From The New York Times, I'm Rachel Abrams, and this is The Daily.

This next story takes the phrase, all that and a bag of chips to a whole new level.

Last week, a curious news story enveloped New York.

I covered a lot of campaigns in my life, and I'm not sure I've ever seen anything like this.

It involved the mayor's race, a reporter from the news outlet, The City, named Katie Honan,

and also...

A bag of opened her sour cream and onion-rich potato chips.

A bag of chips.

After a campaign event for Mayor Eric Adams, one of the mayor's advisors, Winnie Greco, who

was close ties to China, insisted that Honan take the chips. And she says, oh, have the chips, have the chips. I refuse the chips multiple times. No, I don't want, she said, take chips. I said, no, it's okay. I don't want any chips. And at a certain point, I said, let me just hold this in my hand as I walk with her.

And then we parted, and I figured I would just throw them out.

And I walk outside to the 125th Street station.

And right at the top of the subway station, I just look in the bag.

And I noticed a red envelope.

And inside...

A wad of cash.

$300 in cash.

Honan did not accept the money.

Greco later said that she'd made a mistake and apologized.

I'm still really confused by everything and just trying to wrap my head around,

her motivation, why she gave it to me, and what the whole point of it was.

Today, I talked to my colleague Mike Forsyth about how that incident actually fits into a much larger story he's been working on,

...