New York City mayoral candidates face off in final debate

Author Michael Wolff has sued first lady Melania Trump, charging that she threatened a $1 billion legal action against him to stop him from reporting and writing about her alleged ties to Jeffrey Epstein.

“Mrs. Trump’s claims are made for the sole purpose of harassing, intimidating, punishing or otherwise maliciously inhibiting Mr. Wolff’s free exercise of speech,” said the suit, which was filed yesterday in New York Supreme Court in Manhattan. 

The filing includes as an attachment a letter Trump’s attorney, Alejandro Brito, sent to Wolff, the author of “Fire and Fury,” last week demanding that he retract and apologize for public comments he has made linking his client to Epstein, the notorious sex offender, and that he make “a monetary proposal to Mrs. Trump to ameliorate the harm that you have caused.”

Read the full story here.

Zohran Mamdani and Andrew Cuomo clashed today in the final New York mayoral debate, which put on full display their personal animosity and their array of disagreements over both city and national issues.

Throughout the 90-minute debate, Cuomo — the former Democratic governor running as an independent — called Mamdani, 34, a state assemblyman, a “kid” who would get knocked “on his tuchus” by President Trump, a “great actor” and a “divisive force in New York” who brings “toxic energy for New York.”

Mamdani, the Democratic nominee, who defeated Cuomo in the party’s primary in June, slammed Cuomo as a “desperate man” and “Trump’s puppet” whose political career was decidedly in the past.

Read the full story here.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced a second strike on an alleged drug boat today — the ninth strike the Trump administration has announced since early September.

"Today, at the direction of President Trump, the Department of War carried out yet another lethal kinetic strike on a vessel operated by a Designated Terrorist Organization (DTO). Yet again, the now-deceased terrorists were engaged in narco-trafficking in the Eastern Pacific," Hegseth said on social media. "The vessel was known by our intelligence to be involved in illicit narcotics smuggling, was transiting along a known narco-trafficking route, and was carrying narcotics."

Hegseth said three people were killed. It was the second strike in the eastern Pacific.

"These strikes will continue, day after day," he said.

After the New York mayoral debate, Mamdani expanded on the thinking behind his decision to retain NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch if he is elected.

“Commissioner Tisch took on that broken status quo, started to root out that corruption, delivered accountability and reduced crime across the five boroughs, and that is the exact kind of result that we will build on in our administration," Mamdani told reporters. "And I’ve said time and again, the best and the brightest is what my administration will be characterized by. That doesn’t mean that every person agrees on every issue."

The last New York mayoral debate of this election cycle has concluded.

Early voting begins in the five boroughs on Saturday, and Election Day is Nov. 4.

Asked by the moderators about his plan to raise the minimum wage in New York City to $30 an hour, Mamdani defended the plan, saying $30 per hour is what someone living there "needs to be paid to be able to afford to live in this city."

"What we are looking at right now is the possibility of the place that we know and love becoming a museum of where working-class people used to be able to live," Mamdani added, underscoring a key campaign theme.

In response, Sliwa blasted Mamdani's plan, telling viewers that Mamdani "deals with fantasy, not reality."

"You know what the corporate sector is going to do?" Sliwa asked. "They're going to bring in robotics, Zohran! Stop dealing with fantasy and start dealing with reality."

During an exchange about whether to close Rikers Island in 2027, Mamdani told viewers: "You will hear from Andrew Cuomo about his experience, as if the issue is that we don’t know about it. The issue is that we have all experienced your experience." He then accused Cuomo of not having done enough to save seniors who died in nursing homes during the Covid pandemic.

"You have no experience," Cuomo shot back at Mamdani. "You’ve accomplished nothing. You haven’t proposed the bill on anything."

During a section of the debate when the candidates asked one another questions, Mamdani told Cuomo that one of the women who accused him of sexual harassment while he was governor, Charlotte Bennett, "is here in the audience this evening."

"She cannot speak up for herself because you lodged a defamation case against her. I, however, can speak. What do you say to the 13 women that you sexually harassed?" Madani asked.

Bennett this year settled her lawsuit against New York that alleged the state didn't do enough to prevent Cuomo's alleged sexual harassment. Cuomo threatened to sue her this year for defamation.

There were many more Trump questions and references in the first 30 minutes of the NBC New York debate last week than there were in this first hour so far.

Public safety has dominated the night so far.

