Former New York City mayoral candidate Curtis Sliwa is getting lambasted by Republicans and other critics over a cutesy video he made with socialist NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani.

Sliwa hammered away at Mamdani during debates before the election, but since the socialist defeated him for the mayor’s office, Sliwa appears to have warmed up to the leftist.

‘You can tell when people are true to the party, and I thought it was reprehensible.’

In the video produced for the Inner Circle show, Sliwa pretends to be a doctor and gives the mayor an allergy shot so he can live with a cat in the official mayor’s residence. The event raises money for charity.

“I thought it was great because it was promoting rescuing animals,” Sliwa explained to the New York Post.

Others didn’t think it was so great.

“Betrayed his family. Betrayed the Republican Party. Betrayed everyone,” said a GOP operative to the Post under the condition of anonymity.

The Post reported that others said they wanted their political contributions to his campaign returned after seeing the video.

“When you don’t have a bed to sleep in, you have to find anyone who will take you,” replied former New York Gov. David Paterson, a Democrat. “You can tell when people are true to the party, and I thought it was reprehensible.”

Sliwa fired back at the Republicans criticizing him by pointing out they had not criticized President Donald Trump for cozying up to Mamdani several times.

“If people are upset at that, why aren’t you mad at the president, Donald Trump, who has welcomed him into the White House twice?” he said.

He also claimed that the sketch was the first time he had spoken to Mamdani since the election.

Sliwa is planning to run for the Republican nomination for the mayor’s office again in 2029.

RELATED: Mamdani made big promises to cut the budget — here’s the embarrassing result so far

Paterson was still angry at Sliwa for staying in the election and possibly playing spoiler for former Gov. Andrew Cuomo. He went on to mock Sliwa’s performance in the mayoral election by comparing it to that of the New York Jets.

“[Curtis] was never going to win,” Paterson said. “He got 7 percentage points, seven — even the Jets get seven when they play.”

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A recent set of man-on-the-street-style interviews conducted by conservative Kaitlin Bennett in Tampa, Florida, yielded alarming results — as many of them shared that they would feel more comfortable standing next to someone shouting “Allahu Akbar” than someone in a MAGA hat.

“The good news is that we were actually filming for three hours, but we still managed to get 30 minutes of liberals saying Donald Trump and Trump supporters of MAGA were worse,” Bennett tells BlazeTV host Pat Gray on “Pat Gray Unleashed.”

“I have 30 minutes of this on my YouTube channel, Liberty Hangout. And a woman literally goes, ‘I’m a Democrat, so I definitely feel I, you know, can relate more to radical Islamists.’ … She said it out loud. That’s their entire thing right now,” she explains.

Bennett took to the streets of Tampa while the city was celebrating St. Patrick’s day, which worked in her favor.

“I’ve always found the best way to engage with people on a topic like this is to go up with them and say something completely unrelated,” she says, noting that asking everyone where St. Patrick was from helped to break the ice before the questions got more political.

“Then they answer, and I get them hooked,” she explains.

“Most people just walked away. Most people, actually, when they see a camera, they do have a little bit of awareness of, like, ‘Don’t open your mouth,’” she says, though she notes that the woman who related more to radical Islamists justified her position with the fact that “she’s gay.”

“For a lesbian to say that she has more in common with radical Islam than MAGA supporters, when they would literally kill her, it’s so ignorant. It’s just sheer, unadulterated ignorance,” Gray says, shocked.

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The CEO of Air Canada airlines announced his resignation after getting backlash over an English-only statement about the death of two pilots in a U.S. crash.

Michael Rousseau, 68, told the board of the company that he would leave by the end of the third quarter, according to the announcement Monday.

‘The Air Canada board of directors will have to ensure that the next CEO speaks French.’

Two pilots were killed when their Air Canada plane with 72 passengers collided with a fire truck on the runway at LaGuardia Airport. Dozens were also injured in the March 22 incident.

Rousseau released a statement offering his condolences about the accident but was immediately criticized because it was in English but not in French. Canada is officially a dual-language country, and Air Canada is based in a French-majority province.

The issue was so contentious that even Prime Minister Mark Carney weighed in to call the resignation “appropriate.”

