aid workers in Gaza this week.

“It’s a horrific incident, and there’s no defense for that,” the Democratic candidate for Congress told Playbook.

Like President Joe Biden, Latimer wants answers from Israel’s investigation.

“How that came to pass, who gave the direction to do something like that, if it’s purposeful or not, you’ve got to know,” he said, adding, “But I think Israel understands that.”

Unlike Biden, he did not go so far as to say he was “outraged” by the deaths or say Israel must do more to protect civilians.

Latimer’s responses to Playbook’s questions Wednesday in the Bronx are reflective of a broader shift among the Democratic defenders of Israel who have recently hardened their tones on its government and military.

The Westchester County executive is mounting a primary challenge against Rep. Jamaal Bowman, a vocal critic of Israel, in one of the country’s highest-profile tests of the war’s political fallout.

Latimer is backed by the influential AIPAC, the Jewish Democratic Council of America and most recently, the Democratic Majority for Israel PAC.

He visited Israel in a show of solidarity in November, but also called for a temporary cease-fire in early March.

Bowman seeks a permanent cease-fire. And his endorsers include Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar and other members of the Squad who have repeatedly condemned U.S. and Israeli policies leading to a mounting Palestinian death toll that has surpassed 30,000.

A Bowman campaign spokesperson referred Playbook to a video statement in which the House member speaks with anguish about aid workers and civilians being targets of military attacks. The World Central Kitchen is “doing life-saving work, and the IDF bombs them. When will enough be enough?” Bowman writes in another post.

An AIPAC spokesperson pointed to the group’s statement offering its condolences to the World Central Kitchen community. The end of its response had focused attention back on “Hamas’ despicable attack on October 7 and the terror group’s refusal to surrender and free the hostages.”

Latimer appeared to do the same Wednesday, speaking to Playbook in Co-op City after accepting former Gov. David Paterson’s endorsement.

“You try to avoid getting into wars for that reason,” he said of the slain aid workers. “You try to make sure that you don’t start provocative action that actually triggers all these things.” — Emily Ngo

HAPPY THURSDAY: Got news? Send it our way: Jeff Coltin, Emily Ngo and Nick Reisman.

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DO WE HAVE A BUDGET YET? No.

WHERE’S KATHY? In Albany doing a prerecorded teleconference with NASA Astronaut Jeanette Epps aboard the International Space Station.

WHERE’S ERIC? Appearing on 94.7 The Block’s “Jonesy in the Morning,” then La Mega 97.9 F.M., delivering remarks at the inaugural meeting of the New York City Workforce Development Council, then meeting with a delegation from Lanzarote, Spain, then making a public health- and law enforcement-related announcement and hosting a reception to thank clergy leaders.

QUOTE OF THE DAY: “If my common-sense approach is being mislabeled by the so-called socialists or whoever, it’s fine because I will never be a socialist.” — Assemblymember Jaime Williams, a Brooklyn Democrat running, as Playbook reported, also on the GOP and Conservative Party lines. Ocasio-Cortez had called her a Republican in an exchange that went viral.

ABOVE THE FOLD

The New York State Capitol building is in Albany, New York.

For many Democrats in Albany, the budget must-haves fall into three buckets: housing, health care and school aid. | Ted Shaffrey/AP

THE MUST GETS: The final state budget deal will have a lot of components. But increasingly state lawmakers are talking about what they must bring back to their districts as they run for reelection. For many Democrats in Albany, the budget must-haves fall into three buckets:

Housing: Incentives to expand housing and bolster protections for renters remain the key sticking point. And at the moment none of the sides appear to be budging.

Housing advocates were inflamed this week after lawmakers and Gov. Kathy Hochul discussed potentially rolling back a key aspect of a 2019 rent law package that prevents landlords from raising rents on rent-stabilized apartments.

But at the same time, the fight over housing has received pushback from landlords, who fret about the impact of the Good Cause Eviction proposal.

Nearly two dozen clergy members in a letter sent Wednesday urged Hochul and Democratic state lawmakers to reject the measure, meant to make it harder to raise rents and evict tenants.

“For years, the African American community has faced injustice from all fronts. Now we have a new threat, Good Cause Eviction,” they wrote in the letter. “While this issue has been framed as tenant protection, the reality is that this bill will cause irreparable harm to the families the bill claims to support.”

Health care: Escalating Medicaid costs and widespread concerns over the financial viability of health care networks in the state are colliding in the budget negotiations.

A proposal to tax managed-care organizations, even if approved by the federal government, is not expected to generate revenue for this fiscal year.

But 1199SEIU, the powerful labor union of health-care workers, is making a concerted push to shore up funding for a home care program as well as Medicaid funding overall.