Mamdani confirmed The New York Times’ reporting that if he is elected mayor, he would keep NYC Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch, who was appointed by Mayor Eric Adams.

“Yes, I can confirm that reporting. My administration will be relentless in its pursuit of safety and affordability for every New Yorker, and that will require us to put together a team of the best and the brightest," Mamdani said. “Commissioner Tisch took on a broken status quo, started to deliver accountability, rooting out corruption and reducing crime across the five boroughs."

During a section of the debate about fighting crime, Mamdani accused Cuomo of spending "more time talking about the platforms of other organizations and other individuals than ... the one that he is supposed to be running on."

"No matter how many times Andrew Cuomo describes it as my idea or my policy, I have never once stated that we were not going to prosecute misdemeanors," Mamdani told viewers, alluding to the fact that Cuomo has cited policies that he claims the Democratic Socialists of America supports.

"And that is what you see from the former governor — is someone who spends more time talking about the platforms of other organizations and other individuals than the one that I've actually put forward or the one that he is supposed to be running on," Mamdani said.

After Mamdani accused Cuomo of failing to build more housing in the city when he was governor, Cuomo shot back, telling viewers: "My friend doesn't really understand government. The governor doesn't build housing in New York City."

Mamdani fired back, "Not if it's you." Cuomo went on to slam Mamdani's record in the state Assembly and tout his support for affordable housing.

Mamdani then jumped in, saying that it's "always a pleasure to hear Andrew Cuomo create his own facts at every debate stage."

He then addressed viewers, saying: "We just had a former governor say in his own words that the city has been getting screwed by the state. Who was leading the state? It was you."

The exchange devolved into a shouting match, with one of the moderators jumping in to tell the candidates that they cannot talk over each other.

In a fiery section of the debate, the three candidates sparred over who would best combat antisemitism in New York City, with Mamdani starting by promising to protect Jewish New Yorkers and backing a plan to introduce more lessons about the Jewish experience in New York in public schools.

Cuomo was the first to respond, telling Mamdani: “Not everything is a TikTok video. You’re the savior of the Jewish people? You won’t denounce [the phrase] 'globalize the intifada,' which means ‘kill Jews.'"

Cuomo was referring to Mamdani's past decision not to condemn the phrase "globalize the intifada." The New York Times later reported that Mamdani privately promised to "discourage" use of it.

The debate audience cheered when Sliwa told Cuomo, "You didn't leave ... you fled," from his post as governor in 2021.

Talking about homelessness in the city, Cuomo said, "Since I left, homeless rate has more than doubled."

Sliwa responded: "Andrew, you didn’t leave. You fled from being impeached by the Democrats in the state Legislature. You fled."

Cuomo resigned as governor in 2021 after having faced multiple claims of sexual harassment.

Following immigration enforcement activity yesterday on Manhattan's Canal Street, each candidate vocally opposed federal immigration raids in New York City, including Sliwa, the GOP nominee.

"The feds should not have stepped into this situation. There is not communication between the local authorities and the feds. This is a matter that should been left up to the NYPD," Sliwa said.

Cuomo and Mamdani also panned the intervention of ICE officers on Canal Street, with Cuomo telling viewers: "You don't send ICE in without coordinating with our police. It's not smart, it's duplicative, and it's dangerous."

Mamdani said, "ICE is a reckless entity that cares little for the law and even less for the people that they're supposed to serve."

In recent weeks, opponents of Mamdani have called on Sliwa to drop out so anti-Mamdani voters can consolidate behind Cuomo.

Sliwa has declined to do so, but Mamdani nodded at the dynamic in his opening statement, telling voters, "You will hear only two messages from my opponents, who spend more time trying to convince the other to drop out than actually proposing their own policies."

The final mayoral debate in New York City before Election Day is underway, with state Assembleyman Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic nominee; Curtis Sliwa, the GOP nominee; and former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who is running an independent campaign, taking the stage.

Maine Democratic Senate candidate Graham Platner covered up a tattoo on his chest that resembled a Nazi symbol, a spokesperson for Platner’s campaign confirmed to NBC News.

The move comes just days after Platner appeared on an episode of “Pod Save America” and acknowledged the tattoo in response to a video of himself shirtless, in which his tattoo is visible at his brother’s wedding 10 years ago.

The Treasury Department announced new sanctions targeting Russia’s oil sector today, the day after Trump confirmed that a planned meeting with Putin to discuss Russia’s war with Ukraine was off.

