{"id":705502,"date":"2025-12-28T20:20:14","date_gmt":"2025-12-28T17:20:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/curtis-sliwa-just-wants-to-know-where-youre-from\/"},"modified":"2025-12-28T20:20:14","modified_gmt":"2025-12-28T17:20:14","slug":"curtis-sliwa-just-wants-to-know-where-youre-from","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/curtis-sliwa-just-wants-to-know-where-youre-from\/","title":{"rendered":"Curtis Sliwa Just Wants to Know Where You\u2019re From"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\n\tEvery night, before bedtime, Curtis Sliwa and his wife have a ritual: They watch an episode of The Office<\/em> and listen to some EDM. \u201cIt\u2019s just a real mood elevator,\u201d said the two-time NYC mayoral candidate, who is partial to the German twentysomething deejay BUNT but listens to a wide range of artists in the genre.<\/p>\n

\n\tSliwa, 71, was sitting in an Upper West Side diner on a recent weekday afternoon. Fresh off a drubbing at the polls \u2014 his 7 percent was the lowest total for a Republican in nearly 50 years \u2014 the Guardian Angels founder bore the look of someone who won. In a way, he had. For decades known primarily to New Yorkers as reassuring tough guy and \u2014 thanks to his sometimes-shameless antics on local TV and radio \u2014 object of parody, Sliwa has lately found unlikely national celebrity as a social media<\/a> folk legend. Many of his stunts, both new and vintage, have recently gone viral on TikTok, and an\u00a0SNL<\/em>\u00a0sketch <\/a>in November satirizing his debate with Andrew Cuomo and mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani racked up more views on YouTube, 7.1 million, than any other clip from the show this season.<\/p>\n

\n\tSliwa is the latest product of this strange, authenticity-seeking moment: a Boomer who, just by being the same blusterily quotable guy he\u2019s always been, has found the culture working its way to him. Die a hero, or live long enough to become Gen Z\u2019s swaggering grandfather.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThey see that I\u2019m a rebel with a cause,\u201d said Sliwa, whose trademark red beret had returned after a brief, jarring absence during the campaign. \u201cI\u2019m an outlier; I\u2019ve never been mainstream. I went out to the districts where the Zohranistas were,\u201d he continued, using his go-to coinage for Mamdani supporters. \u201cAnd even when they would say they didn\u2019t vote for me, they would say they respected me. They would say \u2018I get what you do.’\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWhat Sliwa has done involves a strange mix of caricature and crusader \u2014 he\u2019s a pro-police economic populist \u2014 and contradiction. Whenever you think you have Sliwa pegged, he flashes a surprise. He\u2019s a law-and-order Republican who worries about climate change and animal welfare; he\u2019s a streetwise working-class kid who loves EDM. (He picked it up observing the 1980\u2019s rave scene in Europe while training new Angels.) This reinforces the fame. Who cares you were eviscerated at the polls and recently quit your job? (Sliwa last month ended a decades-long run as a WABC radio host after clashing with station owner John Catsimatidis over the latter\u2019s support of Cuomo.) Maverick sells.<\/p>\n

\n\tA teenage boy outside the diner spotted Sliwa through the windows and burst in. \u201cMr. Sliwa, my parents voted for you,\u201d he said excitedly.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cApp<\/a>reciate that. What\u2019s your name?\u201d Sliwa replied, unfolding his imposing frame to stand and greet the boy.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cMy name\u2019s Leo,\u201d the teenager replied.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWhat school do you go to Leo?\u201d Sliwa asked.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI go to Wagner,\u201d Leo said. Sliwa\u2019s first question upon meeting strangers is where they\u2019re from (if they\u2019re not native New Yorkers) or what school they went to (if they are), a sorting mechanism that doubles as a bonding tool since he often knows a random fact about it.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWagner, right on 76th Street,\u201d he answered. \u201cWell I\u2019m gonna give you\u00a0a card Leo. Go ahead, scan that and it will tell you everything you need to know.\u201d (The QR code takes you to Sliwa\u2019s campaign page, still active with no signs of easing.) Leo asked for a selfie then breathlessly said \u201cI wish you would have won,\u201d which Sliwa disarmed with an even-keeled \u201cIt\u2019s OK\u201d as the boy ran out.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe new generation had very limited knowledge of who I am and what I\u2019ve done. But this election cycle introduced them,\u201d Sliwa said after Leo left. \u201cI\u2019m at the Halloween Parade in Greenwich Village every year, but this year there were all these Curtis\u00a0Sliwa\u00a0costumes. Even though they\u2019re Zohranistas.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe popularity has echoed farther than you\u2019d think. \u201cAnybody met Curtis \u015aliwa in real life?\u201d a poster recently wrote on the askNYC reddit. \u201cI am from Ireland but somehow over last few weeks I became obsessed with NYC mayoral race and I would love to hear some stories about people who might have met \u015aliwa in real life.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tLong before podcasting, Sliwa was practicing a proto form of the art on the radio. For 30 years he tirelessly gabbed with bravado, if not exactly nuance, about anything anyone wanted to talk about, often with an unexpected verbal flair. Perhaps not since H.L. Mencken has anyone roasted a politician as colorfully, or rhymingly, as Sliwa\u2019s now-famous \u201cslapping fannies and killing grannies\u201d about the MeToo and nursing-home allegations against Cuomo.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tNot hurting (except maybe him) has been a willingness to stand in the way of violent threats \u2014 the kind of gesture\u00a0that plays well with a certain white working-class base. Sliwa went viral during the Black Lives Matter uprising of 2020 when he and a fellow Guardian Angel (they are not armed) sought to prevent the robbing of a Foot Locker; he ended up in the hospital with a broken jaw.<\/p>\n

