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Brian Lairer on WNYC Studios. And now as usual on Wednesdays, our lead Eric Adams reporter, Elizabeth Kim, joins us with excerpts from an analysis of the mayor's weekly news conference, the only time all week when reporters can ask questions on topics of their choosing. The news conference was on Monday this week. Hi, Liz. Happy Wednesday,

Brian. One of the leading stories this week is the mayor being denied matching funds for his

reelection campaign by the city's campaign finance board. We'll hear his reaction to that in a

clip in a minute. But can you remind the listeners what that matching fund program is?

It's supposed to keep very wealthy candidates like Michael Bloomberg was from overwhelming their

opponents with their own spending, right? Sure. Yeah, and exactly that, Brian's. The CFB

administers a very generous matching funds program.

It tries to encourage smaller donations, essentially, by just matching them.

So a candidate who raises at least $250,000 and has at least $1,000 is eligible to get $8 for every dollar donated by a city resident,

and that's up to $250.

So it's a lot of numbers, but that's just to give you a sense that there's a criteria here, right?

And all of this is about encouraging a grassroots kind of campaign, smaller donors who live in the city.

And such a generous match.

Exactly. It's the most generous program in the country.

And, you know, we should never stop emphasizing it's taxpayer funded, which is why the CFB's role in vetting the donations is so important.

The CFB, the Campaign Finance Board, so why did they deny the mayor matching funds, at least as of now,

for this coming election? Well, as we know, Brian, the mayor's fundraising has been the focus of a federal

investigation, a state investigation. And as I said, the CFP's job is to examine the campaign

filings of all the candidates. You know, they're combing through documents and they're making

sure that everything checks out because this is taxpayer money.

Over the summer, my colleague, Bridget Bergen, she was the first to report on the CFB's audit of the mayor's 2021 campaign.

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