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Republican Rep. Anthony D'Esposito's push for health care funding for 9/11 first responders was poised to become law before it was quashed by Trump-backed Speaker of the House Mike Johnson. | Alex Brandon/AP | PROGRAMMING NOTE: We’ll be off for the next two weeks for the holidays but back to our normal schedule on Monday, Jan. 6, 2025. 9/11 HEALTH CARE IN JEOPARDY: Securing health care for 9/11 first responders was a top priority for outgoing Republican Rep. Anthony D’Esposito — and it looked like it was going to be a massive win for the Long Island congressman. Then it all fell apart. “It's not a partisan issue,” D’Esposito said. “This is an American issue.” The latest congressional fiasco — and its implications on 9/11 health care funding — is both a preview and a punctuation of the divisive MAGA-driven politics that defined D’Esposito’s time in Washington and will continue to plague New York’s battleground Republicans. Somehow, it led D’Esposito to end up voting for a congressional spending plan that removed the 9/11 health care plan he had championed and reached across the aisle for.
On Wednesday, D’Esposito, was celebrating how the measure was poised to become law as part of an already-negotiated congressional spending plan. But on Thursday, House Speaker Mike Johnson nixed the entire thing, placating concerns from President-elect Donald Trump and sudden congressional powerbroker Elon Musk about government waste and the debt ceiling.
The Thursday night version of the spending plan — which D’Esposito said he had no choice but to vote for — excluded the 9/11 health care funding. “If there was projects and funding that was put into that bill and 9/11 was the only thing that was eliminated, I absolutely would have voted against,” D’Esposito said. “It's paramount that we keep the government open. I don't think this nation can stand a government shutdown over the next few weeks.”
As of this afternoon, reports on the Hill indicate that Johnson is now aiming to pass a “clean” continuing resolution — one that, again, would not include the 9/11 bill. The measure, the 9/11 Responder and Survivor Health Funding Correction Act of 2024, was led by Democrats Kirsten Gillibrand, Chuck Schumer, Jerry Nadler and Dan Goldman and Republicans D’Esposito and Andrew Garbarino. The law was supposed to be a massive feather in D’Esposito’s cap on his way out the door — a display of bipartisan achievement that could serve him well if he were to run for office again in battleground Long Island after barely losing reelection to Democrat Laura Gillen. (He continues to seek a role in the Trump administration.) Even bigger than that, it would have ensured none of the 120,000 first responders who contracted cancers and other illnesses at Ground Zero were ever turned away from the federal program meant to provide them health care. “Lawler, D’Esposito, Garbarino — they have a choice to either stand up for legislation that is important to them or cave, and they consistently fold like cowards,” Brooklyn’s Goldman said of his GOP colleagues.
“It's baffling to me that the excuse would be, ‘We can't shut down the government,’ when it was part of the original deal that would have avoided a government shutdown,” he added. “When he says he had no choice, that basically means that he has no power within his own party that controls the House to get anything done.” D’Esposito, who spoke with Playbook this morning before Republicans’ next steps were clear, said at the time he was putting pressure on both Johnson and Trump to include the measure.
“We have people who, again, ran towards danger, who ran towards what could have been death, and were told the air was safe when they continue to die,” D’Esposito said. “There is no reason that those people should continue to have to come to Capitol Hill to beg for funding.” — Jason Beeferman
| | | | A message from Uber: Study Reveals Uber Drivers Make More than EMTs: NYC Uber drivers now earn an average of $52,900 annually after expenses, outpacing the salaries of many essential city employees, including EMTs and sanitation workers. Despite delivering vital services, these workers struggle with stagnant wages while Uber drivers have benefited from five TLC-mandated pay hikes since 2020. Read more on the wage disparity impacting NYC’s workforce. Learn More. | | | |
 | FROM CITY HALL | |
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 District Attorney Alvin Bragg is enjoying some wins despite the acquittal of Daniel Penny in the chokehold death of Jordan Neely. | Seth Wenig/AP | ABOUT FACE: This week marked a dramatic turnaround for Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg following his high-profile failure to secure a conviction in the Daniel Penny trial earlier this month. On Tuesday, the litigator unveiled an 11-count indictment against 26-year-old Luigi Mangione, who’s accused of the murder of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson on a crowded Midtown street. The international intrigue that’s accompanied the case is shifting to Bragg after a haphazard game of cat-and-mouse ended by a Pennsylvania fast food worker and a bizarre perp walk featuring Mayor Eric Adams — a tableau even City Hall allies suggested had the opposite of its intended effect. Should Bragg secure a conviction, Mangione could face a life sentence without the possibility of parole. Two days later, Bragg released the indictment of Ingrid Lewis-Martin, the mayor’s closest and longest-serving aide whom he has called his "sister ordained by God." Bragg is accusing Lewis-Martin of acting as “an on-call consultant” for a pair of real estate developers who ran into problems with the city’s buildings department. In exchange, the duo allegedly provided Lewis-Martin and her son with more than $100,000 and assistance to budding business ventures — a fashion line and a Chick-fil-A franchise — which were being pursued by her son, a DJ who goes by the moniker Suave Luciano.
