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This strikes as "Lemme at 'im, lemme at 'im!" behaviour. That is, getting fighty while your friends hold you back. It lets you broadcast your furious manly pride and aggression without any risk of having to follow through with it, and you can cast shade on the people holding you back for being cowards.
I tend to agree, but if Netanyahu shows up in New York and nothing happens, it arguably causes Mamdani to lose face and look ineffectual. In fact, if I were Netanyahu, I would make a point of going down to One Police Plaza to apply for a dog license or something. And take a tour of Gracie Mansion.
Mamdani is not Greg Abbott who can line up the troops to deter the federal government into letting him get away with stuff(and even then- only with Joe Biden)- and if he's not savvy enough to know it, well, that's limboing under a very low bar, the sort of which would result in him actually trying to arrest Netanyahu- and probably getting arrested by the NYPD for giving the order. Everything we know about him is that he'll come up with some reason to get out of it ahead of time.
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Promising things you know are impossible is pretty standard politician behavior, but empty political promises normally consist of things that you won't actually get in trouble for promising. Mamdani mentions discussing his options re: Netanyahu with the city's legal team, but surely any competent lawyer would be aware of 18 USC 878 and would advise him strongly to shut the fuck up about wanting to arrest a foreign head of state, which suggests that either Mamdani's lawyers are incompetent or he is ignoring them. And I cannot possibly imagine anyone at the UN being happy about any suggestion that the mayor of the city that hosts the UN thinks that section 11 of the UN Headquarters Agreement is optional.
Does saying "I will do X but first I will check if it's legal, and if it's illegal I won't do it" actually count as "threatening to do X", legally?
I suppose it depends on the wording of the announcement. "There might be a loophole thst allows me to legally stab you; you stay right there while I double-check with my lawyer and sharpen my knife" I would think could be considered a legal threat, but I am of course no lawyer.
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Nah, Mamdani is being very careful to not fall foul of the precise and exact letter of the law. "I never said I would arrest him, I only said I was taking legal advice on what our options were". So he can come back with "I was advised this is impossible" and he gets to shrug and tell his partisans "Sorry guys, hands tied, whatcha gonna do?"
With the implication of ‘this is why I should be in charge of the legislature’ for good measure.
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