Curtis Sliwa, the red-beret wearing Republican, is looking to spoil the party as the New York mayoral race comes to a dramatic close.
With most eyes on Zohran Mamdani, the slick Gen-Z friendly democratic socialist trading blows with Independent Andrew Cuomo, who resigned as governor after sexual harassment allegations, it could be Sliwa who swings the ticket.
He is the motor-mouthed creator of New York City’s Guardian Angels anti-crime patrol group and despite dwindling crime stats in Sliwa’s mind, crime is ‘exploding’ in the Big Apple.
‘Zohran obviously is very unique. He’s way to the left, but then again, Cuomo and Adams, listen to the way they talk. They’re Zohran-lite,’ the 71-year-old said. ‘I will be the alternative.’
With the biggest turnout in a New York City mayoral election in at least 30 years, here are some of Sliwa’s wackiest moments:
‘Slapping fannies and killing grannies’
Sliwa has never come across as the most polished politician. But one of his greatest soundbites came as he embarked on a bizarre rant against his rivals in which he accused them of ‘slapping fannies and killing grannies.’
In an infamous rant on Fox News, he laid into Cuomo and former mayor Eric Adams: ‘Andrew Cuomo, who gave up this election to Zohran Mamdani, admitted he didn’t try hard, didn’t go into the streets, certainly didn’t go into the subways where I am every day campaigning.
‘Eric Adams is damaged goods. Every day, there’s a new case of corruption in the police department. They believe he’s corrupt.
‘Andrew Cuomo is a creep, slapping fannies and killing grannies. Everybody likes Curtis Sliwa. My favorability ratings are the highest in this cycle.’
$10 million bribes
Sliwa claimed he was offered up to $10 million by multiple people to exit the race, including offers of a car and a chauffer which he rejected.
‘They all think that everybody has a price, that’s the way they talk. ‘Come on Curtis, everybody has a price,’ Sliwa told reporters recently. ‘Curtis Sliwa doesn’t have a price. I came into this world with nothing, I’m going to leave with nothing, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.’
“Seven different people, a total of $10m when you bifurcate it out over the years,” he told Fox5 New York without naming names.
“Car, Jeep, chauffeur, headquarters to operate out of, helping the Guardian Angels, helping animal welfare – and you know something? If you’re watching out there, you can’t bribe me, buy me, lease me: I’m not for sale.”
‘Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang’
Sliwa’s Guardian Angels — a band of beret-wearing citizens — patrolled graffitied subway cars and the burned out, crumbling projects of the late 1970s, when life was cheap and The Warriors seemed more like a documentary.
In Sliwa’s mind, nothing has changed, in fact it’s all gone to hell in a handbasket.
The Bronx, he says, ‘blood is pouring from the streets.’
The ‘madams and pimps’ on the outskirts of Queens need to be arrested and the ‘Johns’ should be named and shamed. When women ride the subway, they get ‘perved on,’ Sliwa said.
As Sliwa spoke with a small gaggle of journalists on a street corner at a recent campaign stop, he illustrated an argument about the statistics by forming his hand into a gun — a ‘9 millimeter’he said — and pointed it at his surprised spokesperson.
‘Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang!’ he laughed.
Shot by the mob
In another interview, he recounted how, in 1992, he was shot multiple times in what prosecutors later said was an attempted mob hit. Sliwa had been blasting Gambino crime family boss John Gotti on the radio.
The mob boss’s son, John “Junior” Gotti, was charged with ordering the shooting, but multiple juries deadlocked and prosecutors eventually gave up the case.
Can he actually win?
It seems unlikely but Sliwa, like President Donald Trump, has long been a larger-than-life New York City tabloid figure.
Trump has already turned Mamdani into a foil and falsely branded him as a communist while urging people to vote for Cuomo and dismissing Sliwa as ‘not exactly prime time.’
Damian Koszalka, a carpenter from Queens, says he knew Trump wanted supporters Sliwa to back Cuomo. But Koszalka wasn’t swayed, saying, ‘You have to go with your own guts.’
‘I don’t give a damn, you know, if Trump or whoever, is telling me I have to vote for this guy because that’s the less evil, or this and that,’ he said after casting his ballot. ‘It doesn’t work that way.’
Trump reluctantly endorsed Cuomo on the eve of the election, saying Mamdani would bring “disaster” to the city.
Koszalka voted for Sliwa in 2021 when he ran for mayor that year.
Referring to the Guardian Angels, he said Sliwa is the only candidate on the ballot this year who ‘actually did something for the city,’referring to Cuomo and Mamdani as ‘parasites.’