Curtis Sliwa became famous by stepping in where the government was falling short. As the New York mayoral candidate told Reason's Jesse Walker, the Guardian Angels—the anti-crime patrols that Sliwa launched in New York City in 1979—were born because "the government completely failed us….We filled the gap."
In the years since then, Sliwa has expanded the Guardian Angels to cities around the world, launched a multidecade career in talk radio, confessed that some of his organization's early crime-fighting exploits were hoaxes, and survived a very real assassination attempt allegedly ordered by the Gotti family. Now he's aiming to be mayor, running both as a Republican and on an independent Protect Animals ballot line against the self-described socialist Zohran Mamdani, former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, and the scandal-plagued incumbent, Eric Adams.
Sliwa's thoughts don't always follow predictable lines. On immigration, he cheers crackdowns on "the bad hombres, the drug dealers, [and] the gangbangers" but warns that "everybody should be afforded due process….You don't just pick them up, put them on Air Con, and take them to that gulag in El Salvador. That's not the American way." He shrugs at market solutions for housing—"I don't trust the developers, I don't trust the realtors"—while blasting the city for mothballing thousands of public apartments. He thinks marijuana should be legal and fast food should be more tightly regulated. He's fine with President Donald Trump sending the National Guard to police D.C., but "if he would've tried to do it in New York City, I'd say, 'Whoa.'"
