| | | | | |  | | By Erin Durkin and Anna Gronewold with Jonathan Custodio | Happy Inauguration Day, New York. This state is not alone in great expectations for a new era in Washington, but she certainly has her hopes up pretty high. And why not? The president-elect is a friend rather than foe of Gov. Andrew Cuomo, and a number of Joe Biden's top appointments — including Janet Yellen, Avril Haines, Antony Blinken and Deanne Criswell — have spent formative years in the state. Along with incoming Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, state leaders are hoping for the chance to flex their Democratic muscles after four years of jousting with the Trump administration. But first they need money. While asking for big bucks isn't always the best way to kick off a partnership, Cuomo, in his budget address Tuesday, made it quite clear he doesn't have a choice. He painted two potential paths for this year's financial plan — one to stability and regrowth if the federal government fills the $15 billion budget gap he's projecting, and another to tax increases and generations of debt if Washington gives him a lesser $6 billion. One of the biggest results of the latter would be a tax increase on those making more than $5 million a year, something Cuomo's long resisted but has now offered his own version of out of necessity. His argument had always been that he didn't want to trigger an exodus among the state's tax base; the only New Yorker Cuomo wants moving permanently to Florida is the one departing the White House today. Yet desperate times call for desperate measures. The Legislature is now again tasked with negotiating a budget that has more questions than verified numbers (see: last year), and the March 31 deadline doesn't go away even if Congress and the White House get behind New York's schedule amid their transitions. No matter who you're rooting for over the next four years, enjoy today's festivities from the safety of your own home — but with Jennifer Lopez's Inauguration flair. IT'S WEDNESDAY. Got tips, suggestions or thoughts? Let us know ... By email: EDurkin@politico.com and agronewold@politico.com, or on Twitter: @erinmdurkin and @annagronewold WHERE'S ANDREW? No public schedule available by press time. WHERE'S BILL? Holding a media availability. | | | | TRACK FIRST 100 DAYS OF THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION: Track the first 100 Days of the Biden administration. Written for political insiders, this scoop-filled newsletter breaks big news and analyzes the initiatives, people and emerging power centers of the new administration. Subscribe today. | | | | |
|  | WHAT CITY HALL'S READING | | MAYORAL CANDIDATE Andrew Yang has proposed a casino on Governors Island as a way to raise revenue for the city's recovery — a plan that would face immense obstacles if he were to pursue it as the city's next leader. "That casino would generate so much money it would be bananas," Yang, a former entrepreneur who ran for president last year, said during a recent radio appearance on The Breakfast Club. "If the city could get that in place and harness some of that — that would be one of the engines of recovery." Governors Island is a 172-acre former military and Coast Guard facility in New York Harbor that is only accessible by ferry. It currently houses several restaurants and businesses, a large park and a National Monument in addition to swaths of open space. POLITICO's Joe Anuta "LESS THAN A WEEK after his vigorous launch into the New York City mayor's race, Andrew Yang said on Tuesday that he was halting in-person events and quarantining because a campaign staffer had tested positive for the coronavirus. Mr. Yang, the former presidential candidate, had been seemingly everywhere in recent days, meeting with elected officials across the city and riding the subway and bus to campaign events. His whirlwind appearances were in sharp contrast to the mostly virtual campaigns that his rivals have been conducting. Now Mr. Yang will enter quarantine for at least eight days, his campaign said in a statement. 'This morning, we learned that a member of the campaign staff received a positive result on a rapid Covid test,' the statement said. 