\n\tSliwa may be the only politician ever to have a comic impersonate him, as Shane Gillis did in the\u00a0SNL<\/em>\u00a0sketch, as a candidate \u201cwho has been dangled by my testicles off the Verrazano Bridge by a little-known gang called the Lords of Flatbush.\u201d He hasn\u2019t been, but he was shot by mobsters in the back of a cab in the early 1990\u2019s, allegedly because John Gotti Jr. was upset over what Sliwa said about his father on the radio. And you thought the comments section was bad.<\/p>\n

\n\tDuring the race, Sliwa said, he had offers of millions of dollars from no fewer than seven different mysterious callers, all pressing for him to drop out to help Cuomo. He knows who the calls came from but declined to identify them. \u201cWhen the time comes I will reveal it,\u201d he said. He certainly believes outgoing mayor Eric Adams, whom he repeatedly says is \u201ccorrupt and should be in jail,\u201d accepted a payout of this kind before leaving the race. \u201cYou mean to tell me he went from calling [Cuomo] all kinds of names to embracing him in a matter of weeks for no reason? Give me a break.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWhile Sliwa is concerned about Mamdani\u2019s approach to law enforcement, he is notably undisturbed by critics\u2019 biggest knock on the rising Democratic star. \u201cWe have to stop with this fear and hysteria. Trump called Mamdani a Communist. He\u2019s not a Communist. He\u2019s a Democratic Socialist, just like I\u2019m a populist Republican.\u201d Sliwa wields his throaty South Brooklyn accent as both comic enhancement and cred-booster, and he ratcheted it into gear now. \u201cAnd it\u2019s not like we haven\u2019t had Democratic Socialists in New York City government. You know who was a Democratic Socialist? [1990\u2019s-era mayor] David Dinkins. Can we stop this nonsense?\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tMamdani\u2019s fiery acceptance<\/a> speech took him aback though. \u201cWhat happened? This guy was all Sade \u2018Smooth Operator.\u2019 And then he comes out after he wins and he\u2019s metal.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tA middle-aged woman spotted Sliwa at the diner and came in to greet him.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cYou probably don\u2019t remember me. You lived across the street from my mom on the Lower East Side,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWhere did you go to school?\u201d Sliwa asked.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cTilden,\u201d she said, referring to the Brooklyn high school with a diverse alumni roster of Norman Lear, Al Sharpton, the founder of Snapple and the founder of 2 Live Crew.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cTilden! That\u2019s where my mom went,\u201d Sliwa said. \u201cCanarsie. All roads lead to Canarsie. Good and bad.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe woman asks Sliwa \u201cwhat\u2019s going to happen,\u201d seemingly referencing Mamdani. \u201cEverything will be fine, everything will be fine,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tPart of the reason Sliwa says he thinks Mamdani will not be a great disrupter is because he sees the new mayor becoming a part of the system he came to tear down. \u201cLook at who he\u2019s hired. All these institutionalists who worked for previous mayors,\u201d Sliwa said, name-checking some staff appointments.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Republican says he sees the incoming executive engaging with more special interests than the campaign would have led you to believe. \u201cYou saw it a few days later at Somos,\u201d Sliwa said, referring to the Puerto Rico confab where New York pols decamp after the election. \u201cAll these guys who hated him couldn\u2019t wait to meet him. They\u2019ve all got their beaks in the trough.\u201d He said he foresaw a rebellion from Mamdani\u2019s base not too far into his term. \u201cBecause they were there from the beginning and they\u2019re going to ask \u2018where did all these billionaires come from?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBut Sliwa\u2019s real animus is reserved for Cuomo and those who he says gave him too easy a pass. \u201cI call them the Cuomosexuals. It\u2019s almost like they\u2019re in love with this guy. Me, I felt soiled watching him. I had to take a hot shower.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tSliwa remains unrepentant\u00a0about not dropping out in the face of pressure from moderate Democrats \u2014and, particularly, Catsimatidis and the hosts at the station Sliwa says he pressured. Even if his vote total would have exceeded the margin between\u00a0Mamdani and Cuomo (it didn\u2019t), he says he would have been fine with his choice.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWhen I went to school my best teacher, Mr. Topol, in fifth grade at PS 114, said \u2018one-person one-vote.\u2019 It wasn\u2019t \u2018billionaires, influencers and insiders\u2019 get more votes.\u2019 Where is it written in a rule I have to drop out? What is this nonsense?\u201d He added, \u201cThe time to challenge me was in a Republican primary. Why didn\u2019t anybody challenge me? Because they knew they would lose.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tNo kumbaya moment awaits with Catsimatidis, he said. \u201cIf I walked back into WABC now I\u2019d be like somebody walking into a cage of Doberman Pinschers with porkchop pants on.\u201d Sliwa said he actually wanted to quit WABC after the 2021 election when the Gristedes-owning Catsamatidis, then an Adams supporter, posted a note in the news<\/a>room not to talk about Sliwa on air. But Sliwa needed the money. Now, however, he says an undisclosed source of income has freed him.<\/p>\n

