“On the Holmes Front” with Frank Holmes
Big money influences every aspect of politics—but one of the candidates in this year’s most-watched election dropped a bombshell accusation: One of his opponents crossed the line from being influenced by money to outright bribery.
The scene is the race to become the next mayor of New York City—no home to political scandals—and the candidate says he’s been offered millions of dollars to shut his mouth and walk away.
Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa said shady business people have made“unethical and illegal” offers for him to drop out of the race that add up to a huge amount of money: “cumulatively around $10 million”—and he dropped the name of exactly the person responsible.
Sliwa pointed the finger at independent candidate Andrew Cuomo, saying his “emissaries” have offered him jobs and outright pay-offs to clear the field for former New York governor.
“It’s all Cuomo. I know that. I’ve had conversations with them,” Sliwa declared at a press conference on Wednesday. “That’s the way they talk, ‘Come on, Curtis, everybody has their price.’ … ‘Oh, come on, Cuomo is a flawed candidate, we all know that. But we all have to come together in order to defeat” the Democratic candidate.
“Curtis Sliwa doesn’t have a price,” he said.
Everyone involved has issued denials of the $10 million bribery scandal. Cuomo’s campaign spokesperson, Rich Azzopardi, called Sliwa “a liar and a fraudster,” while Adams mothpiece Todd Shapiro insulted the Republican candidate as “a clown looking TO TURN NYC INTO A CIRCUS.” (Emphasis his.)
But amid all the denials and contradictions, Sliwa’s allegations got supoprt from a strange bedfellow—Democratic opponent Zohran Mamdani.
The Democratic socialist said, of all his competitors, “I trust Curtis Sliwa’s word the most.”
💰 Curtis Sliwa claims he's been offered bribes to quit mayor's race
🎙️ @susanrichard has more pic.twitter.com/mQUx97b0qo
— 1010 WINS on 92.3 FM (@1010WINS) September 25, 2025
Polls show Mamdani with a commanding lead over Cuomo, who comes in a distant second.
Recent polls show Mamdani comes close to winning an outright majority of voters: 45 percent for Mamdani, a double-digit lead over Cuomo, who has 25 percent. Sliwa is stuck deep in place, with nine percent—one point ahead of incumbent New York City Mayor Eric Adams, according to the Suffolk University “CityView” poll released Tuesday.
Mamdani’s lead has grown five points since September 10.
Mamdani, a silver-spoon baby who reinvented himself as a man of the people, has his strongest support among black and Hispanic voters, the poll found. Adams, who is black, comes in dead last.
The state’s Democratic establishment has gone all-out for Mamdani, who endorsed defunding the police and plans to spend $100 million of taxpayer money on illegal aliens as mayor.
And money is no object to Mamdani supporter George Soros, whose Open Society Foundations have funneled $37 million to the Working Families Party, which is supporting Mamdani.
On the other hand, Sliwa has little backing even from the head of his fellow Republicans.
“Curtis is not exactly prime time,” President Donald Trump told reporters earlier this month. The president said he still believes “Cuomo might have a chance of winning if it was a one-on-one.”
The president has been accused of trying to narrow the race to a one-on-one choice between Mamdani and Cuomo, who is more moderate.
Allegedly, Trump has offered Adams jobs in his administration—including as the ambassador to Saudi Arabia—to get him out of the November contest, but Adams has refused.
A Cuomo supporter also reportedly offered Adams a job in the private sector at his company, Related Companies…but only if he drops out. The company calls reports of the job offer “categorically false.”
Adams—like Cuomo a Democrat running as an independent—says he’s staying in until the bitter end.
“Serving New Yorkers as their mayor is the only job I’ve ever wanted,” Adams said.
Whatever job Trump may or may not have floated, Trump insiders say, that’s all over.
“Adams’ stock is too low to offer him anything,” a source, who is said to know how Trump’s inner circle thinks, told the New York Post more than two weeks ago. “Adams wants to meet more with Trump than Trump needs to meet with him.”
“The only way he’ll offer Adams a gig would be if both (the mayor and Sliwa) got out of the race,” the Trump insider said.
But if the Suffolk University poll holds through November, it wouldn’t matter even if both Sliwa and Adams drop out of the race and all their voters break for Cuomo.
President Trump, who calls Mamdani “my little Communist” when he’s feeling charitable and a “Communist lunatic” when he isn’t, has promised that the socialist could “have big problems” waiting for him from the administration if Mamdani gets elected.
Is it bribery or self-defense to keep a Communist from ruling New York City, the largest city in the United States ? The Big Apple has 8.4 million residents, or two percent of the entire U.S. population. Socializing them could impact on the entire country.
But Sliwa has promised to stay in the race, “Cross my heart and hope to die.”
Sliwa, who a fan of adopting rescue cats, said if he’s elected mayor, he will “be able to house unwanted cats and dogs right in the lawn” of the mayor’s home.
But if animal welfare were his greatest goal, Sliwa might be smarter to take the money and open an animal shelter—because he’s not going to Gracie Mansion.