'Since that time, Andrew has tested negative and is not experiencing any symptoms.'" New York Times' Emma G. Fitzsimmons — Knicks owner James Dolan, likely not a fan of Yang's because of his proposal to end Madison Square Garden's tax breaks, is behind a new political expenditure committee called "The Coalition to Restore New York" and has given maximum contributions to Ray McGuire, Shaun Donovan and Eric Adams. MAYA WILEY'S mayoral campaign rolled out to great fanfare: The attorney and MSNBC commentator who would make history as the city's first female mayor entered the race with a solid fan base and quickly amassed a team of seasoned operatives, posing an immediate threat to other leading candidates in the field. But three months after she launched her bid, Wiley has failed to catch fire . A first-time political candidate, Wiley has stumbled during standard stops along the campaign trail, at one point missing an opportunity to impress a politically influential union by declining to promise she would join its workers on a picket line, according to several people briefed on the closed-door interview. She has yet to match the fundraising heft of three other contenders — City Comptroller Scott Stringer and Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams, who began collecting money years before they entered the race, and Ray McGuire, a Wall Street executive bypassing the public financing system. POLITICO's Sally Goldenberg "NEW YORK CITY is on track to run out of COVID vaccine supplies starting Thursday, Mayor de Blasio said Tuesday. Without more doses, the city would have to cancel vaccination appointments for Friday and afterward, he added, explaining that the city had about 116,000 doses on hand as he spoke Tuesday morning. The situation threatened to foil the mayor's goal of getting 1 million New Yorkers vaccinated by the end of the month and came as localities around the country have struggled with an uneven vaccine rollout. The city is not scheduled to get a new batch of doses until next Tuesday, de Blasio said." New York Daily News' Shant Shahrigian — "Some 631 homeless New Yorkers died between July of 2019 and June of 2020, a 52% increase compared to the prior fiscal year, according to data released Tuesday by the de Blasio administration, a grim indicator of the effect of the coronavirus on people lacking permanent housing." Gothamist's Cindy Rodriguez "NEW YORK POLICE Department officers used excessive force in response to a Black Lives Matter demonstration honoring Martin Luther King Jr., New York state Attorney General Letitia James said Tuesday. Officers on Monday night arrested 29 protesters at the demonstration outside City Hall in lower Manhattan, NYPD officials said. The charges included disorderly conduct and resisting arrest, the officials said. The protest, which drew hundreds of participants, began outside the Barclays Center arena in Brooklyn and moved over the Brooklyn Bridge into Manhattan, where officers clashed with demonstrators at City Hall Park. Eleven officers suffered minor injuries in the incident, according to the officials, including a captain who was struck by a bottle. Ms. James, who last week filed a lawsuit against the NYPD over its response to Black Lives Matter protests in New York City last year, said Tuesday that videos circulating on social media showed that officers acted too aggressively." Wall Street Journal's Ben Chapman and Katie Honan | | WHAT ALBANY'S READING | | "A HOST OF OTHER 'revenue actions' was proposed Tuesday, including a new state and local sales tax imposed on the vacation home rental industry and a new $1 'convenience fee' imposed on motorists who do transactions online with the state motor vehicle agency. SUNY campuses would be permitted for another year to automatically raise tuition by various levels. As he has done in his previous two annual budgets, Cuomo called for the legalization of marijuana. The proposal creates a complex regulatory system to control the cultivation, distribution, marketing and selling of the drugs to people 21 and over. Officials believe it can bring in $350 million in tax revenues each year, though a Cuomo budget adviser said the marijuana market won't be fully mature for four years… After opposing the effort for several years, Cuomo also included in his budget the legalization of mobile sports betting run through computer servers at several upstate commercial casinos and Native American-owned casinos. It could bring Albany $500 million annually. But it is less market-driven than legislation pending in the Senate and Assembly, and gambling industry players have expressed concerns about limits contained in the Cuomo plan." Buffalo News' Tom Precious — The Times Union logged reactions from all your favorite Capitol characters. "PFIZER says it would need federal approval to sell its coronavirus vaccine to New York, dashing Gov. Andrew Cuomo's hopes of buying the shots directly. Cuomo asked the Manhattan-based drugmaker about placing a COVID-19 vaccine order on Monday as he complained that the feds had left the state facing a shortage. But Pfizer said the US Department of Health and Human Services would have to approve such an arrangement based on the emergency use authorization that the Food and Drug Administration granted for the groundbreaking vaccine. 