He added, “It is essential that the next CEO of Air Canada is bilingual.”

Quebec Premier François Legault agreed.

“I salute the decision of Air Canada CEO Michael Rousseau to step down from his position. The Air Canada board of directors will have to ensure that the next CEO speaks French,” Legault said.

Legault also pointed out that Rousseau had promised to learn French when he was elevated to the CEO position in 2021.

RELATED: Investigator of LaGuardia plane crash suggests ‘multiple failures’ caused the collision; survivors respond

The Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages said it received hundreds of complaints about Rousseau’s statement.

On Tuesday, National Transportation Safety Board chair Jennifer Homendy said on Fox News that the investigation into the crash was ongoing but that she believed there were “multiple failures” that led to the lethal accident.

“We have found in all of our investigations that it is not a single error that led to a terrible tragedy. … So we’re going to look very comprehensively,” she said.

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Actor, comedian, rapper, and TV host Nick Cannon can now add another title to his resume: unabashed Trump fan.

The “Masked Singer” host made his remarks on a recent episode of his podcast “Nick Cannon’s Big Drive,” which appears to have been removed from YouTube.

‘People don’t know that the Republicans are the party that freed the slaves.’

Speaking to Amber Rose, a model who spoke at the Republican National Convention in 2024, Cannon asked her if she supported the GOP as a result of her wealth and enterprise.

“Is that because the bag has got so intense and so heavy that you … up there with the elite now?”

“Not even close,” Rose replied. “Democrats don’t care about black people, and they don’t care about people of color, and the Republicans do. And that’s the misconception.”

Loose Cannon

Cannon’s response was blunt: “You know what? I agree with you 100%. People don’t know that the Democrats is the party of the KKK. People don’t know that the Republicans are the party that freed the slaves.”

While Cannon allowed that he wasn’t as “outspoken” about his conservative views as Rose, he did confess to admiring the current president.

“I f**k with Trump,” Cannon added after laughing about him “cleaning house” and “charging a $5 million bottle service fee to get in the country.”

RELATED: Squires: Nick Cannon, COVID, and CRT prove a biblical approach to family produces superior results than the whims of culture

Paras Griffin/Getty Images

That’s Trumpist

Cannon was also quick to defend Trump from any charges of racism, noting that he never faced such accusations before he got involved in politics.

“He would be at all the events with like, Russell Simmons, all the black parties. … But when he got political, that’s when, you know, people start putting the racist jacket on.”

Cannon then came up with a word for what Trump actually is:

“I honestly don’t think he’s racist. I think he’s Trumpist.”

RELATED: Judges on ‘The Masked Singer’ walked off the show in protest when a contestant was revealed to be Rudy Giuliani

2009. Michael Desmond/Disney General Entertainment Content/Getty Images

Cali crisis

While the host shared a mutual admiration for California with Rose, he admitted the state has floundered in recent years. Rose pointed out “potholes everywhere” as the two drove through Los Angeles.

“Look at these roads. … It’s disgusting. We pay too much taxes in California to be living like this.”

Agreeing, Cannon commented on a “great exodus” of the state, but with both entertainers being parents, they said they did not want to uproot their kids or take them away from their respective spouses.

Hot seat

Cannon is not one to shy away from controversial statements. In 2020, he was fired by ViacomCBS for claiming that Jews have “the bloodlines that control everything, even outside of America” and that black people are the “true Hebrews.”

In 2017, Cannon had called Trump a “bully” and said he needed to be a better leader. He also criticized the president for wanting to send the National Guard into Chicago.

“Darkness does not get rid of darkness, you’ve got to bring some light to this community! Bring that to Chicago!”

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National Basketball League Hall of Fame star Charles Barkley called the treatment of some immigrants a “travesty and a disgrace” during a sports broadcast Sunday.

Barkley appeared to oppose some of the actions from the Trump administration to fulfill the president’s order for mass deportations.

‘Some of the stuff that’s happening to immigrants in our country right now is really unfortunate and is really unfair.’

The March Madness pregame show on CBS was praising a University of Connecticut basketball player named Alex Karaban, who is the son of immigrants from Belarus, when Barkley used the case as a springboard.

