| | | | |  | | By Janaki Chadha and Julia Marsh | With help from Jesse Naranjo, Ben Weyl and Hajah Bah
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POLITICO illustration/Photo by AP | Hello, Recast family! I’m filling in for Brakkton today. NATO says it will invite Ukraine to join, providing it meets certain conditions; Vermont is dealing with the fallout from a massive flood; and Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala) comes under fire for his reluctance to condemn white nationalists. But first, we’re diving into New York City politics. For nearly five decades, former Rep. Charlie Rangel’s name was synonymous with Harlem politics. The first Black member of Congress to lead the powerful Ways and Means Committee, he was part of the storied “Gang of Four” of Harlem political leaders. When he retired in 2016, Rep. Adriano Espaillat won the seat and became the body’s first Dominican American member of Congress and a key power broker. But even with Rangel, Espaillat and New York City Mayor Eric Adams backing one of his opponents, political newcomer Yusef Salaam still won the Democratic Primary to represent Harlem in the City Council.
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Of course, Salaam wasn’t a complete stranger to the public. He was one of five teenagers falsely convicted for a woman’s rape in what became known as the 1989 Central Park jogger case. At the time, then-real estate developer Donald Trump called for the return of the death penalty, saying the teens were “muggers and murderers.”
Salaam spent nearly a decade in prison before the judgments were overturned. Then he became a motivational speaker. He moved home to Harlem from Georgia to run for City Council as a first-time candidate.
|  Salaam, right, speaks at the unveiling of the Gate of the Exonerated along a Central Park perimeter wall Dec. 19, 2022, in New York City. | Ted Shaffrey/AP Photo | And he won big. He comfortably beat two older, longtime state lawmakers who both have strong political bases in the historically Black district. Because Harlem is so heavily Democratic, Salaam is almost assured to win the general election in November. Salaam, 49, and his one-term predecessor Kristin Richardson Jordan, 36, are the neighborhood’s new guard. They reflect a different direction for one of the city’s Black political power centers — away from the establishment and toward first-time candidates — as voters search for fresh representation on issues such as crime, affordability and racial equity. “We are going to have a New Harlem Renaissance,” Salaam said in a statement after his June primary victory. The results were made official late last week. “People really want something different, something new,” Salaam said in an interview with POLITICO.
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| Basil Smikle Jr., former executive director of the New York State Democratic Party, said in an interview that Salaam is part of a national generational swing in the party. “Voters are looking all over the country at how these young leaders are really pushing, moving the needle in terms of progressive politics,” he said, calling Salaam “the face of criminal justice reform.” Smikle cited the young Tennessee state lawmakers who were ousted by a Republican supermajority earlier this year only to be reinstated days later. He also pointed to House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, 52, across the bridge in Brooklyn. Harlem “voters wanted to be able to participate in this new wave of younger progressive leadership,” Smikle said. Former Gov. David Paterson, the state’s first Black governor whose father, attorney Basil Paterson, was in the legendary “Gang of Four,” backed Salaam’s closest opponent, Assemblymember Inez Dickens, 73. Paterson marveled at the outcome despite the fact that Salaam didn’t have anything you could call a base compared to Dickens and the other candidate, fellow state Assemblymember Al Taylor, 65. | 
Salaam poses at the ACLU SoCal's 25th Annual Luncheon on June 7, 2019, in Los Angeles. | Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP | But he did have a ground game. “A lot of young people did work. And they were combing the streets,” Paterson said of Salaam’s electoral foot soldiers. “The two veteran legislators, you know, who’ve been elected over and over again, probably didn’t think they had to” campaign as hard, Paterson said. Eric Koch, a Democratic political consultant who advised Salaam’s campaign, said the candidate and his backers flooded the subways starting in March. “We basically had the field to ourselves,” Koch said. While Paterson isn’t sold on the notion that Harlem has moved on to a new kind of leadership, he conceded that Salaam’s story was just too remarkable to resist. Voters, he said, just wanted to be a part of “righting the wrongs” in Salaam’s life. All the best,
The Recast Team
| | | ICYMI @ POLITICO
|  Former Rep. Mayra Flores (R-Texas) is launching a comeback bid. | Francis Chung/POLITICO | Flores Launches a Comeback — Former Texas GOP Rep. Mayra Flores, who won a special election last year to fill an open seat but lost in November in her race against Rep. Vicente Gonzalez, announced today she will campaign to return to the House next year, POLITICO’s Ally Mutnick reports. Tuberville on the Defensive — Republican Alabama Sen. Tommy Tuberville in a CNN interview last night failed to denounce white nationalism. He may be tired of the ensuing criticism, but that hasn’t stopped the blowback on the Hill from mounting, POLITICO’s Burgess Everett reports. Harper Makes It Official — Actor Hill Harper, known for his roles in “The Good Doctor” and “CSI: NY,” officially launched his bid for Michigan’s Senate seat yesterday. If elected, he’d be one of only four Black men in the Senate, and he is one of at least three Black contenders currently vying for the seat. POLITICO’s Kierra Frazier has more. No ‘Tiny Voice’ — Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson has already made her mark on the Supreme Court in her first year, in part as an unflinching dissenter. POLITICO’s Josh Gerstein details the first term of the first Black woman to sit on the court and how she’s displayed a willingness to find consensus. The Testosterone Primary — Francis Suarez is flaunting his Cedar Rapids 5K time, while Vivek Ramaswamy is flexing his pickup game performance against former college athletes in the Des Moines area. POLITICO’s Adam Wren reports on how policy differences have given way to competitions of physical prowess for some 2024 hopefuls.
| | | THE RECAST RECOMMENDS In “When Crack Was King,” out today, author Donovan X. Ramsey paints a picture of community resilience through the lives of people affected by the crack cocaine epidemic. Mia Isaac stars in a new sci-fi thriller about a girl and her mother who possess superhuman abilities to manipulate the world around them. “Grey Matter” drops Thursday on Max. In “The League,” documentary director Sam Pollard paints a portrait of the so-called Negro League and the players snubbed by MLB. It’s in theaters now.
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| Andrés Parra stars as an alcohol-abusing private investigator in 2031 Bogota in the futuristic Colombian thriller “Los Iniciados,” streaming on Prime Video now. Boy band EXO shows off their meticulously coordinated dance skills in the new music video for their recent song, “Cream Soda.” You won't want to miss the fusion of West African and Cuban sounds in Omar Sosa & Seckou Keita, SUBA Trio’s NPR Tiny Desk concert. Burna Boy collabs with 21 Savage to give us some bumping visuals for their song, “Sittin’ On Top Of The World.” | 
| TikTok of the Day: An inventor at work
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