NEW YORK — New York City has begun one of the busiest weekends in its history — Taylor Swift’s wedding celebration at Madison Square Garden today, a series of air, land and water celebrations for America’s 250th birthday tomorrow and a World Cup match in northern New Jersey on Sunday.

Mayor Zohran Mamdani, NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch and a top Coast Guard official outlined their weekend plans Tuesday by sharing heat advisories, noise warnings, road closures and security precautions for land, air and sea.

“We have a comprehensive security plan in place for each of these events to ensure that everyone can enjoy the festivities safely,” Mamdani said.

Mamdani and Tisch, standing side by side, said that there are no specific or credible threats against the city but that they’re operating in a “heightened threat environment.” The comments came shortly before a couple scaled the top of the Empire State Building and unfurled a banner.

Police will be out in force and on 12-hour shifts. They’ll be deploying bomb-sniffing dogs, conducting security screenings at designated viewing areas and continuing to use anti-drone technology, which has so far intercepted nearly 100 drones that have flown into restricted air space since the World Cup’s outset.

The NYPD expects to spend about $92 million in overtime and other expenses for major events this summer. During the press conference at police headquarters, Mamdani ducked a question about whether Swift should be picking up the security tab for her wedding. Tisch described it as “an event that we are tracking” and said the “NYPD will, of course, have a detail in place.” Swift canceled a series of concerts in Austria in 2024 because of a terrorist plot.

It will be unusually noisy. A naval review Saturday morning, which Vice President JD Vance is expected to attend, will include a series of warships that will each conduct a 21-gun salute. The Macy’s fireworks show will be the biggest ever, with 85,000 fireworks shells, Tisch said.

It will also be hot. Mamdani has separately announced a plan to help cope with record temperatures expected to hit the city in coming days — officials have warned it may feel as hot as 112 degrees. The city plans to open cooling shelters across the five boroughs, along with a first-ever fleet of vans to help people get to them.

The weekend will be capped by Sunday's knockout match between Brazil and Norway at MetLife Stadium, although the attendant celebrations by the winning team's fans will probably cross the Hudson River. Some may even try to row.

© Evan Agostini/AP

EAST RUTHERFORD, New Jersey — During the World Cup, FIFA officials, law enforcement agencies and transit planners across New York and New Jersey will be keeping an eye on things from a constellation of command centers and control rooms.

The sites — spread from Miami to Trenton, New Jersey to Brooklyn — will house a small army of public officials ready to respond to whatever pops up during eight matches being played at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey.

The number of distinct command or operations centers that will be in use is almost comical: The New Jersey State Police, the New York Police Department, multiple transit and transportation agencies in New York and New Jersey, Amtrak and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey all have their own spot on the map to work out of. Some these are permanent control rooms where officials are used to working in front of huge screens to monitor video and data feeds. Others are temporary or specific to the tournament: There's an operations center near the entrance to MetLife Stadium that the host committee and others are using and FIFA has an operations center in Miami.

But each has a distinct function and some will be staffed by officials from other agencies to help with coordination. During the World Cup, a command center in Trenton is the big dog.

“At the end of the day, though, they all report in to the larger command center, which is the ACC, the area command center, which looks at the overall region, the impacts to the region for any events, the asset allocation at different sites,” said Lt. Col. David Sierotowicz, the deputy superintendent of the New Jersey State Police and World Cup incident commander.

Before the first match here on Saturday, New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill paid a visit to officials at an operations center on an elevated platform in the MetLife parking lot. After Brazil and Morocco battled to a draw and the sun had set, one of her top transit advisers could still be seen looking out over winnowing crowds boarding buses and trains to go home.

And for at least part of the summer there will be yet another command center: Over July 4 weekend, when President Donald Trump is expected in town for a massive parade of warships and a military airshow, there will be a popup command center run by the federal government at Jacob Javits Center in Manhattan.

© AP

After months of planning, some griping and a few tit-for-tats, the three top Democrats from New York and New Jersey showed up to watch the World Cup — together.

New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani are all attending this evening’s Brazil–Morocco match.

The TV broadcast captured the two New Yorkers sitting together. Sherrill also joined them during the match.