“I want to be very careful with my words right now because this is a really touchy subject for me,” he said. “I love that kid and his family, but the way some of these other immigrants are getting treated in our country right now is a travesty and a disgrace.”

Barkley gave no examples of what he believed was improper treatment of immigrants.

“I think there’s a difference between amazing immigrants and criminal immigrants, and I think what’s going on in our country, what we’re doing to some of these amazing immigrants, is really unfortunate, and it’s really sad,” he continued.

“And that’s a great immigrant story. We have a lot of great immigrant stories out there who their stories need to be told,” he added. “But some of the stuff that’s happening to immigrants in our country right now is really unfortunate and is really unfair. But immigrants built this country, and we should admire them and respect them.”

A video of his comments was widely circulated on social media.

Barkley has often weighed in on political topics, most notably when he defended sports players who refused to take a knee in the Black Lives Matter protests. He said they should not be “vilified” for their beliefs.

RELATED: Charles Barkley defends sports players who refuse to kneel, and social media is melting down

Barkley said he considered running for governor in his home state of Alabama, but he has lately soured on both political parties.

“I think most white people and black people are great people. … I really believe that in my heart,” he said in 2021.

“But I think our system is set up where our politicians, whether they are Republicans or Democrats, are designed to make us not like each other, so they can keep their grasp of money and power,” Barkley added. “They divide and conquer.”

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Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell of California accused President Donald Trump of trying to unfairly derail his gubernatorial campaign over new developments in his Chinese spy scandal.

Swalwell’s 2014 re-election campaign had gotten fundraising help from a woman named Christine Fang, who is believed to have had ties with Chinese intelligence. She also helped place an intern in his office.

‘The reason Trump is so desperately trying to stop me is not because I’m running for Governor of California, but because now I’m the favorite.’

Swalwell has previously denied any wrongdoing and accused Republicans of exaggerating the scandal in order to damage his political career.

On Saturday, both the Washington Post and the New York Times reported that Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Kash Patel was seeking to release files related to the Fang investigation.

Swalwell responded to the report by reiterating his accusations.

“Through great reporting, we now know the outrageous ends the White House will go to target political opponents. As was Trump’s mortgage case against me, this decade-old story is, of course, nonsense,” Swalwell responded, referring to mortgage fraud accusations that had been dismissed.

“The reason Trump is so desperately trying to stop me is not because I’m running for governor of California, but because now I’m the favorite,” he added. “What Trump wants the most is to have a Western White House. An enabler on the opposite coast. A lot of people have bent the knee to this administration. But I will not. And neither will the people of California.”

A spokesperson for the FBI denied any political motivation in their file releases.

“This FBI, being the most transparent in history, prepares documents for numerous different reasons, including for release to different agencies and departments to further review investigations that may have been opened under previous administrations,” the spokesperson told the Washington Post.

RELATED: Eric Swalwell lawsuit against Trump administration meets embarrassing end

Recent polling indicates that Swalwell has pulled ahead of the other Democratic gubernatorial candidates but is still behind two Republican candidates.

Fang has also been connected to other California Democrats, including Rep. Ro Khanna, Judy Chu, and former Rep. Mike Honda.

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The U.S. Department of Justice has launched an investigation into allegations that transgender-identifying male inmates sexually assaulted women in correctional facilities in California and Maine.

And BlazeTV host Sara Gonzales couldn’t be less surprised.

“Since we have decided that it is safest and it is best to house inmates according to sex, … since we’ve decided that that’s actually a really good idea for everyone’s safety, let’s let the biological men in the women’s jails and then just roll the dice and see how it turns out,” Gonzales comments on “Sara Gonzales Unfiltered.”

“Would you come to believe it’s [allegedly] putting women at risk of being sexually assaulted?” she asks.

The investigation follows horrific allegations of rape and harassment at the California Institution for Women in San Bernardino County, the Central California Women’s Facility in Madera County, and the Maine Correctional Center in Windham.

“The probe is going to examine whether the two states have violated constitutional rights of female inmates by placing them alongside male prisoners,” Gonzales explains, before homing in on one alleged rape case involving a California prisoner.

Tremaine Carroll, a convicted criminal who served time at a women’s prison in Chowchilla, California, has been charged with allegedly raping fellow inmates — as the 52-year-old is a biological male who simply identifies as a woman.