'Pfizer is open to collaborating with HHS on a distribution model that gives as many Americans as possible access to our vaccine as quickly as possible,' the company said in a statement." New York Post's Noah Manskar — The number of New Yorkers hospitalized with Covid-19 has climbed above 9,000 for the first time since early May. GOV. ANDREW CUOMO has raised about $4 million over the past six months, a new campaign finance disclosure report shows. It's a bit of a return to normalcy for the governor's usually sizable fundraising operations. Cuomo raised only about $2 million in the first half of the year, while distancing himself from overt politicking during the depths of the pandemic. The governor's annual birthday fundraiser, which is usually one of his campaign's biggest events, was forced to go virtual in December. But the online gathering, featuring guests such as Whoopi Goldberg and Henry Winkler, apparently was a decent draw, based on the timing of some of the checks reported by Cuomo. And the $3.98 million he reported this filing period isn't terribly far off of the $4.4 million he raised in the comparable filing period in 2017 or $4.01 million in 2013. Cuomo has $16.8 million in the bank. That compares to $21.9 million at this point four years ago, and $22.5 million eight years ago." POLITICO's Bill Mahoney #UpstateAmerica: 93-year-old Buffalo resident Bernie Cesar hasn't shaved his beard in decades, but may go under the razor if the Bills win the Superbowl as a result of a bet with a Hall-of-Famer and former neighbor. | | | | JOIN THURSDAY TO HEAR FROM SELECT MAYORS ACROSS THE U.S.: On Thursday, Jan. 21, The Fifty: America's Mayors will virtually convene select mayors from across the U.S. for back-to-back interviews during inauguration week to discuss bold ideas and policy proposals for their cities to move forward post-COVID-19. The mayors will also discuss their cities' needs from state and federal government to recover from the economic and public health crises and how they'd like to work with President Biden as he begins in the White House. This virtual program will feature an executive conversation between POLITICO CEO Patrick Steel and Microsoft's President of U.S. Regulated Industries Toni Townes-Whitley. REGISTER HERE. | | | | |
| | TRUMP'S NEW YORK | | | 
Steve Bannon exits the court after pleading not guilty to charges that he ripped off donors to an online fundraising scheme to build a southern border wall, Thursday, Aug. 20, 2020, in New York. | AP Photo/Eduardo Munoz Alvarez | "PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP has decided to pardon his former chief strategist Steve Bannon , in a last-minute decision made only hours before he is scheduled to depart the White House for a final time. Officials cautioned CNN that Trump's decision was not final until he signed the paperwork. Trump told people that after much deliberation, he had decided to pardon Bannon as one of his final acts in office. Bannon faces a federal case that began in August when New York federal prosecutors charged him and three others with defrauding donors of more than a million dollars as part of a fundraising campaign purportedly aimed at supporting Trump's border wall." CNN's Pamela Brown, Paul LeBlanc and Kaitlan Collins "THE BACKLASH in summer 2019 to yet another anti-immigrant proposal from Washington was nothing new. New York Attorney General Letitia James said the administration would 'once again be tearing families apart.' Mayor Bill de Blasio said it would make kids homeless. The New York City congressional delegation called the idea 'deeply flawed.; But unlike other controversial executive orders that President Donald Trump signed, a proposal by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to remove almost all undocumented immigrants from public housing has quietly disappeared — a rare example of the Republican administration backing down on a hardline immigration policy. 'We are disgusted that this rule was ever proposed and happy that it has not been finalized,' said Max Hadler, director of health policy for the New York Immigration Coalition. 'We expect and hope and will hold the Biden administration accountable for withdrawing the proposed rule and stopping these attacks on immigrant families.'" Gothamist's Matthew Schuerman | | FROM THE DELEGATION | | "PRESIDENT-ELECT Joe Biden will appoint former southern Brooklyn Congressman Max Rose as a senior advisor in the Pentagon, Defense One first reported. Rose, who recently bowed out of the city's mayoral race, will serve as the special assistant to the secretary of defense and as a COVID-19 advisor, according to the outlet. The Park Slope native was elected in 2018 to the congressional seat covering Staten Island and a swath of southern Brooklyn, including Bay Ridge, Dyker Heights, and Bath Beach, and parts of Gravesend and Bensonhurst." Brooklyn Paper's Rose Adams "A QUEENS MAN arrested by the FBI this morning for threatening politicians