Before heading into the stadium, Sherrill stepped off a New Jersey Transit train carrying fans from both teams just before 4 p.m. to hold a quick press conference with her top transit advisers.

“This is the easiest, fastest way to get in and out of the stadium,” she said.

New Jersey Transit generated international headlines for its high ticket prices — $150 at first, then lowered to $98.

Sherrill said about 21,000 people booked tickets on the New Jersey Transit system to get to the match. New Jersey Transit planned to carry up to 40,000 to each match.

Where is the World Cup being played again?

In the northeastern United States, eight World Cup games, including the final, will be played in what FIFA calls "New York New Jersey." But elected leaders from this portmanteau place are jostling over where exactly it is.

The state of New Jersey and New York City bid for and won the right to be a host city, but New York state officials have become increasingly involved. So politicians on both sides of the river are just bursting with border-state rivalry that can be lighthearted and serious all at once.

The matches, for the record, are at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey. But that hasn't stopped New York Gov. Kathy Hochul from repeatedly declaring that "New York is not just hosting the World Cup, New York is the World Cup."

There's some truth to it — most of the fans are expected to stay in and visit New York between matches. But New Jersey doesn't shrug off such slights because they reinforce long-running dynamics of New York as the bigger sibling and the Garden State's struggle for recognition.

Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.) made avenging this wrong a dayslong cause célèbre and taunted Hochul with social media posts such as: “If you’re planning to watch a FIFA match in New York, you’ll be SOL.”

New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill pushed to get one of the temporary signs hung at MetLife changed to read "New Jersey New York" instead of "New York New Jersey." On Friday, she posted a six-second video from outside the sign. "For those keeping score at home, the World Cup is in New Jersey. And now the sign reflects that."

The New York-New Jersey combo isn't new.

“I never liked it,” said former U.S. national team goalkeeper Tony Meola, a native of nearby Kearny, New Jersey, who was subjected to the indignity of playing under a neighboring state’s banner during his years with the New York/New Jersey Metrostars, since renamed Red Bull New York.

“I grew up there, I played there — it’s New Jersey,” said Meola. “That's just my opinion.”

© Andres Kudacki/AP

FIFA President Gianni Infantino is working on his third World Cup, which spreads across North America this weekend. His first tournaments were held in autocratic countries with governments willing to splash cash and use the games to sportswash their tarnished image on the global stage.

In America, where 78 of the 104 matches will be played, he’s dealing with something dramatically different — democratically elected leaders spread across 11 host communities.

Infantino at first seemed to approach North America largely the same way he did Russia and Qatar: Win over the head of state and go from there. He went so far as to court President Donald Trump by giving him a peace prize before he started a war with Iran.

State and local politicians, however, had their own priorities.

In America, Infantino has found himself foiled not only by democracy but the country’s federalism — the separation of national and state power that gives local officials unique power. He can blame Thomas Jefferson for that.

“I think that’s just a big difference, even compared to other western democracies, our federalism is a huge difference,” said Alex Lasry, the CEO of the New York New Jersey Host Committee.

As a result, FIFA’s national partners in Mexico and Canada have more say over how the World Cup is playing out in their countries than the White House does in America, a country that does not even have a sports minister.

In practice, this has meant that even as FIFA presented itself as the world government of the globe’s most beloved sport, local officials in America started standing in its way.

A senior FIFA official earlier this year said it was exaggerated to say one person in Qatar or Russia snapped their fingers and things got done, but the official did describe America as more decentralized.

Back in 2023, one of Infantino’s longtime advisers spoke at length about the FIFA president’s public image. “This whole idea of shoulder-rubbing with dictators? It’s not real. Sometimes the U.S. president is Joe Biden, sometimes it’s Donald Trump. Gianni can’t change that,” the adviser told Tim Röhn of the Axel Springer Global Reporters Network, which includes POLITICO. “He’s not interested in politics — only in football.”

But those politics have been creating roadblocks for months, leading up to the first American game on Friday in Los Angeles.

There was a five-member special board in Massachusetts that had to sign off on a license to allow FIFA to play seven matches there, a power it used to extract concessions from the local host committee.

