Adams is the talk of Somos — even though he isn’t there

SAN JUAN — New York City Mayor Eric Adams said he isn’t coming to the Somos conference in Puerto Rico this year. But his political woes were the main topic of conversation the first day on the island.

“He’s running — away,” one Assembly member joked to POLITICO, one of many attendees at the annual state Democratic confab, who were granted anonymity to discuss a powerful figure whose political standing is in flux.

Halfway through his first term, and with fresh news of a federal investigation touching his inner circle, everyone seems to be discussing who might be running against Adams in 2025 and what his political future may be.

“There have to be options,” said City Council member Diana Ayala. “I’m very disappointed with the management of the current administration.

Ayala is considering running for mayor herself, having “very preliminary conversations.”

But, she added, “I don’t think I should be the only one running. This is an invitation to others. That’s what democracy is about. If not now, when?”

The campaign fundraiser for Adams had her home raided by the FBI last week as federal prosecutors investigate whether the campaign conspired with the Turkish government to funnel illegal contributions from foreign citizens to the campaign through straw donors.

Nobody has been charged in the case, and there’s no indication that Adams himself will be implicated. Adams said Wednesday he had hired the law firm WilmerHale to represent him in the probe.

The city’s fiscal woes are keeping him home, Adams said Wednesday, along a pause on non-essential travel. He didn’t mention whether the FBI raid also influenced the apparently-last-minute decision.

But his troubles back home were on the tip of people’s tongues.

“People are circling, waiting to see if there’s a there there,” said one New York City lobbyist. “If he’s implicated, things could unravel quickly.”

The annual Somos conference brings more than 2,000 figures in New York’s political ecosystem together for a five-day conference on Latino issues. It’s also among the largest networking events of the year, where people come to lobby, gossip and plan for the upcoming year.

So in Adams’ absence, a few potential mayoral challengers filled the spotlight — whether they liked it or not.

Every two feet, state Sen. Zellnor Myrie got stopped by people wanting a hug or a quick word, as he walked through the lobby of the Caribe Hilton on his way to state Comptroller Tom DiNapoli’s opening night reception Wednesday.

“Can we get the principal inside?!” His fiancé, former Assembly member Diana Richardson joked to the other members of his entourage.

“I have been approached, I continue to be approached,” about running for mayor, Myrie told POLITICO. But those political conversations aren’t on most New Yorker’s minds.

“Most New Yorkers are wondering why they can’t pay rent, have no path to homeownership, cannot afford their medication, do not have support for child care,” he said.

Should the mayor be here? Myrie paused for 12 seconds. “I’m not going to comment on the mayor’s scheduling choices,” he said. “I think that is wholly within his administration's power to decide what’s important.”

But key members of his team are at the conference, on their own dime, including chief adviser Ingrid Lewis-Martin, advisers Diane Savino and Peter Koo and campaign lawyer Vito Pitta. NYPD Commissioner Edward Caban is here, along with top staff including Kaz R. Daughtry, and so is Sheriff Anthony Miranda — wearing a six-pointed star pin.

State Sen. Jessica Ramos came in early, on Election Day.

“I know that talking about the future of the mayoral seat is a very sexy topic,” she said, but I think that much more of a priority is learning when White House meetings are going to get rescheduled, and how we’re actually going to get back on track trying to get the funding that we need.”

That cheeky, let’s-focus-on-the-work tone was shared by Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso.

“People are asking a lot of people to run,” he said. Himself, included. “I’m here to discuss issues affecting Latinos in Brooklyn.

Other potential mayoral candidates’ names are getting floated too. Some, too ridiculous to print. Others, yet-to-be-confirmed rumors.

One trend: They’re not all Working Families Party-aligned progressives. The last two years — and maybe the last week especially — have some insiders dreaming of a moderate, or a technocrat.

“Everyone in the nonprofit world’s like ‘Chris Quinn is going to run, right?’” said one nonprofit lobbyist, talking about the former City Council speaker turned homeless shelter executive. She ran for mayor in 2013, and while she’s said she won’t challenge Adams, she hasn’t closed the door to running.

