It's the Brian Laird

on WNYC. Good morning everyone. The election to replace George

Santos in Congress from Queens and Nassau counties finally saw its only televised debate last night with six days of early voting already done.

If you live in the district, you can still vote today through Sunday and on election day itself

next Tuesday for Democrat Tom Swazi or Republican Mazi

Pillup. The Swazi versus Mazi race is in its home stretch. We'll talk about

the state of that race now and play some excerpts from the debate which reveal

policy differences on issues including abortion rights, banning semi-automatic

assault weapons like AR-15s and the bipartisan Senate border and aid to Israel bill.

And we're delighted to have with us for this the moderator of the debate,

Rich Burrati, whose day job is to anchor mornings on News 12,

Long Island and to host their show Power and Politics and also Errol Lewis host of

Inside City Hall weeknights at 7 on Spectrum News, New York

1, and a New York magazine columnist. New York 1 airs in the Five Boroughs, News 12 airs,

and Nassau and Suffolk, so we've got the whole district covered

Errol always great to have you welcome back and rich thanks a lot for joining us I

know you're taking time out from your own show to do this so thank you and

welcome to WNYC. Thanks for having me. I'll dive right in here

with one of the biggest issues in this race the asylum seekers who've been coming to New York in large numbers since

2022. In this clip Republican candidate Philip says what she wants Congress

to do about the Southern border and Democratic candidate Swazi criticizes her

for opposing the bipartisan border bill that the Senate took up this week.

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