“Carroll has been charged with raping three women, one of which was his cellmate, who he allegedly got pregnant,” Gonzales comments.

“Any giant dude can be like, ‘Yeah, I identify as a woman.’ And they’re just like, ‘Oh, well, ma’am, let’s get you over to the all-female prison so you can rape a bunch of women, and we don’t get to say anything because you’ve just told us you identify as a woman,’” she continues.

“This is the state of the left in 2026. This is the state of the left,” she adds.

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Whistleblowers who report financial fraud could receive a significant payout from the Trump administration.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced a new program on Monday to pay eligible whistleblowers for providing actionable tips related to fraud, money laundering, sanctions violations, and other national security laws.

‘The scale of this is unbelievable.’

The Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network submitted a proposed rule to implement the new program.

Fraud whistleblowers could receive 10% to 30% of the fines imposed on the criminals they report.

This latest announcement is part of President Donald Trump’s crackdown on fraud, an issue that has remained in the national spotlight following journalist Nick Shirley’s investigative reporting in Minnesota and California.

“As promised, Treasury will reward whistleblowers who provide timely, actionable information on fraud, sanctions violations, and other significant illicit finance activity,” Bessent stated. “President Trump has been clear that Americans have a right to know that their tax dollars are not being diverted to fund acts of global terror or to fund luxury cars for fraudsters. At Treasury, we follow the money, and we strongly encourage individuals to come forward with credible tips to help safeguard our financial system.”

RELATED: Vance’s fraud task force drops hammer: 70 California hospice and home health providers suspended

Scott Bessent. Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

The Treasury Department has already received over 700 leads, according to Bessent.

During an interview with Fox News, Bessent explained that “a lot” of the financial fraud could be attributed to COVID relief.

“Many of the agencies under the Biden administration gutted their fraud departments, their fraud detection, or took down the fraud detection to get the money out quickly for COVID relief. But they never brought back the guardians of our money. So we have to have integrity in these programs,” Bessent told the news outlet.

Bessent estimated that the federal government may be able to recoup hundreds of billions of dollars in taxpayer funds.

“The scale of this is unbelievable,” Bessent said.

RELATED: ANOTHER Democrat in hot water over COVID-linked fraud allegations

Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

Vice President JD Vance has been tapped to lead the administration’s new Task Force to Eliminate Fraud. Last week, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services announced that it had suspended 70 hospice and home health providers as part of its work with the task force to identify high-risk providers.

“Vice President Vance looks forward to carrying out the president’s war on fraud,” a spokesperson for Vance previously told Blaze News. “The American people deserve better than being ripped off by people who hate this country, and the Task Force to Eliminate Fraud will ensure that essential taxpayer-funded services are used to support the hardworking Americans who rely on them, instead of being used by fraudsters and criminals.”

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Despite the left’s stubborn defense of violence, lawlessness, radical ideologies, and the hollowing out of traditional institutions, Republicans are still projected to get obliterated in this year’s midterm elections.

But it’s not just forecasts pointing to grim midterm results. Blue is already encroaching on red districts.

“We just lost Donald Trump’s home state legislative district. … That’s zapping some of my enjoyment, if not pretty much all,” BlazeTV host Steve Deace says.

On this episode of the “Steve Deace Show,” Deace and his co-hosts Aaron McIntire and Todd Erzen sit down with Blaze News managing editor Rob Eno to discuss these bleak midterm prospects and whether any hope remains for the conservative base.

“I know it’s still seven-plus months until the midterms here, all right, but let’s just go ahead and ask the question that a lot of people are asking: Are we cooked?” Deace asks the panel.

Erzen’s response is a balance of pessimism and hope. “I guess I’ll say no,” he tells Deace.

“The left is so evil and so decadent and so dumb. Improvement has to happen, Steve, in the time frame you’re talking about, but it’s not going to take perhaps as much as we think it will circumstantially. That being said, we might be [cooked],” he explains.

McIntire is less optimistic. “As of this moment, yes,” he says bluntly.

“I just think there are too many warning signs right now and too many signs that there is no even action or intention to action within much of Congress to deliver on President Trump’s what we were told was a mandate,” he adds, arguing that “[the party] is not delivering on that mandate.”