New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill — one of the newly elected politicians who didn’t bid for the World Cup but now has to pay to put it on, despite having other priorities — got in a public scrape with FIFA over transportation costs. FIFA didn’t budge, but the fight was ugly.

When it tried to ban water bottles from stadiums, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani attacked and FIFA backed down.

On the legal front, a quartet of attorneys general — three from blue states and one from red Texas — are now investigating the soccer body’s ticketing practices.

Alas, there isn’t one person Infantino can call to smooth things over. He isn’t the first European to puzzle over America’s decentralized governance, but this 21st-century Alexis de Tocqueville seems to be learning the hard way.

© Michael Regan/FIFA via Getty Images

I’ve been reporting on the obstacles ticketholders will have navigating America’s balkanized public transit system. But on the way to my first ever FIFA World Cup match in Toronto, extreme weather tripped me up as I tried to leave New York City on Thursday night.

Now I’m missing Canada playing Bosnia and Herzegovina, the first World Cup game ever played in the land my ancestors left France for in the 1600s. POLITICO is also out $627.11 for a nonrefundable hotel room.

For a fan who saved up to attend a match, this would be a devastating setback.

A lot of the coverage about World Cup weather, particularly high heat, has focused on players and fans in the stadiums. But the weather also threatens to keep people away from the matches entirely.

My problem was a wall of thunderstorms marching across the continent. About 250 flights have been canceled leaving New York City’s three major airports since yesterday, according to FlightAware. Most of those nixed flights were at LaGuardia Airport, where I sat on a runway for some two hours last evening before being told to go home. Another flight scheduled for this morning out of Newark Liberty International Airport was canceled before I even went to bed.

Flight problems were not even at the top of the transit worries I’ve been paying attention to.

For several years, officials in New York and New Jersey — which are co-hosting tournament games to be played at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey — have been gearing up for a surge of fans from around the world. Unhelpfully, summer 2024 turned out to be a terrible season for train travel in the region because of electrical problems tied in part to heat but also aging infrastructure.

Now, that same stretch of tracks is being counted on to get tens of thousands of fans to matches. Even before a heat wave hit the city, there was a rash of incidents, including a brush fire in New Jersey in May and several fires and electric problems at New York Penn Station, the nation’s busiest train hall.

New Jersey officials have buses and boats on standby to help move fans to or from matches and some lawmakers from both parties are pressuring the Trump administration to keep an eye on things to make sure they don’t go off the rails.

But there isn’t much he can do to stop a storm from raining on the world’s parade.

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© Spencer Platt/Getty Images

DAYS THE BUDGET IS LATE: 36 

ALL’S FARE: City Council Speaker Julie Menin portrayed Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s administration today as stuck running a failing mass transit discount program.

The alternative? Her own plan to provide free fares to hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers.

Drawing that very particular contrast served as an attempt to turn the tables on Mamdani, who made free buses a key campaign pledge. Menin’s preferred approach is to expand Fair Fares — an existing discount for low-income residents — into a free bus and subway program for people at or below 150 percent of the poverty level.

In the process, Menin and other Council members poked the administration for not enrolling enough people in the current iteration of Fair Fares by failing to cut unnecessary red tape. Right now, less than 40 percent of eligible people participate, leaving half a million New Yorkers paying full freight for rides they could get at half price.

Menin called it “failing” and blamed a multi-step enrollment process that includes downloading an app and filing out a lengthy form.

"There has to be a recognition that the system is broken," she said during a Council hearing today.

Rebecca Chew, a chief program officer from the city’s Human Resources Administration, told Menin the agency “worked hard to streamline the process and identify efficiencies, and it's something we're continuously looking at to improve and refine.” Later, Chew said that nearly half the people enrolled in one year — right now that’s 380,000 — fail to re-enroll in the next.

Fair Fares largely predates Mamdani, but under lengthy questioning from Council Member Crystal Hudson, Chew and her colleagues did not offer specific targets for improving enrollment.

The Council is seeking to make enrollment automatic.

Menin opened the hearing by saying she was "very disappointed" in the Mamdani administration for not sending the head of the Department of Social Services to testify.