“Now is the time to stop the killing and for an immediate ceasefire,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a statement. “Given President Putin’s refusal to end this senseless war, Treasury is sanctioning Russia’s two largest oil companies that fund the Kremlin’s war machine. Treasury is prepared to take further action if necessary to support President Trump’s effort to end yet another war. We encourage our allies to join us in and adhere to these sanctions.”

The two companies being sanctioned are Rosneft and Lukoil, along with some of their subsidiaries, according to the statement.

Despite the war and the battered Russian economy, Rosneft and Lukoil are worth more than $50 billion each and are two of the biggest companies listed on the Moscow Stock Exchange.

Read the full story here.

The Senate has voted 54-46 to reject, for a 12th time, a House-passed clean stopgap bill that would reopen the government and keep it open until Nov. 21 to give congressional appropriators time to finish full-year funding bills.

The vote ensures the government shutdown will continue for yet another day.

Senior Republican lawmakers predicted today that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s new policy restricting communication between Pentagon personnel and Congress will crash and burn.

“It is ill-advised, and it’s not going to work,” House Appropriations Committee Chairman Tom Cole, whose panel provides funding for the Pentagon and the rest of the federal government, said in a telephone interview.

Cole, a Republican whose Oklahoma district includes Tinker Air Force Base and Fort Sill, said he and his staff regularly get important information from personnel up and down the ranks on a wide range of topics, including the effects of the political stalemate in Washington that has paused certain government operations.

Read the full story here.

The entire East Wing of the White House will be demolished “within days,” according to two Trump administration officials. 

The demolition marks a significant expansion of the ballroom construction project from what Trump said this summer.

“It won’t interfere with the current building,” Trump said on July 31. “It’ll be near it, but not touching it, and pays total respect to the existing building, which I’m the biggest fan of.”

Read the full story here.

Former Kentucky state legislator Charles Booker is considering running for the state’s open U.S. Senate seat in 2026, a source who has spoken to him about it told NBC News.

Booker’s entry would set up a clash in the Democratic primary with Amy McGrath, who recently launched her campaign in the deep-red state for the seat being vacated by retiring Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell.

Booker’s allies have conducted internal polling to test the waters in the primary, showing a path for him. He sees a lane running on an economic message of lowering costs, with a unique ability to reach men of all racial backgrounds, said the source, who was not authorized to speak publicly about his plans. Booker hasn’t made a final decision yet.

Head Start locations across the country warn that their programs will be imperiled — potentially throwing tens of thousands of preschool children and their families into limbo — if the government shutdown stretches into November.

Some, such as those in Tallahassee, Florida, have already reached that point. They didn’t get their annual funding at the start of this month and will need to close their doors Friday after having burned through limited reserves.

Shantell Jackson, a teacher at one of the programs who has been working without pay this week, said that Head Start is a critical lifeline for families and that it was transformational for her daughter, who has autism.

“They helped me find all the resources to help her,” Jackson said. “She went from just screaming to nobody knows what she wanted to now she’s able to communicate and say exactly what she wants and what she needs.”

Read the full story here.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent just told reporters at the White House driveway that the administration will soon announce ramped-up sanctions on Russia.

"We are going to either announce, after the close this afternoon or first thing tomorrow morning, a substantial pickup in Russia sanctions," Bessent said.

Trump spoke to Putin last week ahead of his meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the White House.

The U.S. military launched its eighth strike against an alleged drug-carrying vessel, killing two people in the waters of the eastern Pacific Ocean, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said today, marking an expansion of the Trump administration’s campaign against drug trafficking in South America.

The attack last night was a departure from the seven previous U.S. strikes that targeted vessels in the Caribbean. Hegseth said on social media that the latest strike killed two people, bringing the death toll to at least 34 in attacks that began last month.

The strike is an expansion of the military’s targeting area in South American waters, as well as a shift to Colombia, where much of the cocaine from the world’s largest producer is smuggled. Hegseth’s post also draws a direct comparison between the war on terrorism the United States declared after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and the Trump administration’s crackdown.

Read the full story here.

Democratic Rep. Jasmine Crockett, a prominent progressive and strong fundraiser, said she's considering running for the Senate after a GOP-led redistricting effort carved up seats around the Dallas area (and other cities in Texas).

