Up Close: Republican mayoral candidate Nicole Malliotakis

Bill Ritter Image
Sunday, September 17, 2017
Up Close: GOP mayoral candidate
Up Close: GOP mayoral candidateBill Ritter talks with Republican mayoral candidate Nicole Malliotakis.

NEW YORK (WABC) -- It's been called the second most important elected job in the country.

Probably a bit of inflation to that claim, as many mayors of New York City have found out, but it is a huge bully pulpit, working in the City Hall of the nation's most populous and, some would argue, most important city in the country.

Would you want the job? Most people would not.

This week, someone who does, and wants it so much she's trying to topple a sitting mayor to get the job.

Our guest is New York Assemblywoman Nicole Malliotakis, now the Republican nominee for mayor.

Also, people ask me every year - "Why do you still broadcast the reading of the victims' names memorial service at ground zero?"

If you watched just a few moments last week of the 16th annual service, you know the answer.

For the family of the victims, the sorrow of the September 11 terror attacks is never over, and never far from the surface of their very fibers.

Among those still mourning - members of the FDNY. 343 members were killed that day. 159 have died since that day from 9/11 related illnesses, from their work on September 11 and after on what's called the pit.

I recently talked to FDNY Commissioner Dan Nigro - chief of department after 9/11 - about the pain of that day and how it will never really end.

Bill Ritter talks with FDNY Commissioner Dan Nigro.

Finally, tax reform. Health reform. Immigration reform.

Lots of bluster but so far no action and no success from the White House.

But is there a change of strategy now underway involving the 45th President of the United States? And is there a revolt now brewing from conservatives worried that the president has abandoned them?

We ask that question to Rick Klein, ABC News political director, who joins us from the ABC bureau in Washington.

Bill Ritter talks with ABC News political director Rick Klein.
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