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New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani jumped fully suited into East Harlem's Thomas Jefferson Pool on Saturday to mark the 90th anniversary of the city's Works Progress Administration-era outdoor pools, but a staged celebration of expanded free swim programming quickly gave way to a raw political exchange with Nassau County Executive and New York GOP gubernatorial candidate Bruce Blakeman.
The flashpoint: a Newsmax interview in which Blakeman said Democratic Socialists of America-backed congressional candidate Brad Lander "would be a camp guard in a concentration camp if he could." The Pool Event and What It Was Built to Do Mamdani's clothed entry into the Olympic-sized Thomas Jefferson Pool drew video coverage of the mayor swimming alongside children, an image his office used to spotlight the city's free swim programming and the historical legacy of the Works Progress Administration pools, now 90 years old.
The spectacle landed; the political message did not hold.
The Blakeman Comment and Mamdani's Counter Blakeman's Newsmax remark came after Lander — a DSA-backed candidate — defeated Dan Goldman in the Democratic primary for New York's 10th congressional district.
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