Late morning was sleepy but bright in Harlem Sunday as Democrat mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani gave remarks at the First Corinthian Baptist Church for some last-minute outreach to the Black community.

Just down the street, about 50 people were gathered to learn how to canvass for, and get a pep talk from, Mamdani, along with a row of TV cameras and some milling members of the press. One man walked by chanting ‘Cuomo, Cuomo,’ mostly to amusement from the crowd.

Suddenly, there he was, walking up the sidewalk with his entourage. A school bus driver screamed, ‘Zohran’ and the quick candidate pivoted over to the bus, and took a step up for a hug and a selfie.

It was the first time I had ever seen Mamdani in person, and the bad news for those of us who abhor socialism is that this 34-year-old candidate has some serious political chops, effortlessly and effervescently pressing the flesh with his trademark toothy smile.

‘He’s very polished,’ Matt, in his early 30s told me as we watched him take a few questions from what seemed to be pre-chosen reporters. I tried to ask him one but was ignored in my Fox News Digital vest. But that was OK. I was more interested in asking Matt and his friends questions.

They had just stumbled upon the event, and when I asked Matt to expand a bit on his thought, he told me, ‘He looks and sounds like a politician.’ I asked if that was a good or bad thing He just smiled and shrugged, but then added, ‘He also looks really young.’

Matt’s friend Cam told me, ‘He has a lot of appeal to the young people,’ I couldn’t quite gather if the millennial included himself in that category. He went on to say, ‘and that’s good. It’s time for the young people’s ideas to be tried now.’

In chatting with a few of the soon-to-be canvassers, there was an almost joyous quality about them. ‘We are all just so excited for him,’ one told me. Another added: ‘I’ve never felt this way about a candidate before.’

The canvassers, mostly on the young side, looked much more like gentrifiers than lifelong residents of Harlem, but that is, after all, now also a part of the historic Black neighborhood’s 21st Century identity.

Andrew Cuomo needs not just to win the Black vote on Tuesday to have any chance, he needs it to come out in massive numbers. Chad, who I met on the corner outside a bodega was trying his best to help.

I noticed him when I caught the tail end of a yelling match with an older Black woman. I saw he was handing out flyers, and had assumed it was for Mamdani. In fact, he was out there pushing campaign materials for Cuomo.

He told me he had been in New York all his life, and he wasn’t ready for the kind of change Mamdani is proposing. ‘Free stuff,’ Chad said with disdain. ‘It takes money to keep the lights on…I’m sick of hearing about people getting stuff for free, free, free, what about the children? What about the educational system?’

I asked him about the confrontation with the woman and he said, ‘I get that all the time. Some people just hate him, and feel free to be abusive towards me.’

I told him to keep a stiff upper lip, that what he was doing was important and how democracy works. He said, ‘Thanks, I needed to hear that.’

I was glad I could be consoling, but also understood instantly what a warning sign for Cuomo his account was. If older Black women in Harlem are giving him the business for supporting the former governor, then Cuomo’s backstop may not be as secure as it seems.

At the end of the day, for better or worse, political campaigns run on enthusiasm. For as much clear good sense as Chad made in his defense of Cuomo, the enthusiasm gap I have seen in the last few days on the ground is Grand Canyon sized.

Maybe there is a silent majority, or in this case a plurality, ready to quietly pour into voting booths and fill in the little circle for Cuomo. But if so, at least thus far, they are doing a very good job of hiding.

During my final overseas CIA assignment as a station chief in a South Asian war zone, our team was ruthlessly focused on detecting and preempting terrorist threats long before they could inflict harm on the U.S. homeland. We conducted plenty of clandestine operations unilaterally, but we also worked in close partnership with the host government’s intelligence service. We did not always agree on everything, but we enjoyed a robust exchange of intelligence on our mutual adversaries, shared analytical judgments and collaborated on a number of joint tactical counterterrorism operations.

On one occasion, our CIA team successfully found and fixed the location of a senior al Qaeda terrorist on the FBI Most Wanted list for having planned terrorist attacks. We shared our sensitive intelligence with the host government, whose military launched a well-planned raid and killed the al Qaeda terrorist during a firefight.

If there was one thing I learned at CIA, especially when it came to counterterrorism operations, it’s that our allies can be a tremendous force multiplier for our sacred mission of keeping our country safe from those who seek to do us harm.

