30 Issues in 30 Days: Pres. Trump and Mayor Mamdani in NY-17

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Brian Lehrer (0:42)

It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. We are in our 30 issues and 30 days election series. Let other media focus only on the polls and personalities. We are choosing an issue a day for 30 straight shows to help be as informed a voter as you can be in our local swing congressional districts and the New York state governor's race. For the first three days of this week, we're highlighting three issues in the local congressional race, getting the most national attention. Maybe it's the most national attention of any congressional race. It's the Mike Lawler, Cait Conley race in District 17, north of the city. You might call it the Tappanzee Bridge District, which includes parts of Westchester and Otis counties and all of Rockland and Putnam. Mike Lawler is the Republican incumbent, Cait Conley, his Democratic challenger. Yesterday, we looked at how affordability is playing as an issue in that race and how it came up in the debate last week. Today, we're going to look at how the candidates are aligning themselves or not aligning themselves as may be the case with what you might call the more controversial wings of their respective parties, namely President Trump and Mayor Mamdani, both of whose names came up in the debate. I think this is particularly relevant for the Republican incumbent Mike Lawler, whose relationship with the president is something Cait Conley raises all the time.

So to set it up, I'm going to play both of their opening 30-second statements from the debate, which was Monday last week. Cait Conley went first. So here she is in her 30-second intro to herself.

Cait Conley (2:23)

Good evening. I'm Cait, a proud daughter of a postal worker and construction worker, who was called the Hudson Valley home for four generations. After 9-11, I went off to West Point, served this nation proudly as an active army officer for 16 years, doing six tours overseas. But I came home to find my country and my home in a worse place than when I left, because of party first politicians like Mike Lawler, who have put the Trump agenda and that of special interests ahead of working people.

I'm running to reigning the corruption in Washington to lower costs for families and put the people of the Hudson Valley first.

Brian Lehrer (2:53)

So there is Cait Conley in her opening statement, right? Essentially trying to use Lawler's relationship with the president as a mark against him right from the jump, claiming he's a party loyalist and that he'll prioritize the Trump agenda over what's best for the constituents of New York 17 So now we're going to play Lawler's opening statement, also 30 seconds.

Mike Lawler (3:17)

Thank you, Tara, and thank you to News 12 for hosting. And I want to thank my opponent, Cait Conley, for joining us tonight, as well as for her service to our nation.

We're proud of that. I'm also proud of the work that I've done over these past four years to serve this district. I've consistently been rated among the most bipartisan and effective members of Congress. It's why Democrat Jared Golden recently endorsed me, as well as Newcastle town councilwoman Ali Chemtab. We have delivered for this district, and I will continue to fight for this district day in, day out. And I look forward to the discussion tonight.

Brian Lehrer (3:50)

So there's Lawler with a different message saying, look, I can work across the aisle. I vote my conscience, not my party. And I've even won some endorsements from Democrats. He's not disavowing Trump, but the real crux of his opening pitch, the one he chose to open with, is that he's not beholden to the president, right? So that's a little of the Lawler Trump side of things.

For Cait Conley's part, she won the primary as a more centrist candidate against two others who were running to her left. But in the debate last Monday, Lawler used Mayor Mamdani by name as a line of attack, asking Conley to denounce the mayor and what Lawler called the radical anti-Semitic left. To be clear, this district doesn't include any part of New York City, and the mayor is of course not a federal official, so the relationship there doesn't have a ton of practical relevance on a policy level, but they're both having to negotiate where they stand in relation to the big party figures and what that might mean to voters. We are joined once again today by Timmy Facciola, founder of the political news outlet and sub stack called the Judge Street Journal. Timmy, good to have you back. Thanks for doing this for us three days in a row.