NYC Press Corps Teaches Andrew Yang About the City, One Gaffe At A Time
arrow Andrew Yang and Edwin Raymond in Brooklyn as a heckler tries to interrupt the event. Brigid Bergin / Gothamist
For former presidential candidate Andrew Yang, who entered the New York City mayor’s race as a frontrunner in January, this week brought into sharp relief some yawning gaps between what he knows and what he doesn’t about the basic functioning of New York City.
On Thursday, flanked by former NYPD officer Edwin Raymond, who’s running for City Council, Yang was asked by NY Post reporter Julia Marsh if he supported the repeal of 50-a, the long-standing law that shielded police discipline records from public view. State legislatures repealed the law last year, amid massive public demonstrations following the murder of George Floyd.
Campaign Finance Board spokesman Matt Sollars declined to comment on the specifics of Weprin’s situation, but noted that “city law requires candidates to pay off all outstanding debts from previous elections before they can be eligible to receive matching funds.”
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On Thursday evening, New York City’s Democratic mayoral candidates appeared for their first televised debate. And while the proceedings weren’t particularly enlightening, they did give Henry Grabar and Jordan Weissmann an opportunity to reflect on the state of the race.
Jordan Weissmann: So Henry, I come before you as a slightly humbled pundit.
Henry Grabar: Recant, recant!
Weissmann: Indeed, I must. Partially, anyway.
A few months back, I told you that I was Yang-curious that, despite finding him to be a gimmicky nuisance during the presidential race, I generally liked what he was bringing to the table as a mayoral candidate. His proposals to provide a basic income for New York’s poorest and create a municipal public bank seemed like a revival of the long-faded notion that large urban centers could function as their own social democratic city-states. And given that the whole race sort of seemed to be a clown car full of weird, dull, or simply out-of-the-mainstream candidat