Today, the Trump administration is applying a similar strategy for ensuring secure critical minerals supply chains and de-risking from Communist China, which is the world’s leading miner and processor of rare earths. China has made it a practice of extorting its commercial adversaries by restricting its exports of critical minerals.

Rare earth minerals are essential for making semiconductors, motors and fighter jets, all critical for our national security. The last thing we would want is to have to rely on Communist China for the supply.

China’s brazenly unfair trade practices involve dumping on the global market its massive, excess production of rare earths deliberately to drive prices down and force competitor mining companies out of business, thereby eliminating any long-term competition.

But the Trump administration has deployed a counter playbook to reduce China’s influence over rare earth markets. Rightly concerned that China is seeking to control the global economy by imposing its will on the high technology supply chain, Trump recently signed an $8-billion rare-earth mineral deal with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese. And during his recent trip to Asia, Trump signed rare earth deals with Thailand and Malaysia.

The Trump administration also deftly applies the same principle of de-risking to critical materials and minerals including polysilicon, a pure form of silicon essential for the production of microchips and integrated circuits. Seeking to minimize the risk of China’s dominant global market share of polysilicon, the Trump administration smartly relies on NATO member Germany for the bulk of our polysilicon imports.

Further, the Trump administration is investigating national security threats posed by imports from other countries, including, but not exclusively, those linked to China. China dominates global polysilicon through state subsidies, deliberate overproduction and other nefarious trade practices — a familiar Chinese Communist Party playbook used on strategic materials.

‘If an enemy has alliances,’ Chinese philosopher Sun Tzu wrote, ‘the problem is grave and the enemy’s position strong.’

The U.S. is leading the way by building a global network for key technology components, which are vital to protecting our national security from Communist Chinese mercantilist aggression.

Dictators like Chinese President Xi Jinping want their enemies to be weak and divided. That’s because together the U.S. and our commercial partners are stronger and more able to protect internationally recognized borders, freedom of navigation and free trade on which the U.S. and global economy rely.

President Donald Trump indicated that he did not direct the Justice Department to target former FBI Director James Comey, former National Security Advisor John Bolton and New York State Attorney General Letitia James.

During ’60 Minutes’ interview, CBS News’ Norah O’Donnell noted the three figures have been indicted and asked Trump whether those are cases of ‘political retribution.’

‘You know who got indicted? The man you’re looking at. I got indicted. And I was innocent,’ Trump fired back.

O’Donnell pressed Trump on the matter, asking whether he directed the Department of Justice to target those people.

‘No. You don’t have to instruct ’em because they were so dirty, they were so crooked, they were so corrupt, that the honest people we have — Pam Bondi’s doing a very good job, Kash Patel’s doing a very good job — the honest people that we have go after ’em automatically,’ he said.

The president called out Comey, James and Senate Democrat Adam Schiff in a September Truth Social post highlighted by ’60 Minutes.’

‘Pam: I have reviewed over 30 statements and posts saying that, essentially, ‘same old story as last time, all talk, no action. Nothing is being done. What about Comey, Adam ‘Shifty’ Schiff, Leticia??? They’re all guilty as hell, but nothing is going to be done,” the president declared in part of the post.

‘We can’t delay any longer, it’s killing our reputation and credibility. They impeached me twice, and indicted me (5 times!), OVER NOTHING. JUSTICE MUST BE SERVED, NOW!!!’ he asserted in another portion of the post.

The Senate returns to Washington, D.C., this week as the government shutdown nears a record-shattering milestone and as lawmakers remain entrenched in their positions.

Come late Tuesday night, the government shutdown will officially become the longest on record, at 36 days, smashing through the previous record etched into the history books in early 2019. And while that record approaches, and payday deadlines are missed and federal benefits dry up, the Senate is still largely in a holding pattern.

Still, there was newfound optimism among some lawmakers as bipartisan talks increased last week, and many hope that same momentum carries into this week.

But for now, neither side is budging from the positions they’ve maintained since Oct. 1, when the shutdown officially began.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and his Democratic caucus want a deal on expiring Obamacare premium subsidies before they agree to reopen the government. Saturday was when open enrollment officially began nationwide.

They’ve long warned that unless a deal was made before open enrollment, Americans that rely on the subsidies would see their premiums spike, despite the subsidies not expiring until the end of this year.

