Could Israel Help Save New York from Zohran Mamdani?

Plus, Trump pushes for Mexican Coke; and more.

In today’s newsletter: a possible Israeli solution to New York’s Zohran Mamdani problem; Trump pushes to get corn syrup out of Coca-Cola; and the New York Times offers a false description of an information-reliability company. Also, a correction.

A former prime minister of Israel, Naftali Bennett, seated at right, spoke March 6 2025 at Harvard Chabad. At left is Rabbi Hirschy Zarchi of Harvard Chabad.

Can Israel help save New York City from socialist mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani?

I’m not suggesting a foreign government meddle directly in an American municipal election, no matter how repulsive and extreme Mamdani’s anti-Israel policies are or how grave a threat his socialist policies pose to property rights. But Israel’s recent political history might offer New York a practical solution for stopping Mamdani.

Here’s what I mean:

In 2021, Israel’s national politics featured something of the same situation that New York City has now. A majority of Israeli voters wanted someone other than Benjamin Netanyahu, but those anti-Netanyahu voters were split between backers of centrist Yair Lapid and more right-wing Naftali Bennett, a former aide to Netanyahu.

The practical solution? Lapid and Bennett teamed up and made a power-sharing deal to split the the job, with Bennett serving as prime minister for the first two years and Lapid taking over after that.

It was a compromise and it wasn’t the most ideologically consistent or coherent or stable government. It also depended on participation in the governing coalition by an Arab party led by Mansour Abbas. Yet it succeeded in keeping Netanyahu out of the prime minister’s office, at least for about a year until the government eventually collapsed. Bennett and Lapid both got their turns as prime minister, though each turn lasted shorter than originally planned. Mansour Abbas served in the government as a minister without portfolio.

At least one recent poll shows the anti-Mamdani vote in New York City is like the anti-Netanyahu vote in Israel in 2021—a majority, but split between supporters of the incumbent mayor, Eric Adams; the former governor, Andrew Cuomo; and the Republican candidate, Curtis Sliwa.

Maybe Adams and Cuomo can make a power-sharing deal like Bennett and Lapid did. They could also offer Sliwa a job in the administration. I know, it sounds far-fetched. Mayor of New York is an executive job that is unlike being the prime minister in Israel’s multiparty coalition parliamentary democracy. There’d probably have to be some sort of law passed allowing such a deal, and a written agreement detailing it.

But it could be a win-win. Adams and Cuomo both get to be mayor. They just have to take turns, like children with a coveted toy. They both are trying to come back after scandals. They both have executive experience. They both are more centrist than Mamdani (a low bar, to be sure) and far more pro-Israel and pro-business. Sliwa might pull them even further toward the right on public safety issues. When they aren’t serving as mayor, Adams and Cuomo could do other City Hall jobs—principal deputy mayor, or something like that.

Anyway, what really matters here is not what Adams or Cuomo or Sliwa want, but what the voters want. If the poll is correct that a majority of them really prefer a candidate that is not Mamdani—that is, not an Israel-hating socialist—then the non-Mamdani politicians should be able to craft a deal that allows the voters to choose that, putting the voters and the city ahead of the politicians’ own egos. A unified “Not Mamdani” slate is what I am talking about.

President Trump might have the juice to make it happen, but, as I wrote July 10, “Republicans seem more than pleased to elevate Mamdani as a kind of national spokesman for the Democrats.” Or as Bret Stephens wrote July 15, “Get ready for the G.O.P. to run against ‘Mamdani Democrats’ for several election cycles to come.”

Who else has the stature to encourage Cuomo and Adams to make this sort of deal to save New York and prevent the Bernie Sanders-Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez wing of the Democratic Party, which welcomed Mamdani to Washington today, from taking over America’s largest city? President Biden (or his autopen)? Mayor Pete? Senator Schumer? Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries? Mike Bloomberg? Bill Ackman and Dan Loeb? Jamie Dimon or Marc Rowan? Maybe Eva Moskowitz can make it happen somehow.

