...they are backtracking, and their excuses are damning as well. The NYT is claiming that they reached out to the Mamdani campaign first before running the story to run it by them (not a courtesy ever done for Trump).
They claim "we like to run these things by the first hand source before running them". They also are saying that they wouldn't run it if Mamdani gave them an good explanation. They most certainly would run this story against a Republican regardless of their explanation, and there is no good explanation for it.
But the best part is that NYT claims that they were hacked and that is how the story got out.
Maybe it was Russia?