The Ever-Confounding Enigma of Curtis Sliwa

Curtis Sliwa marching in a Memorial Day parade on Staten Island, 2008. Credit: Wikimedia Commons

When New Yorkers took to the polls on June 24 to cast their ballots in the primary election for mayor, all eyes were on the Democratic primary, featuring Andrew Cuomo and Zohran Mamdani, among others. After all, for over a century, Democratic nominees have usually enjoyed landslide victories in the general. Voters paid little attention as Curtis Sliwa quietly locked up the Republican nomination for the second cycle in a row.

Now, however, as President Trump seeks to unite the opposition to Zohran Mamdani around his former rival Andrew Cuomo, Sliwa’s quixotic stubbornness may be the only thing in the way of Trump’s quest to keep democratic socialism out of the mayoral office. While Trump has succeeded in coaxing incumbent mayor Eric Adams out of the race, his attempts to influence Sliwa have fallen flat. Beyond simply rebuffing the persistent calls to exit the race, the cat fanatic has aired out the details of Trump’s pressure campaign, accusing Cuomo-aligned billionaires of offering him $10 million to drop out.

Despite appearing at first glance as a typical tough-on-crime MAGA culture warrior, a closer examination of Sliwa’s politics reveals a surprisingly eclectic mix of ideas and beliefs. In between his calls to hire more cops and keep standardized testing, Sliwa also fights for universal basic income. While Sliwa is certainly no stranger to the national spotlight, this is the first time his enigmatic populism and various eccentricities have been poised to affect the national balance of power. As Sliwa reaps the fruits and consequences of forty years of tabloid stardom, it helps to look back on how he ended up where he is today.

Sliwa first rose to national prominence in the late 1970s and early 1980s after founding the Guardian Angels to combat violence on the city’s subway. The group’s distinctive red jackets and berets made them a recognizable fixture of the city’s underground, drawing both praise and criticism from city elected officials. Many, including Mayor Ed Koch, initially panned Sliwa’s efforts as ineffective vigilantism; however, after investigation after investigation turned up nothing but glowing reports, both residents and elected officials began to view the Guardian Angels as a positive force.

Sliwa showcased his tough-on-crime conservative persona early by advocating in favor of subway vigilante Bernie Goetz. However, he also began to show his willingness to buck the wider conservative movement when he saw fit. In 1981, after an unarmed Black Guardian Angel was shot and killed by a Newark police officer, Sliwa didn’t just launch a broadside at the Newark Police Department’s tactics and practices; he also accused the NPD of unfairly pinning blame for the shooting on a Hispanic officer to protect his white colleagues. 

Sliwa’s star power rose further with the launch of his radio show in 1990, which remained on air for three decades until an on-air shouting match with his boss resulted in his resignation. Sliwa made comments on this show that angered the Gambino crime Family boss John Gotti Jr., who had Sliwa kidnapped and shot five times in June 1992. 

After surviving the assassination attempt, Sliwa’s public image as a crime-fighting renegade was bolstered even further. However, his credibility took its first major hit later that year when he admitted to staging subway crimes to garner publicity for the Guardian Angels. This included an incident where Sliwa lied about being kidnapped by three off-duty transit cops. 

Sliwa settled into his place as a tabloid mainstay during the 1990s, appearing on Charlie Rose and competing in the Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest. He left his second wife for his third one, accused Mayor David Dinkins of perpetrating voter fraud, and was appointed “stickball commissioner” under Rudy Giuliani. In 2005, when Sliwa testified against Gotti Jr. at his racketeering trial, Gotti’s defense team attacked Sliwa’s credibility by dredging up past memories of Sliwa’s numerous public falsehoods.

Sliwa’s first explicit venture into politics occurred in 2016, when he and future Staten Island Councilman Frank Morano staged a hostile takeover of the New York branch of the Reform Party. After a tumultuous four-year reign that resulted in the state party disaffiliating from the national Reform Party, Sliwa tucked his tail between his legs and returned to the Republican Party after his party lost statewide ballot access.

Sliwa’s latest venture as a political candidate can only be seen as the most recent chapter of something that constitutes less as a career and more as a series of escapades. In 2021, Sliwa defeated former friend Fernando Mateo in a contentious primary to become the Republican nominee for mayor. That November, Sliwa became the latest in a long line of Republicans drubbed at the ballot box by their Democratic counterparts. Sliwa, undeterred, filed to run again in the 2025 election, where there was no Republican primary, as no other candidate was able to make the ballot. 

At a quick glance, Sliwa seems to be an ideal ambassador for the MAGA-fied Republican brand. In 2021, his campaign centered on opposition to vaccine mandates and critical race theory. This time around, his attacks on Mamdani have focused on Mamdani’s past support for the “defund the police” movement, while he’s attacked Cuomo for his support of bail reform and accused him of being as leftist as Mamdani. His penchant for antics also seems to make him the ideal candidate for Donald Trump’s America. Sliwa has barraged the city with a Trump-esque deluge of tabloid fodder, unmatched by even former Mayor Rudy Giuliani himself.

And yet, Sliwa refuses to conform to the rest of the Republican Party’s rapid alignment with Trump. In 2015, after Trump cited Sliwa in claiming New Jersey Muslims celebrated on 9/11, Sliwa publicly condemned Trump and defended the New Jersey Muslim community. He refused to vote for Trump all three times he was on the ballot, referring to Trump as a “screwball and a crackpot.” And now, as Trump seeks to consolidate support behind Andrew Cuomo to prevent Mamdani’s election, Sliwa stands stubbornly resistant to any calls for him to drop out of the race. 

In fact, Sliwa’s criticisms of Mamdani are perhaps the perfect example of his prioritization of his brand and sense of honor above the political norms of the modern Republican Party. While Sliwa is withering in his criticism of Mamdani for his past support of defunding the police, he also went on Fox News the week after Mamdani won the primary to tell Republicans to “stick to the issues” and “don’t attack the religion [or] the culture.” While Sliwa has argued that Mamdani’s socialist agenda would “destroy” New York, he has also stated that “I don’t fear socialists,” contending that New York has elected communists to office before and “somehow life went on…we survived.” Down the stretch of the campaign, Sliwa’s harshest criticisms have been reserved for Cuomo, telling him to “stay in the Hamptons with the billionaires” and accusing him of  “slapping fannies and killing grannies.”

In a Republican Party that often values loyalty to Trump above all else, Sliwa stands out as one of the few willing to openly oppose the White House.  Made possible by the assumed irrelevance of the Republican nomination, Sliwa is in a prime position to upend the national political discourse with his refusal to bend to Trump’s will. While there are many things that may be said about Curtis Sliwa, 45 years in the public eye have proven indisputably that he knows no master but himself.