You’ve likely seen the video Zohran Mamdani posted about Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday; the clip has racked up nearly 200 million views across X, Instagram, and YouTube. But unless you’re Jack Holmes, you don’t have the inside story on how the sausage got made. According to his sources, Mamdani’s team has long known it would need to address the mayor’s campaign pledge to arrest Netanyahu if he ever set foot in New York. Such a move, they realized, would be impossible to execute in practice. The magic is that the mayor has now managed to admit he made a campaign promise he could not keep while somehow spinning that admission into a victory—or at least something with its own political momentum. It’s an inspiring story for well-meaning tall-tale-tellers everywhere.
Elsewhere, Chris Murphy says, “Sure, Jan” to Elon Musk, who has pledged to make his own Odyssey adaptation; Rebecca Ford and the Little Gold Men crew explore how Apple TV came to rule the Emmys; and Bill Maher tells Aidan McLaughlin that he might vote Republican in 2028. (I am shocked, shocked, by this fully unpredictable turn of events.) More tomorrow!