Whether Bragg can cement his prosecutorial bona fides on the cases ahead of his reelection campaign next year remains to be seen. So far, he is facing a Republican challenger. In the case of Mangione, Bragg will need to contend with a macabre outpouring of support for the suspected murderer and work with federal prosecutors under the incoming Trump administration. Bragg’s federal counterparts have brought murder charges of their own, which could result in the death penalty. In Lewis-Martin’s case, the Supreme Court has made it increasingly difficult to secure convictions in public corruption cases that allege a quid-pro-quo, meaning the indictment targeting Adams’ inner circle is no slam dunk. — Joe Anuta
| | | | You read POLITICO for trusted reporting. Now follow every twist of the lame duck session with Inside Congress. We track the committee meetings, hallway conversations, and leadership signals that show where crucial year-end deals are heading. Subscribe now. | | | | | PAYBACK: The city’s Campaign Finance Board has broached the possibility of forcing Adams’ 2021 mayoral campaign to repay the roughly $10 million in public matching funds it received during the race. In a letter sent to the campaign Wednesday and obtained via a Freedom of Information Law request, the board cited accusations of straw donors and illicit foreign contributions contained in a federal indictment against Adams as potential cause for clawing back taxpayer dollars. The letter was first reported by the Daily News and THE CITY. Specifically, the board raised the possibility of finding Adams’ campaign in breach of certification, a standing that would suggest the team abused the public financing system. Such a designation would prohibit Adams from receiving public funds going forward and, depending on the scope of the finding, could require him to repay past public matching funds.
“The issues raised in this letter may cause the Board to consider whether the Campaign has submitted a disclosure statement which the participant knew or should have known includes substantial fraudulent matchable contribution claims, which is one of the activities that can lead to a finding of breach of certification,” Danielle Willemin, the board’s director of auditing and accounting, wrote in the missive. — Joe Anuta
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FROM THE CAPITOL | | | |
Democrats are bashing likely contender for governor Republican Rep. Mike Lawler | Francis Chung/POLITICO |
FUNDING FIGHT: Democrats are piling on Republican Rep. Mike Lawler — a potential GOP candidate for governor in 2026 — as the battle over a spending bill rages in Washington. A cascade of tweets and statements — including one from the campaign of Gov. Kathy Hochul — is a sign of how Lawler, who is not yet a declared candidate, is already being taken seriously by Democratic officials. State Sen. James Skoufis (a candidate for DNC chair) and Goldman both mixed it up with Lawler on X Thursday evening. And in a rare direct swipe at Lawler by Hochul, the governor’s campaign spokesperson Jen Goodman blasted Lawler over the congressional chaos that could shutdown the federal government. The statement from the Hochul campaign seized on Lawler’s floor comments from Thursday evening: “This is a clean CR. If you don’t like it because it doesn’t have a whole list of ornaments on the Christmas tree, I’m sorry. But the fact is we are keeping the government funded.” Lawler put the onus on Democrats to support the measure or be blamed for a government shutdown. That stop-gap funding plan, which was ultimately rejected by Democrats and some Republicans, included a two-year pause for the debt ceiling and some spending priorities dropped.
“Donald Trump isn’t even president yet, and Mike Lawler is already putting himself on a leash and letting Elon Musk and Trump dog walk him around Washington,” Goodman said in a statement to Playbook. “After caving to their demands, Lawler said loud and clear that health care for 9/11 first responders, child cancer research, and reimbursements for SNAP benefit fraud victims are, direct quote, ‘Christmas tree ornaments.’ Pathetic.”
Lawler’s political team aggressively pushed back on the implication he referred to funding for 9/11 first responders as frivolous. A Hudson Valley lawmaker who won a second term in a battleground House district, Lawler has sponsored a bill funding health care for people who responded to the attacks. “If anyone ever needed more proof that incompetent — and deeply unpopular — Kathy Hochul and the corrupt Democrat establishment in New York is petrified of Mike Lawler running for governor in 2026, look no further than this bogus, bullshit attack,” Lawler spokesperson Chris Russell said in response. He accused Hochul’s campaign of “flat-out lying” to exploit Sept. 11 victims.
