Brian Laird on WNYC.

So Brooklyn State Senator Zellner-Mirey is making moves to run against Mayor Adams in the Democratic mayoral primary next June.

Myrie told the New York Times out today that the mayor had shown, quote, a failure of competence,

unquote, and did not have a, quote, full grasp of the nuts and bolts of how city government

should work, unquote.

Myri also criticized the mayor's cuts to libraries, parks, and schools.

State Senator Myrie is the second person to take a step toward primarying Mayor Adams.

Back in January, Scott Stringer, the former city controller, formed his own exploratory committee.

Both are still exploring, which is the first step. It's not an official

declaration that they're running. So we'll talk about that now and the mayor's Tuesday news

conference, including his thoughts on Columbia's graduation announcement, whether he would call

the situation in Gaza a genocide. A reporter asked him that question. And more, as we do every Wednesday with

Liz Kim, WNYC, and Gothamist reporter covering the mayor. Hi, Liz. Hi, Brian. Let's start with this news

of Brooklyn State Senator Zellner Myrie's announcement. He's opening an exploratory committee

starting today. Remind us, what does that mean? This is basically the first step

to announcing a formal run, and it's about testing the waters. And what that essentially means

is trying to see if he can call together enough money to mount a run. And in this case,

he would have to mount considerable money because Adams

has a large war chest already as the incumbent. Now, State Senator Myrie was part of the more

progressive generation of leaders who dominated incumbents in state legislature elections back in 2018. And interestingly, his Senate district is the

same one that Mayor Adams once represented when he was in the state Senate. That's New York

Senate District 20, for those of you keeping score. So though he talked about competence yesterday,

...