Nita Lowey might have done it but alas she is no longer with us. Joe Lieberman might have but alas he too is no longer with us. Senator Moynihan might have done it but alas he too is no longer with us. Mayor Koch might have done it but alas he too is no longer with us. Walter Wriston or David Rockefeller could have done it but they are no longer with us.

Randi Weingarten might have been able to do it, but the United Federation of Teachers, the American Federation of Teachers’ New York local, already endorsed Zohran, and Weingarten for all her clout and savvy is no Al Shanker. Obama seems to be rooting for Zohran.

Perhaps Cuomo and Adams will need to reach the conclusion on their own.

Or perhaps Israel’s ambassador to the U.N., Danny Danon, should invite Cuomo and Adams to breakfast at the Regency with Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid, and just sit back, be quiet, and see where the conversation goes.

Trump pushes for Mexican coke: For Trump’s second-term agenda I didn’t have fiddling with the Coca-Cola formula on my bingo card, but lo and behold, Trump posted to social media this afternoon, “I have been speaking to Coca-Cola about using REAL Cane Sugar in Coke in the United States, and they have agreed to do so. I’d like to thank all of those in authority at Coca-Cola. This will be a very good move by them — You’ll see. It’s just better!”

This product is also known as Mexican Coke or kosher-for-Passover Coke (some Jews avoid corn syrup on Passover). Neither sugar nor high-fructose corn syrup is particularly great for some people’s health, and the free-market guy I am thinks the Coke formula should be left to the company and its owners, not the president. But for all the attention to the Medicaid spending adjustments in the One Big Beautiful Bill, the Coke announcement is a reminder that the federal government has an awful lot of policy levers to pull that may wind up affecting health outcomes.

Isolating the effects of those variables for research purposes can be complicated. One useful thing Trump might do on that front, if he’s already gotten involved, would be to suggest that Coke to stagger the implementation for a few years and leave some states with the sugar and other states with the corn syrup. Then researchers can track diabetes or obesity or life expectancy or whatever outcome this change is supposed to have a positive effect on, and compare the states and see whether it makes any significant difference.

Juxtaposition of the Day: “Iranian media even claimed to have captured an Israeli pilot, identified as Sarah Ahronot, but NewsGuard, a company that monitors disinformation in media, traced the photograph to one of a Chilean Navy lieutenant taken in 2011.”— The New York Times, in an article that appeared online July 15 and in the business section in print on July 16.

“Commentary: Why We’re Moving Beyond ‘Misinformation’ and ‘Disinformation’”:...The words misinformation and disinformation once served a purpose. …But as the landscape and political climate have changed so has the language. These words have now been politicized beyond recognition and turned into partisan weapons by actors on the right and the left, and among anti-democratic foreign actors…When everything is “disinformation,” nothing is, and public trust continues to disintegrate….At NewsGuard, we’re retiring these words as primary labels. ..Language should clarify, not obfuscate. “Misinformation” and “disinformation” have lost their precision. — The official NewsGuard Reality Check Substack, July 9, 2025.

Got that? NewsGuard itself says it’s moving away from the term “disinformation” as “politicized beyond recognition.” Yet, in reporting on NewsGuard, the New York Times persists in using a thumbnail description of the company— “monitors disinformation”—that uses a word that NewsGuard itself says obfuscates rather than clarifies.

The Times article has three bylines—Steven Lee Myers, Natan Odenheimer, and Erika Solomon. It is just the latest example of The Editors Rule of Byline Inflation, which states that the reliability of any news article is inversely proportional to the number of journalists named as authors and contributors to it.

Correction: Florida is the state that Senator Rick Scott represents. Yesterday’s The Editors newsletter had the incorrect state. Thank you to the many, many sharp-eyed readers who noticed and who took the time to write in and let us know.

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