“It will take a very special kind of progressive to beat Eric Adams in 2025, but a more centrist, or even just a slightly-to-the-left of Eric Adams candidate could really challenge him,” said political consultant Ryan Adams, who has worked for New York City Council member Justin Brannan, another other candidates. “Most of all, whoever challenges Eric Adams would have to be fun. No boring person will beat Eric Adams.

The mayoral race talk has some Adams defenders wishing people would slow down. It’s too soon to write him off, they said, despite slumping poll numbers even before the latest scandal.

”Based on what we’re hearing right now we have no reason not to be with the mayor,” Sen. James Sanders said about himself and his colleagues representing the largely Black, middle class neighborhoods of southeast Queens. “We’ve seen so many incidents of the media hooting and hollering, and in the end there’s no there there.”

Sanders endorsed Adams in 2021, but the mayor even needs to firm up support with old allies. “Are we totally happy with everything? Heck no,” he said. “We’re looking for initiatives from the mayor. Some way that he is remembering that we are in southeast Queens and we vote.”

A version of this story first appeared in Thursday’s New York Playbook. Subscribe here.

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Under pressure from Biden, Israel agrees to implement humanitarian ‘pauses’

After days of talks with top Biden administration officials, Israel will begin to implement short humanitarian “pauses” in the fighting in northern Gaza each day, the White House announced.

Starting on Thursday, the four-hour “pauses” in operations in Gaza will allow humanitarian aid to flow into the area and civilians to get out of harm’s way, National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby told reporters.

The news comes after top administration officials, including President Joe Biden himself, ramped up efforts to pressure their Israeli counterparts to pause the fighting for humanitarian purposes. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, national security adviser Jake Sullivan and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin have also spoken with their counterparts about the issue, Kirby said.

The announcement is a “direct result” of President Joe Biden’s “personal leadership and diplomacy,” Kirby said.

However, the agreement falls far short of the White House’s goals. Speaking to reporters on Thursday, President Joe Biden said he had asked for a pause “longer than three days” to secure the release of hostages held by Hamas in Gaza.

Biden also expressed some frustration with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has resisted a prolonged humanitarian pause in the fighting.

“It’s taken a little longer than I hoped,” he told reporters.

A statement from Netanyahu's office on Thursday did not mention the pauses specifically, but noted that Israel is "allowing safe passage through humanitarian corridors from the northern Gaza Strip to the south, which 50,000 Gazans utilized just yesterday."

"The fighting continues and there will be no ceasefire without the release of our hostages," according to the statement. "We once again call on the civilian population of Gaza to evacuate to the south."

An Israeli official, granted anonymity to speak on a sensitive topic, played down the White House announcement, noting that "it is a tactical, localized pause each day in a specific area (to be announced) to allow people to move to the south, to get food and medicine."

Still, Kirby said the news is “a step in the right direction.” While he declined to say whether there had been any progress in securing the release of the hostages, he said the pauses “can serve a multitude of purposes.”

The White House has received assurances from the Israelis that “there will be no military operations in these areas over the duration of the pauses,” which Israel will announce three hours ahead of time, Kirby said.

Israel has already opened a “humanitarian corridor” allowing civilians to flee the hostilities, and plans to open another along the coast so people can reach safer areas in the south of the country, Kirby said.

Humanitarian assistance is now flowing into Gaza in increased numbers: 96 trucks crossed on Tuesday while 106 crossed on Wednesday, Kirby said. The White House wants to see “no less than 150 trucks per day,” he said.

Kirby reiterated the White House’s support for Israel and said the administration does not support a ceasefire at this time.

Israel “is fighting an enemy that is embedded in the civilian population, using hospitals and civilian infrastructure in an effort to shield itself from accountability and to place the innocent Palestinian people at greater risk,” he said.

“At the same time, Israel has an obligation to fully comply with international law,” Kirby added. “And we believe these pauses are a step in the right direction.”