“The fact is that Mike and his Republican colleagues are the ones who fought to include a funding fix for the World Trade Center Health program to keep it funded through 2039,” Russell said. “It is beyond dispute that Mike has been a bipartisan leader in the fight to care for 9/11 victims both in the State Assembly and Congress and always will be.” Lawler's team also sent Playbook a statement from Angela Mistrulli, an advocate for health care funding whose father died in the North Tower on Sept. 11.
“Congressman Mike Lawler has been one of the strongest advocates on behalf of 9/11 victims, families, and first responders in the 118th Congress, and we look forward to working with him to reintroduce the AVTCA when Congress returns to session in January, and then to bring that crucial bill to a prompt vote and pass it into law,” she said, referring to the American Victims of Terrorism Compensation Act. “Anyone questioning the Congressman’s commitment to 9/11 families, victims, and first responders is sorely misguided, at best.” — Nick Reisman
| | | | A message from Uber:   | | | FIRST IN PLAYBOOK: Democratic state Sen. Kristin Gonzalez will introduce a sweeping bill to minimize risk in the development of artificial intelligence. It is the latest effort by state lawmakers to regulate the burgeoning AI field while also encouraging innovation. The proposal will include liability provisions for AI developers, whistleblower protections for employees and require independent audits for “high risk” AI systems.
The measure is in response to the broad scope of AI systems already being used in areas like education, health care, banking, public safety and retail. Part of the concern is the potential bias in predictive systems that could harm consumers. Gonzalez told Playbook today the bill is meant to address AI tools that are “making a consequential decision about a New Yorker’s life.”
Colorado and Connecticut have approved similar measures. But Gonzalez believes the government is behind in addressing AI concerns. “There’s been for the most part a focus on having a conversation without a focus on getting these bills across the finish line,” Gonzalez said. Whether the bill is taken up by the Democratic-led Legislature next year is not clear. The explosion of AI has also meant there's interest from lobbyists to influence how the government shapes policy. — Nick Reisman WINE TIME: The effort to allow wine sold in New York grocery stores wants to shine a spotlight on small-time grocers. Wegman’s and Price Chopper, two of the dominant chain grocery stores in New York, are pressing for the legislation this year and have jump started the latest effort to get the long-sought bill approved next year.
On Monday the coalition pressing for wine in grocery stores will turn to small, independent store owners, many of whom are Latino, as potential beneficiaries of the change with a rally in New York City. The event is intended to show the biggest players in the supermarket world are not the only businesses that would benefit from wine sales — while also highlighting support from Latino business owners.
“Allowing wine sales in grocery stores will bring much-needed convenience to hardworking New Yorkers while providing a significant boost to independent supermarkets, which play a critical role in many New York communities,” said Nelson Eusebio, the government affairs director at the National Supermarket Association, a trade group. — Nick Reisman | |
IN OTHER NEWS... | | YEAR-END FORGIVENESS: Hochul granted 21 pardons and one sentence commutation today. “Upon taking office, I implemented a series of reforms to bring additional transparency and accountability to the clemency process,” Hochul said in a press release. Many of those who received clemency are in their 50s and 60s. The charges range from sale and possession of controlled substances, to third degree burglary, to insurance fraud.
The sentence commutation went to 57-year-old Trevers Jackson who served 22 years of a 25-to-life sentence for enterprise corruption and burglary in the second degree. — Timmy Facciola
— TRI-STATE UNITY: Gov. Kathy Hochul is trying to get New Jersey residents jazzed on congestion pricing. (Gothamist)
— THE TIDE IS HIGH: Former Republican Rep. and future EPA head Lee Zeldin will be in charge of rolling back climate protection measures — all while his Long Island hometown faces rising sea levels. (E&E News) — WHERE IS WINNIE?: Eric Adams’ aide Winnie Greco has been M.I.A ever since a federal probe sparked her resignation. (New York Post) Missed this morning’s New York Playbook? We forgive you. Read it here.
| | | | A message from Uber: Study Shows Uber Drivers making over $52k while NYC Heroes Get Left Behind
A new study reveals a growing wage divide in New York City: Uber drivers are making an average of $52,900 a year after expenses, while city employees like EMTs and sanitation workers starting salaries are below $44,000. Since 2020, rideshare drivers have received five pay increases through TLC mandates while many frontline city workers face stagnant wages amid rising living costs. This gap underscores an evolving dynamic in NYC’s workforce, where gig workers see consistent earnings growth while essential city roles lag behind. This pay disparity is raising questions about the city’s priorities and the need for equitable wages in public service amidst the affordability
crisis.
Read the full story to see how gig work earnings are reshaping NYC’s labor landscape. Learn More. | | | | |
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