Eno believes Republicans aren’t only cooked in midterm elections — they’re cooked in general.

“We’re going to lose the Senate and the House,” he predicts.

The list of losses for the Trump administration keeps growing, he argues, citing the ongoing war with Iran, skyrocketing gas prices, fertilizer shortages driving up food prices, and poor polling in key Senate races.

“I do not see how we get out of this, and I don’t think seven months is a long period of time. … Unless the economy turns around, I don’t think we win,” Eno says frankly.

Erzen, however, offers a bit more optimism.

Even if the economy “doesn’t turn around” or “even gets a little worse,” he believes “two political miracles” — such as a “major arrest” of an elite tied to Epstein or passing the SAVE Act — could still change the odds in Republicans’ favor.

“People are so off-balance right now as voters. I don’t know what they think they prioritize on any given day,” he says.

But Eno pushes back on the SAVE Act’s potential impact.

“If you’ve lied to the voters, the SAVE Act saving anything has the hubris of imagining that the American people that are citizens are going to vote for this bunch of clowns, and they’re not with what they see,” he says, alluding to the widespread frustration over the administration’s broken promises on the economy, mass deportations, and avoiding new wars.

Deace largely agrees with Eno that Republicans are “cooked” in the midterms if little changes.

“I could list off a handful of things they could do that are all somewhat relatively achievable. … But as we’re sitting here on March 27, if I listed those things off and asked you guys how many of those things you think they’re going to do, you might say one if we’re lucky — and so that’s where the ‘we’re cooked’ sits in,” he says.

To hear more of the conversation, watch the episode above.

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Legendary basketball player Michael Jordan says he went into his lawsuit against NASCAR with the same mentality that won him six NBA championships.

While much of the terms of his settlement with the organization are not known, Jordan made one thing clear in a recent interview; he wasn’t going to back down.

‘I was all in. I was going to win.’

As owner of 23XI racing team, Jordan sued NASCAR in October 2024, claiming the organization used unfair practices to decide which teams can participate. The parties have since agreed to a settlement, with Jordan revealing in a recent interview that he felt he had to take up the legal battle in order to protect the future of the sport for its racing teams and drivers.

Having always been a fan of NASCAR, Jordan said that when he was focused on basketball, he didn’t quite grasp its inner workings, but when he got into the series, he started to “see how things [were] operating.”

“It was lopsided. It was wrong. The sport was not set up for success long-term for the individuals that’s involved in the sport,” Jordan told “CBS Sunday Morning.”

The basketball hall of famer pointed to an unequal system between NASCAR ownership and the racing teams.

“Now, up top, yeah, you know, they were making a good living,” he told host Gayle King.

Jordan said his motivation to make a lasting impression on the sport pushed him to go through with the lawsuit, compelling him to make his mark whether he won or lost.

“I was nervous. Any courtroom makes me nervous ’cause that’s not where I want to be, really. 100%,” he continued. “But I was all in. I was going to win.”

RELATED: Michael Jordan shocks NASCAR by doing something no one has done in 77 years

The 63-year-old Jordan said it was never his intention to “attack NASCAR,” but at the same time, he still went in to the lawsuit with a fighter’s mentality.

“This fight was needed. And if I got kicked out, at least I made people aware that change needs to happen in this sport. So I went in with the idea that even if I lost, I won.”

Jordan followed up the December 2025 settlement by going on a tear to start the 2026 season; driver Tyler Reddick won the first three races of the season for 23XI racing team, something no team had ever done in the previous 77 years of NASCAR.

RELATED: Lindsey Graham GOP challenger makes shocking promise to change NASCAR: ‘South Carolina will rise again’

Photo by Jared C. Tilton/Getty Images

During his recent interview, Jordan spoke on his unending competitive spirit, and he said that he uses NASCAR to compensate for a “huge piece” of him that still wishes he could play basketball.

“[It’s] not the same as me playing in Chicago … but it’s something that I think keeps me alive,” Jordan said, comparing his current temperament to his playing days.

“That urge, the dream, that I wish I can still pick up a basketball. …Yeah, I would definitely love to do that.”

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