‘People are going to see drastic, drastic increases in their healthcare costs,’ Schumer said last week. ‘People are going to sit at the dinner table Friday night with a pit, with a hole in the pit of their stomach, and say, ‘How are we going to do this?’’

Senate Republicans largely agree that there needs to be an extension of some kind to the subsidies, but they also want a host of reforms made to the program that was enhanced under former President Joe Biden.

And Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., has offered Senate Democrats a vote on the Obamacare subsidies, but they say that’s not enough and demand that President Donald Trump get involved.

Trump officially returned to the country after a near weeklong trip to Asia but still appears to be keeping the shutdown at an arm’s length.

While Schumer and his Democratic caucus’ demands have remained laser-focused on expiring Obamacare subsidies, they have also blamed Trump for not funding federal food benefits as he did in 2019, and Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., have called for a meeting with the president.

But Trump won’t meet with the top congressional Democrats until the shutdown ends — a point he and Republicans have made time and time again.

And he won’t budge on healthcare negotiations until the government reopens, either.

‘I’m not going to do it by being extorted by the Democrats who have lost their way,’ Trump said on CBS’ ’60 Minutes.’ ‘There’s something wrong with these people.’

Meanwhile, Trump has urged Senate Republicans to get rid of the 60-vote filibuster threshold in the upper chamber. Doing so is a proverbial third rail for Senate Republicans and a longstanding priority for Senate Democrats.

He renewed that call over the weekend in posts on Saturday and Sunday to his social media platform Truth Social.

‘Republicans, you will rue the day that you didn’t TERMINATE THE FILIBUSTER!!! BE TOUGH, BE SMART, AND WIN,’ he said.

Energy Secretary Chris Wright revealed the U.S. will not be testing nuclear explosions, putting to rest questions over whether the Trump administration would reverse a decades-old taboo.

Testing will instead involve ‘the other parts of a nuclear weapon,’ Wright told Fox News’ ‘The Sunday Briefing.’

‘I think the tests we’re talking about right now are systems tests,’ he explained. ‘These are not nuclear explosions. These are what we call noncritical explosions.’

His comments came after President Donald Trump announced the U.S. would reignite ‘nuclear testing’ because other nations were doing so. The president made the announcement on the way to a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

He didn’t specify whether he meant explosives, which haven’t been tested by the U.S. since 1992, or the weapons that carry them.

The only nation to conduct a detonation test in the last 25 years is North Korea in September 2017.

The president said he’d directed the Pentagon — which is responsible for testing nuclear-capable vehicles — to resume testing. The Energy Department would have jurisdiction over testing explosives.

‘We’ve halted it years — many years — ago,’ Trump said last week. ‘But with others doing testing, I think it is appropriate that we do also.’

Asked on Friday to clarify whether the U.S. would begin ‘detonating nuclear weapons for testing,’ the president responded, ‘I’m saying that we’re going to test nuclear weapons like other countries do.’

Trump claimed in a CBS ’60 Minutes’ interview over the weekend that U.S. adversaries were secretly testing nuclear weapons.

‘Russia’s testing nuclear weapons, and China’s testing them, too,’ he said. ‘You just don’t know about it.’

China is rapidly expanding its nuclear silo and is expected to have nearly 1,000 warheads by 2030, according to Pentagon assessments. But Beijing has not conducted a nuclear weapons test since 1996. Russia has not been confirmed to have tested a weapon since 1990, but last week did claim to test two delivery vehicles: an undersea torpedo known as Poseidon and a nuclear-powered cruise missile.

In 1996, the United Nations adopted a nuclear test ban treaty. The U.S. signed the treaty, but the Senate rejected its ratification. Most other nuclear-armed states also did not ratify the document.

Still, it created a global norm against nuclear weapons testing.

The U.S. regularly tests unarmed nuclear-capable weapons.

Additionally, non-explosive or ‘subcritical’ tests, which involve fissile materials but stop short of producing a chain reaction, have been conducted at the Nevada National Security Site for years. Officials say these experiments help validate computer models that simulate how aging warheads behave, allowing scientists to verify performance without explosive testing.

The U.S. has conducted more than two dozen such tests since the late 1990s.

‘And again, these will be nonnuclear explosions,’ Mr. Wright said. ‘These are just developing sophisticated systems so that our replacement nuclear weapons are even better than the ones they were before.’

Washington is currently undergoing a three-decade, $1.7 trillion transformation effort to replace aging warheads with updated versions.