"I'd be remiss if I did not express our deep disappointment in that," she said.

Mamdani has not yet taken a position on the Council proposal.

The democratic socialist has long been skeptical of means-tested programs. But by his own admission, his free-buses-for-all plan isn’t going to happen this year, which creates an awkward situation: He now appears unwilling to support an arguably half-loaf solution that would nonetheless help hundreds of thousands of people ride the bus and subway for free.

"Fair Fares is an important tool for low-income New Yorkers but does not reach enough of them," Mamdani spokesperson Jeremy Edwards said in an email. "The administration is reviewing all Fair Fares proposals. We will continue to encourage eligible residents to enroll in Fair Fares and work with city and state partners to make transit more affordable for all New Yorkers." — Ry Rivard

From the Capitol

WEDDING BELL$: With New York City mired in red ink, one new idea might help Mamdani make a very small dent in the very big budget shortfall.

City officials have reached out to state lawmakers to let the City Council hike the cost of a City Hall wedding from $25 to $55 and the fee for a marriage license from $25 to $60.

The fee increases would be a miniscule boon to the city’s financial needs — perhaps to the tune of $4 million a year. And the sponsors in the state Legislature say the bill isn’t written with balancing the budget in mind

The fees haven’t been increased since the early 1990s, and the administrative costs of performing a wedding have since risen to $126 — meaning the total fee hike to $115 would simply mean city government loses less money on each ceremony.

“This is a request from the Marriage Bureau, so I think it makes sense,” said state Sen. John Liu, who introduced a bill on the subject Tuesday. “It’s important that people don’t view this as a marriage penalty — no one likes fees and no one likes fee increases, but it’s been the same for decades.”

Assembly Judiciary Committee Chair Charles Lavine expects critics won’t hesitate to gripe about the minor change: “’If we make it more expensive to get married, then fewer people will get married,’” he said, predicting the GOP response.

The issue is being discussed outside of budget talks, so it will need to be dealt with in the dwindling number of session days before state lawmakers pack it in on June 4.

“We are going to be stuck with a handful of legislative days,” Lavine said. “I hope it’ll work. It’s about time those fees will be made a little more substantial.”

Mamdani has paid more attention to the Marriage Bureau than any of his predecessors — he’s notably the only modern mayor to stop by the City Clerk’s office to officiate ceremonies himself. — Bill Mahoney

NO ICE MELT: White House border czar Tom Homan's threat of an ICE surge into New York if a package of sanctuary measures are approved isn't deterring Democratic state lawmakers.

"If anything, it makes me want to double down," Democratic state Sen. Pat Fahy said.

Gov. Kathy Hochul and state lawmakers are close to an agreement on a series of bills that would limit how federal immigration agencies like ICE can coordinate with local police departments. They also plan to limit where civil deportation warrants can be executed, blocking them from being carried out in locations like educational facilities and houses of worship.

Read more from POLITICO’s Nick Reisman

FROM CITY HALL

ICE VENDOR FACES HEAT: Mamdani’s administration is scrutinizing NYPD contracts with a surveillance technology company that’s faced criticism for doing business with federal immigration authorities, our Chris Sommerfeldt reports today.

The examination of the NYPD’s dealings with Vigilant Solutions is part of an ongoing audit process being conducted by Mamdani’s administration at the police department and five other city agencies.

Mamdani ordered the reviews in February with the stated goal of strengthening New York City’s sanctuary laws as President Donald Trump’s administration continues its aggressive — and at times lethal — immigration crackdowns across the U.S. The laws bar city employees and resources from being used to assist federal authorities in civil immigration matters.

The revelation that the NYPD audit is looking at a private company indicates Mamdani wants to scrutinize not just whether the department is complying with the sanctuary laws but also its vendors. In ordering the audits, Mamdani specified they may result in “changes and updates to policies and protocols,” suggesting the singling out of Vigilant could come with repercussions for its NYPD contracts.

Asked why the police department’s Vigilant connections are being scrutinized in particular, mayoral spokesperson Sam Raskin provided little clarity. “The Mamdani administration has engaged with a number of agencies on their policies, guidelines and procedures related to federal immigration enforcement,” he said Tuesday. “We will share more soon."