“We think the kind of structural gap between what Medicaid pays and what it costs for facilities to provide care is driving instability in the health care sector,” Helen Schaub, the union’s interim political director, told Playbook. “It’s going to continue to get worse if it’s not addressed.”

School aid: No issue is bigger for lawmakers as they face voters this year than making sure money is flowing back home to school districts.

And Hochul’s proposal to overhaul how schools are funded has created a looming anxiety among lawmakers. If approved, more than half of the state’s 637 school districts would see spending reductions even as education overall is set to increase. A potential compromise: study how the funding formula would change.

“The various school districts I have would lose $3 million combined,” Rochester Assemblymember Harry Bronson told Playbook. “That’s a significant loss for those school districts.” — Nick Reisman

CITY HALL: THE LATEST

Charles Barron speaks during a media conference.

Charles and Inez Barron, who both served in the City Council and the Assembly, will soon co-host a new radio show called “Speaking Truth to Power.” | Richard Drew/AP

THE REVOLUTION WILL NOT BE TELEVISED: Because it’ll be on the radio. First in Playbook, Charles and Inez Barron, who each served in the City Council and the Assembly, will co-host a new show.

The call-in show “Speaking Truth to Power” will air live at 5 p.m. every Friday on progressive talk radio station WBAI starting next week.

In a statement, the married couple promised to “shed light on a much-needed Black radical/revolutionary perspective on important political issues.”

The socialist duo ran politics in East New York for two decades, but Inez was term-limited out, and Charles lost his reelection bid last year — but shared his unique, eminently quotable perspective in an exit interview with Playbook. — Jeff Coltin

WAR ON BLACK BAGS: All city businesses had to put their trash on the street in wheelie bins starting March 1 — but Sanitation Commissioner Jessica Tisch has the next target in her sights.

Cleaning crews from Business Improvement Districts around the city still drop trash in bags next to city litter baskets.

“Why? Because it's always been allowed,” Tisch said at a Citizens Union breakfast in midtown on Wednesday. “But that is my next frontier in the war on the black bag. … It truly makes no sense.”

Tisch said she’s looking to tackle the issue “in the coming weeks.”

After that, smaller residential buildings will have to put their trash in containers — no bag mountains on the street — starting this fall. — Jeff Coltin

More from the city:

— City investigators found widespread misuse by the NYPD of parking placards and a complete abrogation of enforcement against cops. (Streetsblog)

— Is the city really facing a squatter problem? Lawyers on both sides say no, nothing is new but the hype. (Gothamist)

— Adams skipped a 2023 banquet honoring Taiwan’s president after a top Chinese diplomat sent a letter warning him that attending could cost New York its “friendship” with China. (National Review)

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NEW FROM PLANET ALBANY

Assembly Judiciary Committee Chair Charles Lavine speaks.

The state Senate approved a bill that would decriminalize adultery Wednesday after Assemblymember Charles Lavine got it passed through the Assembly last month. | Hans Pennink/AP Photo

LEGISLATURE OK’S ADULTERY: The state Senate on Wednesday approved a bill to decriminalize adultery in New York. The proposal, which has languished in Albany for nearly six decades, began to pick up some momentum when Assembly sponsor Charles Lavine got it passed through the Assembly last month.

The law subjecting adulterers to three months in prison is rarely enforced, but critics say it’s an ineffective statute that tends to penalize only people who are already facing hard times.

“It doesn’t serve as a deterrent,” Lavine said. “It’s a celebration of someone’s concept of their own morality.” — Bill Mahoney

More from Albany:

— Hochul will watch the solar eclipse from Niagara Falls. (State of Politics)

— Labor unions want the 421-a replacement to include a $40 minimum wage. (City & State)

NEW YORK STATE OF MIND

— The MTA asked the New York City Marathon to pay about $750,000 a year to compensate for the toll revenue it loses when it closes the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge for the marathon. (New York Times)

— Major felonies in New York City hit a two-decade high last year, according to internal NYPD data undermining Adams’ repeated assertions that crime is a perception problem. (New York Post)

— George Santos says he’s running against Rep. Nick LaLota because he didn’t rig vote-counting to help Santos beat Rep. Tom Suozzi in 2020. (Daily Beast)

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SOCIAL DATA

Edited by Daniel Lippman

MAKING MOVES – Meghan Mangini is now an associate on the corporate and legislation team at Kasirer.

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YOUR NEW YORK NUMBER OF THE DAY

Nearly 12 percent

Share of Democratic primary voters in the state that City & State calculated had submitted blank ballots as part of the Leave It Blank campaign calling on President Joe Biden to “stop the genocide in Gaza.”