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Evening Brief: Election in Moldova, Adams Drops NYC Mayoral Bid, Shooting at Michigan Mormon Church

BY Guy D. McCardle

On a single volatile Sunday, Moldova votes under disinformation crossfire with fraud claims ricocheting across Telegram, New York’s mayoral race snaps into a Mamdani–Cuomo knife fight after Eric Adams bows out, and a Michigan LDS congregation endures gunfire and flames in its sanctuary. It’s Sunday Evening, September 28th, 2025. This is your SOFREP Evening Brief.

The pickup the shooter used to ram the church sits surrounded by smoke. Image Credit: Lukas Katilius / The Flint Journal via AP

Moldova’s Election: A Front-Line Verdict on Europe—and the Kremlin

The citizens of Moldova walk into the voting booth today like soldiers stepping through a blast door: what happens on the other side decides the fight. Since 2020, President Maia Sandu has driven a pro-European course and reforms that earned the candidate status with the European Union (EU) in 2022. Now the question is simple and unforgiving—does the electorate keep the Party of Action and Solidarity on that track, or hand the wheel to parties eager to drift back toward Moscow?

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Geography loads the dice. Moldova sits against a live warzone, bordering Ukraine as it claws toward its own accession. A stable, pro-Europe Chişinău locks a key piece of the eastern flank, denying the Kremlin a soft seam to pry open. Brussels has poured in money, technical advisors, and rule-of-law support to harden institutions. Moscow has answered with its modern playbook: disinformation, energy leverage, and political spoiler tactics. Think of it as artillery by other means—noise, pressure, and confusion designed to make forward movement feel impossible.

A win for pro-EU forces would signal that enlargement still works under fire. That matters beyond Moldova. It tells Kyiv that the drawbridge is down, not up. It strengthens the EU’s security architecture with a neighbor willing to carry standards, share data, and coordinate defenses. It also raises the cost of Russian aggression by knitting one more state into a community that can sanction, fund, and support at scale.

Flip the board and you get the opposite effect. If pro-Russian or anti-EU parties gain ground, accession talks stall. The Kremlin gains maneuver room, EU credibility takes a hit, and the eastern flank develops a wobble at exactly the wrong time. Momentum is a weapon; losing it hands initiative to the other side.

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The United States (US) isn’t a bystander here. Washington has backed Moldova’s sovereignty and democratic resilience, even as the EU took the lead on financial aid and reform guidance. For the US, Moldova’s alignment is part of a wider project: keeping a united front against Russian expansionism from the Baltics to the Black Sea. A setback in Chişinău complicates that map.

Bottom line: this vote is more than domestic politics. It’s a strategic stress test with consequences for European security, Ukraine’s path, and the credibility of the West’s playbook. If Moldovans choose Europe, the alliance gains a tighter shield. If they choose the Kremlin’s shadow, the shield sprouts a seam the adversary will probe by morning.

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Eric Adams Bows Out: New York’s Mayoral Race Turns Into a Street Fight

Eric Adams walked off the field on September 28, 2025, and the entire New York City mayoral race changed in a single headline. The sitting mayor—running as an independent after skipping the Democratic primary—said the constant media churn and the city Campaign Finance Board’s freeze on millions in matching funds made the campaign unsustainable. One move, and a crowded scrum snaps into formation.

Adams’ tenure since 2022 reads like a split-screen. On one side, early applause for declines in violent crime. On the other, a rolling series of controversies that drained time, money, and oxygen. The federal indictment last year—wire fraud and bribery conspiracy tied to alleged illegal contributions and favors involving Turkish nationals—became the defining drag chute. The Department of Justice under President Trump dismissed the charges, but the damage had already migrated from the courtroom to the polls and the donor ledger.

He vowed to gut it out for working-class New Yorkers. The numbers told a tougher story. Adams trailed the Democratic nominee, Zohran Mamdani, the surprise progressive/socialist standard-bearer; Andrew Cuomo, the former governor running as an independent; and Republican Curtis Sliwa.

Fourth place is not a staging lane; it is a cul-de-sac.

With Adams gone, the center of gravity shifts to Mamdani versus Cuomo. Cuomo’s team sees an opening with moderates and Black voters who once leaned toward the incumbent. That transfer is not automatic. Adams took hard swings at Cuomo, and their coalitions step on the same toes. Mamdani, meanwhile, holds the inside track, backed by Governor Kathy Hochul and former Vice President Kamala Harris, and is campaigning on affordability and social justice with message discipline and ground game intensity.

Curtis Sliwa remains the wild card. Calls from President Trump urging Adams and Sliwa to clear the lane for a Cuomo–Mamdani showdown made noise, but Sliwa says he is staying in. If he consolidates any anti-establishment vote, he complicates Cuomo’s math more than Mamdani’s.

The tactical picture: Adams’ exit removes an incumbent with anemic fundraising, frees up a chunk of moderate and minority voters, and hardens the contest into a progressive-versus-centrist knife fight. If Cuomo can vacuum up enough of Adams’ ex-supporters and keep Sliwa boxed out, he turns this into a late break. If that consolidation stalls, Mamdani rides a cleaner lane to City Hall.

Bottom line for New York: one candidate quit, the mission didn’t. The city now chooses between two different maps—one redraws the center, the other redraws the left—and the victor will set the azimuth for the nation’s most watched municipal command.

 

Gunfire, Fire, and Panic: A Sunday Massacre at a Michigan LDS Church

The sanctuary in Grand Blanc Township turned into a combat zone minutes after 10:25 a.m. this morning. A 40-year-old man from Burton, Michigan, smashed a vehicle through the front doors of a Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints congregation and opened fire into a crowd of more than 100 worshippers. Police say at least one person is dead and nine others are wounded; authorities warned that casualty figures could rise as investigators work through the burned structure. The suspect died after an exchange of gunfire with responding officers.

As if bullets were not enough, the attacker set the building ablaze, triggering a massive blaze for firefighters who battled flames and smoke while victims were still being pulled out. By early afternoon, crews had the fire under control, but parts of the church were gutted. The scene was chaos: first aid in pews, charred debris underfoot, and families searching for each other in a deafening haze of alarms and sirens.

Federal agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives are assisting local police. Leaders across the political spectrum weighed in fast. President Donald Trump called it “yet another targeted attack on Christians,” while Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer condemned the violence and pledged support to the community. None of those statements change the urgent work ahead: identifying the dead, stabilizing the wounded, and finding a motive that makes sense.

Investigators have not publicly released the suspect’s name or motive. They are searching his home and combing through digital footprints for any ties to the church or recent events. One sensitive question already on the table: whether the attack was in any way connected to the death of Russell M. Nelson, the church’s longtime president, who passed away at 101 on Saturday. That link is unproven; police have offered no confirmation, and drawing a straight line would be premature. Still, it is part of the backdrop as agents map the suspect’s path.

This was supposed to be a quiet Sunday of reflection. Instead, congregants confronted the worst kind of ambush—a vehicle as a battering ram, fire as a force multiplier, the crack of a rifle in a space meant for hymns. Houses of worship are soft targets, and attackers know it. The hard truth is that security has to meet that reality without turning sanctuaries into fortresses.

For now, the priorities are painfully clear: treat the wounded, account for everyone, secure the scene, and give investigators room to work. The faith community in Grand Blanc will rebuild. The question for the rest of us is whether we treat this as just another headline—or learn enough to work to prevent the next one.

 

 

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