As part of the audit process, a questionnaire directed the NYPD to submit a “draft audit” to the mayor’s office with responses to all inquiries by April 20. The form then says the NYPD and the mayor’s office would review the draft before a finalized submission to Mamdani by Thursday.

Read the story from Chris in POLITICO here. 

ON A RELATED MATTER: When Jeff Blau of Related Companies sat for an interview at a real estate conference Wednesday, he likely expected a friendly crowd.

But three separate times during a 30-minute interview, activists from the left-leaning New York Communities for Change interrupted his remarks to protest a tentative Adams administration deal under which Blau’s firm would benefit from some $2 billion in public subsidies to complete Hudson Yards.

“$2 billion of taxpayer’s money!” the activists, who were quickly rushed out of the room, shouted. “Shame on you! Shame on you, Related!”

The progressive advocacy group is pushing the Mamdani administration to scrap the public financing scheme — calling it a “boondoggle” and the “biggest corporate bailout in New York City history.”

That tentative deal is now up to Mamdani, but he’s not rushing to move it forward. Mayoral spokesperson Matt Rauschenbach said Wednesday: “We are not actively engaged in negotiations to move this project forward at this time.”

Blau said he still hopes to advance the project.

“Our hope is that we will announce a transaction this year, we’ll start construction on another 3 million square foot office building and probably start about 2,500 apartments at the same time, 625 affordable units,” Blau said at the conference. “So really a great addition to New York City.”

The ticketed event Wednesday was hosted by The Real Deal, a trade publication that covers the real estate industry. Founder and publisher Amir Korangy, who interviewed Blau, slammed the interruptions.

“This is not the right venue for this,” Korangy said, clearly exasperated by the third instance. “This was clearly coordinated.”

He added, to some chuckles, “I mean, at least they bought tickets.”

Blau was generally bullish on New York City and offered some praise of the mayor, even as other members of the business elite have raised concerns about his approach in recent days.

“I think the mayor is very, very supportive of new housing construction and is trying to eliminate barriers,” Blau said.
“He’s just getting started and our hope is that he will continue to do that and he will focus on things like [485-x] and engage with the private sector,” he added, referring to the property tax incentive for New York City residential projects that has garnered criticism from the industry.

“We're doing things all around the country and even globally, but New York City is our home,” Blau continued. “This is the greatest city in the world, despite the protesters. I'm committed to New York City.” — Janaki Chadha

FROM THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL

BLAKEMAN ON CLIMATE CHANGE: Republican gubernatorial candidate Bruce Blakeman demurred when asked today if he believed in climate change during a press conference at the state Capitol.

“Would it be accurate to say that you believe in climate change?” Blakeman was asked.

“I’m not a scientist and I’m not an engineer,” he responded. “Anytime we can make the environment better with a commonsense solution that’s affordable and makes sense, why not?”

Minutes before, Blakeman stressed to reporters that concerns about climate change shouldn’t guide energy policy decisions.

“To take drastic measures and pretend that you’re actually going to change the carbon footprint of our state and that’s going to have a material effect on the world is complete, utter fiction,” Blakeman said. “Our carbon footprint is miniscule compared to the rest of the world.”

His comments come as Democrats like Hochul are struggling to keep up with the state’s ambitious green policies. The governor poised to win changes to weaken New York's climate law in the budget, eliminating a near-term deadline to reduce emissions.

Playbook followed up with Blakeman’s campaign this afternoon to ask if he’s landed on a stance on whether he believes climate change is real. We haven’t heard back yet. — Jason Beeferman

IN OTHER NEWS

— SCRUB-A-DUB: Mamdani’s administration has quietly removed a landing page on the city Economic Development Corporation’s website promoting New York City’s business ties to Israel. (Free Beacon)

— LONG LINES: The number of Long Island families receiving food stamps has grown significantly as thousands may lose access following eligibility changes. (Newsday)

— IN THE STREETS: Pro-Palestinian and Pro-Israel protestors were met with a heavy police presence outside Park East Syngogue, which was hosting an event on land sales in Israel. (The New York Times)

Missed this morning’s New York Playbook? We forgive you. Read it here.