Curtis Sliwa Could Not Pronounce Zohran Mamdani’s Name

Election Day in New York is fast approaching, and somehow, the man in the little red beret, Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa , is still in the race. On Thursday night at WNBC Studios, Sliwa (sans beret) traded blows with fellow candidates Zohran Mamdani and Andrew Cuomo in the first mayoral debate of the general election. Over the course of two hours, Sliwa — whose problematic past includes holding a public mask-burning event in the throes of the pandemic and mocking a Mexican accent while parroting anti-immigration talking points — made his case as the anti-Establishment candidate who wants to hire 7,000 more cops. Sliwa has repeatedly denied that he’s a racist, usually in third person (“Curtis may be many things,” he said in October 2021, “but no one accuses him of being ra