posted unhinged and anti-Semitic rants on social media — and threatened to kill Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Sen. Chuck Schumer and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, according to a criminal complaint. Brendan Hunt, 37, posted the screeds and videos using the alias 'X-ray Ultra' and also under a Facebook account with his actual name, federal authorities charged Tuesday." New York Post's Ben Feuerherd | | AROUND NEW YORK | | — The city allowed a massive Hasidic wedding to take place in Borough Park. — Cuomo called the notion of freeing Sheldon Silver from prison "just confounding" and the culmination of "four years of bizarre." — CHURCHILL: Now is the opportune time to demolish Interstate 787, the "disaster" on Albany's waterfront. — The Mets have fired general manager Jared Porter over a report he sent explicit texts and images to a reporter. — Former City Council Member Elizabeth Crowley is considering another run for Queens borough president. — Authorities seized more than 1,000 pounds of duck tongues , duck intestines and live blood clams at JFK Airport. — The NYPD will bring disciplinary charges against the officer who killed Delrawn Small in a 2016 Brooklyn road rage incident. — The MTA began collecting fares on Access-a-Ride for the first time since March. — Hundreds of workers at The Bronx's Hunts Point Produce Market are on their fourth day of a strike after negotiations broke down over a $1 an hour raise. | | SOCIAL DATA BY DANIEL LIPPMAN | | HAPPY BIRTHDAY: Kellyanne Conway is 54 … Nikki Haley is 49 … Bill Maher is 65 ... WSJ's James V. Grimaldi … Georgina Bloomberg is 37 … CNN's Diane Ruggiero … CBN anchor and correspondent Jenna Browder … CBS' Maria Gavrilovic and Peter Greenberg … Adrien Borisavljevic … Tanya Meck … Morton Abramowitz is 88 JARED AND IVANKA WATCH -- KATIE ROGERS in Town & Country: "Where Do Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump Go From Here?" MEDIAWATCH — "The Ezra Klein Show," his new podcast for NYT Opinion, has a trailer out. Listen ENGAGED — TIFFANY TRUMP on Instagram: "It has been an honor to celebrate many milestones, historic occasions and create memories with my family here at the White House, none more special than my engagement to my amazing fiancé Michael! Feeling blessed and excited for the next chapter!" — Sophie Mussafer, an investment banking associate at Goldman Sachs who works for Dina Powell McCormick, on Friday got engaged to Michael Griffin, who's on the acquisitions team at the Davis Companies. The couple met in 2019 at the 11th annual Boston Winter Ball, a charitable event that supports the Corey C. Griffin Foundation, a Boston-based non-profit. Pic … Another pic | | REAL ESTATE | | "NEW YORK senators have asked the state Office of Court Administration to issue additional guidance on the eviction moratorium for local courts as lawmakers receive multiple reports of judges disregarding the law and regulations on the books. A slate of 31 Democratic senators penned a letter Thursday asking court administrators to provide further guidance to local courts to ensure that the eviction moratorium and its protections are applied uniformly across the state. The letter notes lawmakers heard reports of eviction proceedings going forward in Oswego, Poughkeepsie, Schenectady, Syracuse and Yonkers as well as foreclosure proceedings moving forward in Kings, Queens and Suffolk counties." Times Union's Amanda Fries "KELLY WANG's new store almost didn't survive the pandemic. Five weeks after opening Rue Saint Paul, her Brooklyn sustainable-fashion and beauty boutique, the lockdown forced her to close for three months. Because the store was new, it didn't qualify for a federal PPP loan. "I was just panicking. It was my first commercial lease and I was nervous and timid about my options," she says. Thank goodness her landlord—a retired woman who lives upstairs — said she didn't have to pay rent until the spring lockdown ended . In July, when Ms. Wang asked about the back rent, the landlord said she'd only have to pay half, spread over the remainder of the lease. 'We wanted to make sure Kelly had the opportunity to be successful in the space,' says Salvatore Licata, the landlord's son. 'And in turn, my mom hopefully would have a long-term tenant that she would benefit from as well.' Ms. Wang, meanwhile, decided against requesting additional discounts. Sales are strong and she's able to pay the full $3,800 monthly rent on the 550-square-foot space, she says. For those of us concerned about our city's mom-and-pop shops and retail strips, it's heartening to hear about landlords and small-business tenants working in good faith to ensure each other's survival. And it's not as rare you might think." Wall Street Journal's Anne Kadet
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