For What it’s Worth: Warren Hecht

During the shutdown, much of the federal government was still operating, although the employees were not getting paid. The House of Representatives was the exact opposite. The members of the House were paid during the shutdown, but the House was not in session. Speaker Mike Johnson refused to open the House until the shutdown ended. It was not as if they had nothing to do. It was done for one reason: to stop the discharge petition to force a vote on requiring the Department of Justice to release the entire Epstein files. If the House had been allowed to stay open, Johnson would have had to swear in the newly elected member from Arizona, Adelita Grijalva, who was going to be the necessary signature to force a vote. It was clear that Trump did not want the files released, and Johnson was doing his best to make sure that would not happen.

This column will be my final one before Election Day. I feel as though this moment is like Neilah on Yom Kippur, l’havdil—my last chance to be convincing. Now, I’m making a final attempt to persuade those who plan to vote for Curtis Sliwa, or who are thinking of sitting out this election, to go out and vote for Andrew Cuomo.

For those who expected me to talk about the consequential 1932 presidential election between then-President Herbert Hoover and the Democratic challenger Franklin Roosevelt, they will be disappointed. I want to address the 1932 election in Germany. It is a sobering lesson for the time we live in. There were two elections that year. The percentages changed from one election to the next, but the number-one party stayed the same.

It is time to get back to writing after two weeks off. There is so much to discuss that it was hard to decide what to address. I was going to focus on the Hamas-Israel deal in detail; however, that would require an article of its own. Instead, there is an issue that has a greater impact on New York City and needs to be addressed.

By the time this column is published, we should know who the next mayor of New York will be. As I write, I sit and wait with trepidation about what the final results will be. The polls are all over the lot. Although all of them have Mamdani in the lead, some have him ahead by 5 percentage points and others by 25. The same applies to Sliwa’s strength: Some have him within a couple of percentage points of Cuomo, and others have him in low double digits. It just shows the uselessness of the polls.

Since Trump returned as president, he has been able to bully various sectors of society to bend to his will. Examples include law firms, universities, and media outlets. Sometimes the media outlets pay a “settlement” in response to a frivolous lawsuit brought by Trump because they fear the consequences. Trump wanted Stephen Colbert off the air, and Paramount—seeking approval for its acquisition by Skydance—acquiesced to Trump’s request by not renewing Colbert’s contract.