In an appearance on "The Lurie Daniel Favors Show" on SiriusXM’s Urban View channel, Crockett noted how her home was drawn into a different district under the new lines, which will be in effect for next year's midterms unless lawsuits challenging the lines succeed or delay the implementation.

"The key to winning Texas isn’t about looking at the current electorate. It’s about expanding the electorate," she said. "So the question will be whether or not we believe that we’ve got enough juice to expand the electorate and looking at those cross tabs and looking at which demographics are more inclined to come out, who normally do not vote."

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, suggested the Senate could slow-walk confirmation of Defense Department nominees if Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth doesn't change course with a new directive making it harder for staff members to communicate with lawmakers.

"We have Senate-confirmed nominees that I daresay would be reluctant to confirm if our access to accurate information from the Department of Defense was inhibited in any way. I think Secretary Hegseth knows that," Cornyn told NBC News today. 

The five-page Hegseth memo dated Oct. 15 directs Pentagon staff memo and officials to seek approval before they communicate with lawmakers and staff members on Capitol Hill.

Trump said on Truth Social this afternoon that cattle ranchers in the United States are doing well because of the tariffs.

"The Cattle Ranchers, who I love, don’t understand that the only reason they are doing so well, for the first time in decades, is because I put Tariffs on cattle coming into the United States, including a 50% Tariff on Brazil," he wrote.

He added: "If it weren’t for me, they would be doing just as they’ve done for the past 20 years — Terrible! It would be nice if they would understand that, but they also have to get their prices down, because the consumer is a very big factor in my thinking, also!"

Trump proposed the idea of purchasing beef from Argentina over the weekend. The CEO of the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association denounced the possible plan this week.

“This plan only creates chaos at a critical time of the year for American cattle producers, while doing nothing to lower grocery store prices,” Colin Woodall said in a statement.

The International Court of Justice, the United Nations’ top legal body, said in an advisory opinion today that Israel is required to facilitate U.N. aid efforts in the Gaza Strip. 

The case came in the wake of Israel's decision last year to ban UNRWA, the U.N. relief agency supporting Palestinian refugees.

Israel's Foreign Affairs Ministry said on X that it rejected the court's determination, which it called "entirely predictable" and "another political attempt to impose political measures against Israel under the guise of 'International Law.'"

North Korea performed its first ballistic missile tests in five months Wednesday, days before Trump and other leaders are expected to meet in South Korea.

South Korea’s military detected multiple suspected short-range ballistic missiles launched from an area south of Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said. It said the weapons flew about 217 miles each in a northeastern direction but did not say where they landed.

Read the full story here.

Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., is still speaking on the Senate floor after delivering remarks for more than 16 hours in protest of what he described as Trump’s “authoritarian” leadership and warning that the republic is facing “the biggest threat” since the Civil War.

“President Trump is shredding our Constitution. Is it OK for masked federal agents to arrest people off the street because of their skin color or their accent? No way, not in a free America,” Merkley said in his opening remarks around 6:30 p.m. ET last night.

The Democratic senator went on to rebuke the Trump administration for other actions, including weaponizing the Department of Justice to attack his political opponents and canceling research grants to universities in an attempt to gain control over what can be taught.

Read the full story here.

A Jan. 6 defendant named Christopher Moynihan, who was among the hundreds whom Trump pardoned in January, has been arrested on accusations of making a death threat against House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y. Moynihan allegedly said he planned to kill Jeffries in New York City.

Jan. 6 rioter arrested over alleged death threat against Hakeem Jeffries

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Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., is heading back to New Hampshire.

The 2020 presidential candidate will headline the state Democratic Party's Eleanor Roosevelt dinner on Nov. 14, party Chair Raymond Buckley announced in an email today.

Booker is the latest in a string of national Democratic figures who could run for president in 2028 to turn up in New Hampshire this year. Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker headlined another state party dinner in April, and Sens. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and Ruben Gallego of Arizona, Rep. Ro Khanna of California, and Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear have all traveled to the traditional early primary state, too.

Vice President JD Vance stressed today that U.S. officials were not seeking to babysit the Gaza ceasefire and that Israel was a partner, not a “vassal state,” as questions rose over the next steps in the Middle East.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has hosted a string of senior American officials in recent days, exchanged words of friendship and optimism with Vance at a joint news conference in Jerusalem as Washington worked to ensure the truce brokered by Trump will hold.

Vance meets with Netanyahu today. Nathan Howard / Pool via Getty Images

Read the full story here.