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White House says 5.5M borrowers enrolled in Biden’s new student loan plan

The Biden administration announced on Wednesday that nearly 5.5 million borrowers are enrolled in its new student loan repayment plan that offers lower monthly payments and caps interest accrual.

The Education Department also released a new breakdown of enrollment in the new income-driven repayment plan for each congressional district as GOP lawmakers are pushing to repealing the program.

About 2.9 million of the borrowers enrolled in the plan have incomes that are low enough that they are not required to make a monthly payment this year, White House domestic policy adviser Neera Tanden told reporters on Wednesday.

“We’ve had a major push on increasing enrollment, but the data speaks for itself,” Tanden said.

An administration official said that more than 2 million people enrolled in the plan are borrowers who newly signed up for Biden's program in the past several months while the other borrowers were automatically enrolled in the new plan because they had already been enrolled in the previous version of it.

The Education Department said that the 5.5 million borrowers enrolled in the SAVE plan account for about $300 billion of the $1.6 trillion in outstanding federal student loan debt. The department also said that 75 percent of borrowers enrolled in the SAVE plan had previously received a Pell grant.

The latest data reflects enrollment in the program as of Oct. 15. It’s an increase from the the 4 million borrowers that the Education Department said were enrolled in the plan at the beginning of September.

The House and Senate are expected to vote in the coming weeks on a Congressional Review Act resolution that would overturn the program. The House education committee approved the legislation, H.J. Res. 88 (118), in September, teeing it up for a vote by the full house. In the Senate, Republicans could force a vote on the measure, S.J. Res. 43 (118), in the coming weeks. On Tuesday, Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) signed onto the GOP-led effort as a co-sponsor.

Manchin, along with Sens. Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.) and Jon Tester (D-Mont.), all joined with Senate Republicans earlier this year to pass legislation to block Biden's sweeping student debt relief plan before it was blocked by the Supreme Court. Biden vetoed the legislative effort to kill his student debt relief plan as he is certain to do of any effort to stop the income-driven repayment plan.

The new income-driven repayment plan, which the Biden administration has dubbed the “SAVE plan,” allows most federal student loan borrowers to lower their monthly payments and limit the accrual of interest. It also makes it easier for borrowers to obtain loan forgiveness after making payments for 20 or 25 years, or shorter if they have low balances.

Republicans have cried foul over the plan, arguing that it’s essentially a back-door effort by the Biden administration to cancel student debt. GOP lawmakers say the program offers wasteful subsidies that are too expensive for taxpayers. The Biden administration estimated that its new plan would cost $156 billion over the next decade. The Congressional Budget Office has pegged the figure at $230 billion, and outside analysts, such as the Penn Wharton Budget Model, have said it could be as high as $475 billion.

In addition to the Congressional Review Act resolutions, House Republicans are pushing to block the plan as part of their education funding bill for the 2024 fiscal year. House leaders have said they plan to turn to that funding bill in the coming weeks.

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UN chief: Gaza death toll suggests Israel’s tactics are ‘clearly wrong’

Secretary-General António Guterres jabs Israel again.

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‘I want to get this over with,’ Tuberville says of resolving military blockade

Sen. Tommy Tuberville acknowledged on Tuesday that there's urgency to resolving his blockade that's left more than 400 military promotions in limbo in protest of the Pentagon's abortion travel policy.

In contrast to previous hardline statements, the Alabama Republican signaled a rare openness to ending the impasse ahead of a closed-door meeting with fellow GOP senators later on Tuesday. But Tuberville, who has long said the Pentagon must undo its policy before he drops his hold, indicated that he'd need a concession of some kind as part of an off-ramp.

"We've got several things that we can do," Tuberville told reporters. "I understand the urgency. I'm not just being hard-headed about this. I understand we've gotten into some unique problems the last few weeks."

Tuberville has so far rejected the off-ramps offered to him — such as votes that would undo the Pentagon policy of reimbursing troops who travel to seek an abortion.

