David Kaufman

6 days ago | city-journal.org | David Kaufman

Even by the madcap standards of New York City mayoral races, the 2025 campaign for City Hall looks like a doozy. The election’s most unanticipated elements are the surprise surges of former New York governor Andrew Cuomo—who survived short-lived political exile to become the race’s frontrunner—and his chief rival, Queens socialist and state assemblyman Zohran Mamdani. One of Cuomo’s big bets is on Jewish voters. Anti-Semitism, Cuomo declared in early April, is his campaign’s “most important issue .

6 days ago | monocle.com | David Kaufman

The sabre-rattling has never been louder as Donald Trump plots the first foreign tour of his second administration, which begins on Monday with a three-day jaunt in the Middle East. The US president is expected to visit Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Qatar while in the region, conjuring up memories of a similar itinerary in 2017.

2 weeks ago | aol.co.uk | David Kaufman

Get ready folks, Kamala Harris is back – at least for the next week or so. But a week is probably all Harris needs for voters of every party to hope she goes back into exile, and never returns. Tonight will see Harris get back to basics with her first high-profile speech in ages. The location (downtown San Francisco) and the crowd (supporters of Emerge America, which aids Democratic women) could not be warmer or fuzzier.

2 weeks ago | telegraph.co.uk | David Kaufman

But courage runs both ways and the most courageous thing Harris could do after her failed presidential bid is bow her hat and make room for someone else. Polling suggests that Harris could win the California governorship and she is expected to decide this summer. But this is not necessarily what's best for California - home to both the nation's most unaffordable housing and unsavoury progressive-adjacent social ills, from homelessness and addiction to wokeness and intersectionality.

2 weeks ago | monocle.com | David Kaufman

It's still mostly the best of times for Donald Trump as his second administration reaches the 100-day mark. Since returning to the White House on 20 January, the president has mostly delivered on the slash-and-burn agenda that he laid out on the campaign trail. The US's southern border has been closed, contentious DEI and "gender ideology" policies are being dismantled and billions - if not trillions - of dollars in governmental waste is slated to be accounted for. So what happens next?