Government shutdown enters Day 22 with no end in sight

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As the government shutdown enters Day 22, Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., is giving a marathon Senate floor speech that began last night to protest Trump's policies. Meanwhile, the president is suggesting he would meet with Democratic leaders only after the shutdown ends. NBC’s Ryan Nobles reports for "TODAY."

The International Court of Justice is expected to issue a ruling today on whether Israel violated international law by imposing a monthslong blockade of aid into Gaza earlier this year before allowing just a limited amount of supplies to enter. 

Israel launched the aid blockade in March amid a ceasefire with Hamas before ending the short-lived truce, which began in mid-January, later that month. It lifted the blockade, which fueled a hunger crisis in the territory, in May, allowing a “basic” amount of supplies into the enclave. 

In August, the world’s leading body on hunger declared a famine in part of the enclave’s north, including Gaza City, as deaths from starvation in the territory continued to rise. 

The court is expected to deliver a nonbinding legal advisory opinion, but its decision could deepen international pressure on Israel to allow more aid into the territory under the current ceasefire, with humanitarian groups, including the World Food Program, calling for more aid to be distributed.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese expressed support for Kevin Rudd, his country’s ambassador to the U.S., after Trump said he didn’t like Rudd during a visit to the White House.

Rudd, a former Australian prime minister who has been U.S. ambassador since 2023, had made disparaging online comments about Trump in the past — saying in 2020, for example, that he was “the most destructive president in history” — but deleted them after Trump was voted back into the White House last November.

Asked by a journalist about the Australian ambassador’s past criticism of him Monday during his first official meeting with Albanese, Trump first asked whether the ambassador was still working for Australia before being told it was Rudd, who was in the room. “I don’t like you either,” Trump told him as others laughed. “I don’t. And I probably never will.”

Albanese later said at a news conference that Rudd was doing a “fantastic job” and that he didn’t think the exchange would affect U.S. relations with Australia, noting that as reporters left the room, Trump could be heard saying that “all is forgiven.”

Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., is delivering a Senate floor speech that has stretched overnight for more than 13 hours.

Merkley's office said that he is delivering the speech "to ring the alarm bells of the Trump administration’s tightening authoritarian grip on the country."

He began speaking shortly before 6:30 p.m. yesterday.

In April, Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., set the record for the longest Senate speech with remarks that went more than than 25 hours.

When delivering a speech on the floor, a senator cannot leave for a bathroom break or sit down. Doing so would mean losing control of the Senate floor.

A person was arrested last night after ramming a vehicle into a Secret Service security checkpoint a few hundred feet from the White House, officials said.

A Secret Service spokesperson said the vehicle drove into the gate at 17th and E St, NW, in Washington about 10:37 p.m. ET. The suspect has not been named and so far there has been no suggestion of any motive or whether the collision was intentional.

News agency images showed a black car having collided with a security checkpoint on the western side of the White House complex.

Read the full story here.

Just hours after Trump said peace talks with Russia’s Vladimir Putin were on hold to avoid wasting his time, the Kremlin launched intense overnight strikes that killed at least six people in Ukraine.

Ukrainian officials said the Russian attacks on Kyiv and other cities were the latest proof that Putin was not ready for peace and merely wanted to use negotiations to drag out the war.

Asked about Trump’s remarks, the Kremlin said today that neither president wanted to waste time — and cautioned that any meeting would require further “preparation.”

Read the full story here.

Former Republican Sen. John Sununu announced his campaign for New Hampshire’s Senate seat this morning, jumping into a competitive primary ahead of an open battleground race next November.

Sununu, who served the Granite State in the Senate until he lost a re-election bid to Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., in 2008, said in an announcement video, “I’d be honored to have your support and return to the Senate to help calm the waters.”

Read the full story here.

Speaking at a news conference alongside Vice President JD Vance. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hailed the relationship between the U.S. and Israel as a “partnership like never before.”

Calling Trump’s recent visit to Israel following the start of the country’s ceasefire with Hamas “one that will be remembered in the chronicles of our nation” Netanyahu said that over the past year, his government had shared an “alliance and partnership with the United States unlike anything before.” 

“I’ve been around for quite a while, worked with many U.S. administrations. I appreciate the partnerships and support we’ve had, but this is something entirely different,” he said. 

Netanyahu said he was impressed by the vice president’s “clarity, sharpness, solidarity toward our shared mission, and genuine friendship, both in public meetings and private conversations.”