The detention of Brad Lander, the second-highest-ranking official in New York City, is the latest in a series of aggressive actions that the Administration has taken against members of the opposition party. And, then, Jeannie Suk Gersen reacts to the Supreme Court’s latest ruling on trans health care. Plus:

• Why the Administration is targeting politicians 
• Donald Trump’s no-strategy strategy on Iran 
• Haim wants people to slide into their D.M.s

Eric Lach
A staff writer covering New York City politics.

Brad Lander, the New York City comptroller, emerged from the Jacob K. Javits Federal Building, in lower Manhattan, on Tuesday looking sheepish and relieved. “I lost a button,” he joked with reporters, cutting through the anxious mood that had settled in around the drab tower all afternoon, since Lander was forcibly detained by federal agents while attempting to shield people from Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers after immigration hearings. Video and photos of the arrest—the besuited Lander straining as he’s whipped around by masked men—had gone instantly viral, and protesters, immigration activists, and elected officials held a snap rally in Foley Square, across the street from the building.

An ICE official had issued a statement accusing Lander of “assaulting law enforcement.” It was the kind of inflammatory and false rhetoric that has become normal to hear from federal officials in the current environment, said seemingly with no consequences or concern for reality: the footage of the arrest showed nothing close to violence from Lander, and, after several hours spent in a room without his phone, the second-highest-ranking official in New York City was released with no charges filed. “I’m happy to report I’m just fine,” Lander said. “I don’t have to worry about my due-process rights.” His wife, he said, had gotten in touch with a lawyer just in case.

Lander is running for mayor, and if you believe the polls, he’s in third place in the city’s Democratic primary, which will wrap up this coming Tuesday. A few weeks ago, Lander started showing up at the Javits building, where activists had been observing immigration court on the twelfth floor, and escorting immigrants out after their hearings, on the theory that ICE might be wary of snatching them if it risked becoming a spectacle. That theory might need revising. “Do you want to arrest the comptroller?” a reporter for the news outlet The City reportedly heard one agent ask another, minutes before Lander was detained. ICE didn’t seem too bothered that five of Lander’s fellow mayoral candidates, including Zohran Mamdani, showed up within minutes of his arrest to address the outraged crowd outside the building. (Former Governor Andrew Cuomo, the front-runner in the race, didn’t make an appearance, although he issued a statement calling the federal agents’ behavior “thuggish”; Mayor Eric Adams, who has aligned himself with President Donald Trump’s immigration priorities, was nowhere to be seen.) As Lander pointed out, the man he was accompanying when he was detained, whom he knew only as Edgardo, is now in the maw of the country’s federal detention network. “I’m going to sleep in my bed tonight, safe, with my family,” Lander said. “Edgardo is in ICE detention and he’s not going to sleep in his bed tonight.”

In the mayoral race, the most explicit issues that have been hashed out between the candidates have been public safety and affordability. But the race has taken place against the backdrop of the new Trump Administration, and particularly its crackdown on immigrants. My colleague Jonathan Blitzer has a must-read piece out today about the Administration’s parallel crackdown on elected officials. “The Administration’s political calculus seems aimed at punishing and intimidating Democrats who challenge the President’s agenda,” he writes. “The incidents involving lawmakers all have something in common: in each case, video evidence directly contradicted or undermined the Administration’s account of what happened.” Yesterday, Lander said that his experience had reminded him once again that New York is a city of immigrants. “Including, for what it’s worth, the two ICE agents who detained me,” he said. One was from Pakistan, the other from Guyana.