\n\tSliwa has stayed vague about how he\u2019ll convert his newfound popularity into the next phase of his media career. If a run for Congress is in the cards, the throwback New Yorker is playing it cool; if there are podcast offers, he isn\u2019t saying.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cAnything is a possibility. As long as it coincides with my mission. That\u2019s what people don\u2019t understand. It\u2019s not money,\u201d he said, cranking up the accent. \u201cIt\u2019s about the Guardian Angels and animal welfare. If it\u2019s something that helps that, I\u2019ll do it. That\u2019s why we\u2019re here.\u201d He adopted a reflective look. \u201cMy mother and father primed me, \u2018Do good things and good things will come to you.\u2019 There are the voiceless \u2014 animals don\u2019t have a voice, homeless don\u2019t have a voice, the emotionally disturbed on the subway don\u2019t have a voice, veterans don\u2019t have a voice. We talk about all of them but we don\u2019t want to hear them.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t(Sliwa and his Millennial wife, Nancy, a lawyer and politician in her own right, rescued nearly two dozen cats during the pandemic, a fact which caused Donald Trump to snicker that Sliwa was \u201cnot exactly primetime\u201d but endeared Sliwa to New Yorkers. \u201cWhat Trump doesn\u2019t understand is that people have a\u00a0relationship with their pets like they do with their family,\u201d he said.)\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tAnimal rights is not the only point on which Sliwa criticizes the president. (\u201cI\u2019m no Trumper, and if you ask him he\u2019ll probably not even say I\u2019m a Republican.\u201d) Sliwa offers a non-MAGA choice to GOP voters hungry for a candidate that\u2019s conservative on cops and safety but who see climate and jobs as issues that transcend partisanship.\u00a0Sliwa also has driven into the AI-skeptic lane Trump has steered away from. \u201cThese billionaires say when they take away all our jobs they\u2019ll take care of us with Universal Basic Income,\u201d he said. \u201cYeah, right. Take care of us like indentured servants.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tTrump and Sliwa knew each other on the New York scene in the 1980\u2019s, when both were media-savvy upstarts regularly soaking up tabloid ink. The two even found themselves as co-honorees at a dinner for a conservative political group. \u201cI looked at Donald and said \u2018you\u2019re not a conservative.\u2019 And he looked at me and said \u2018you\u2019re not a conservative.\u2019 So we both just said let\u2019s give good speeches and get the hell out of here.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tSliwa looked around the diner. \u201cI think\u00a0today is the best day of my life,\u201d he said, almost out of the blue, quoting BUNT\u2019s summer 2025 remix hit.\u00a0\u201cThose lyrics say it all. I got up, I\u2019m alive, I feel good. None of the rest matters.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tA moment later a woman in her twenties ran into the diner almost giddy with excitement.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cOh my god, I can\u2019t believe I\u2019m meeting you Mr. Sliwa. You really put it all out there for us,\u201d she said quickly and nervously, in Spanish-accented English.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWhere are you from?\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cColombia.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cAnd you did you go to high-school here or in Colombia?\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI studied at college here,\u201d she continued, almost hyperventilating. \u201cI\u2019m so sorry, I\u2019m very nervous right now; it\u2019s amazing to meet you.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cAnd where are you from in Colombia?\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cCali.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI know Cali, I know Medellin.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThank you so much. It\u2019s amazing Mr. Sliwa, thank you so much,\u201d the woman said, as he handed her a card.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Every night, before bedtime, Curtis Sliwa and his wife have a ritual: They watch an episode of The Office and listen to some EDM. \u201cIt\u2019s just a real mood elevator,\u201d said the two-time NYC mayoral candidate, who is partial to the German twentysomething deejay BUNT but listens to a wide range of artists in the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":705503,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Sliwaphoto1.jpeg?w=1000&h=750&crop=1","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[51061,159181],"class_list":["post-705502","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-social-mediaa","tag-curtis-sliwa","tag-zohran-mamdani"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/705502","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=705502"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/705502\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/705503"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=705502"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=705502"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=705502"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}