But Tuberville is now facing a fight from some GOP defense hawks, who confronted him on the floor last week and forced him to block votes on 61 nominees. Concern is mounting that Republicans could soon join with Democrats on legislation to bundle most of the promotions he's blocking, effectively circumventing his hold.

"I want to get this over with," Tuberville acknowledged, before adding the caveat, "but do it the right way."

"It's pretty important to my people back in the state that there's got to be a way around this that … it's not going to satisfy everybody, but I do want to move forward with this," he added.

Several alternatives to the current holdup of uniform officers have been floated. Many Republicans want to see Tuberville shift his obstruction to civilian nominees — such as President Joe Biden’s pick for Pentagon policy chief, Derek Chollet — who make policy, unlike military members. But Tuberville has already placed holds on civilian picks, though with less public attention than military nominees, and would lose leverage by focusing on nominees who already need to jump through procedural hoops to be confirmed.

Tuberville said he planned to circulate a memo at the closed-door GOP meeting outlining several potential paths, which he declined to immediately detail.

“I’m not lifting my holds. There are some ways around this, and we’re going to explain them to you a little bit later,” he told reporters.

Other Republicans, seemingly anticipating backlash from anti-abortion groups that support the blockade, want to see the policy challenged in federal court with the help of those groups.

But Tuberville rejected using a lawsuit to address his concerns, saying it could take years. “Some of us don’t have that long,” he said.

For some Republicans, Tuesday’s special conference meeting could very well be a last straw after nine months of inaction.

No Republicans have publicly endorsed the Democratic-led carveout to get around Tuberville’s hold, offered by Senate Armed Services Chair Jack Reed (D-R.I.) and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.). But senators on the fence could use his intransigence to justify supporting it.

Ursula Perano and Burgess Everett contributed to this report.

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Senate confirms Monica Bertagnolli as NIH director

The Senate confirmed Dr. Monica Bertagnolli to lead the National Institutes of Health in a 62-36 vote Tuesday.

Nearly every Democrat joined 13 Republicans in filling the post responsible for overseeing billions in federal research grants, but vacant since Dr. Francis Collins left nearly two years ago.

“Dr. Bertagnolli is the right person to ensure the NIH stays on the cutting edge of innovation and research and fulfills its critical mission to promote health, improve equity, keep our nation competitive and give patients across the world real hope for the future,” said Senate Appropriations Chair Patty Murray (D-Wash.) in a speech just before the vote.

While Bertagnolli won confirmation with ease, her road there was rocky. After President Joe Biden tapped her to lead NIH in May, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) held up her nomination for months in an effort to extract a comprehensive plan to lower drug prices from the White House.

He and Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman were the only members of the Democratic caucus to vote against confirmation. Thirty-four Republicans also voted no.

In a speech preceding the vote, Sanders called Bertagnolli, who most recently led the National Cancer Institute, “an intelligent and caring person,” but said he was not convinced that “she is prepared to take on the greed and power of the drug companies.”

Fetterman echoed Sanders’ concerns.

As chair of the Senate committee with jurisdiction over health care nominees, Sanders refused to hold a panel vote until last month when he relented after the Biden administration struck a deal with biotech company Regeneron that included a reasonable pricing clause for a Covid therapy it's developing with federal assistance.

Then five Republicans joined Democrats to advance Bertagnolli's nomination out of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.

During her confirmation hearing last month, Sanders and ranking member Bill Cassidy (R-La.) pressed Bertagnolli on her approach to drug pricing and whether she'd add reasonable pricing clauses to NIH contracts. She told both members that she couldn't commit to any particular drug pricing policy.

Bertagnolli did offer insight into her priorities as NIH director, including improving clinical trials.

"One of the other commitments I want to make is for clinical trials — since it’s been one of my core expertise — that are faster, more inclusive, more responsive to the needs of people,” she told the HELP committee last month. “It’s one of the major initiatives that I’d like to see happen at NIH."

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Boris Johnson asked to be injected with Covid on TV to calm British public, inquiry hears

Former aide to the prime minister says comments were "made in the heat of the moment."

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