TROY — A heated meeting last month where top Rensselaer County Republicans pressured Troy mayoral candidate Tom Reale to drop out of the race — and endorse a Democratic challenger — degenerated into a name-calling shouting match with county Executive Steve McLaughlin lobbing threats and declaring himself the "boss of the party."

Warning: This audio recording contains profanity.

"I’m telling you right now, I run the f---ing show around here. I want you out of the f---ing race," McLaughlin told Reale as his voice rose. "If you don’t do it ... trust me when I tell you, there’s going to be consequences all the way around and the best way for you to save face is to look yourself in the mirror and say that you did everything you could to help the people of Troy save them from this sh--head that’s running the place, cause you’re not going to win, and you’re going to get embarrassed."

"Or?" Reale asked McLaughlin near the end of the Oct. 7 meeting, which took place at GOP headquarters in Troy.

"We'll see what the 'or' is," McLaughlin said, before walking out the door with Richard Crist, his county operators director and campaign manager.

Minutes earlier, McLaughlin, a former state assemblyman who casts himself as an iron-fisted leader of the county's Republican party, demanded that Reale, the GOP candidate for mayor, step aside, saying: "I want you endorsing (Democratic mayoral candidate Rodney Wiltshire) ... and I want it done tonight."

Warning: This audio clip — which is a portion of the recording above — contains profanity.

The Times Union obtained a copy of a recording of the meeting, which was prompted by McLaughlin's concerns that Reale, a state Senate GOP employee and political newcomer, is trailing in polls and — McLaughlin believes — running a weak campaign that will result in him being trounced by incumbent Troy Mayor Patrick Madden, a Democrat seeking re-election to a second four-year term on Tuesday.

McLaughlin contends Madden is doing a poor job of running the city. The GOP leader, who wants to control the county and its largest city, has secretly thrown his support to Wiltshire, who lost a Democratic primary to Madden but is running on the Independence and Green party lines.

The incongruity of the situation has left McLaughlin — nicknamed "Little Trump" for his incendiary tweets defending the president and attacking Democrats — in the position of casting off a GOP candidate to support a Democrat he thinks has a better chance of defeating Madden — or, at least, keeping the incumbent from running away with the race.

Madden did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Saturday. Wiltshire initially declined to comment through a spokesperson. Later Saturday, after audio recordings of the meeting were posted on the Times Union's website, Wiltshire sent an email stating: "I was not present at the meeting and therefore I don't have any comment on it."

Asked to comment on the recording obtained by the Times Union, Reale said: "It was one of the most embarrassing things that's happened to me and I know that I don't sound great either, because it was something that I was fighting for, something that I had been working on for months. ... I had been pouring my own heart and soul into something that I had very little help with."

Previous coverage:

Trio of Troy mayoral candidates faces off in final debate

Reale, back in Troy race, goes on the offense

McLaughlin, GOP operatives pressured Reale to leave Troy mayor's race

At one point during last month's meeting, as the conversation became more adversarial, McLaughlin threatened to publicly endorse Wiltshire.

"You want to play some political f---ing hardball? I’ll show you political f---ing hardball," McLaughlin told Reale. "If I come out and endorse Rodney, you’re going to look like a f---ing idiot. Do you understand that?"

"If you endorse Rodney, Democrats are going to run from him," Reale responded.

Reale stood his ground against the onslaught of pressure and personal insults leveled at him during the meeting. His defiance infuriated members of the group waging the political intervention: McLaughlin, Crist, former congressman John Sweeney, county services director James Gordon, who is a former Troy city councilman, and Jason Kippen, the county's human resources director.

More information Warning: The audio recordings attached to this story contain profanity. The audio was recorded during a heated Oct. 7, 2019, meeting at GOP headquarters in Troy, N.Y. Rensselaer County Executive Steve McLaughlin, Former U.S. Rep John Sweeney, Rensselaer County Director of Operations Richard Crist and Rensselaer County services director and former Troy City Councilman James Gordon can be heard pressuring Republican candidate Thomas A. Reale to drop out of the Troy mayoral race. See More Collapse

A few days after the meeting, Reale announced he was suspending his campaign without mentioning what had happened. He has rejoined the race, albeit without the support of the GOP leaders who confronted him, including McLaughlin, who during the sitdown described himself "as the guy that kind of runs the show around this county and, quite frankly, in this city."

Sweeney, a Saratoga County resident who served four terms in Congress, has been part of McLaughlin's inner circle for years and was asked to attend the meeting due to his political background. Reale reminded the congressman that, like the others in the room, he had not leant any support to his fledgling mayoral campaign despite being asked to do so.

Reale told the group that if his campaign has struggled, it's because they have given him no support after party insiders, including Troy Council President Carmella Mantello, had asked him to consider running.

"I have to be able to look myself in the mirror after this election’s over with," Reale told them. "I’m not going to live with getting threatened out of this race."

"If you want to say I’m threatening you, I’ll start threatening," Crist said. "I’m not going to carry water for an institution that employs you while we’re asking you to make a logical play that we’ve asked (you) to counter with facts and in a half hour of you insulting us, have been unable to do.

McLaughlin blasted Reale for leaving Troy for an overnight trip last month to attend an event where a family member was being honored.

Warning: This audio clip — which is a portion of the recording above — contains profanity.

"I busted my ass. I knocked on 10,000 doors," McLaughlin said. Reale countered: "Family is important."

"At the end of the day, this is about winning a race and you know you can't win," Sweeney said later during the meeting, never raising his voice.

But the former congressman's calm demeanor was overshadowed when the meeting boiled over at points, including personal insults directed at Reale, an Army veteran, and his wife, whom Reale said would also be a good candidate for public office.

McLaughlin warned that Reale and his wife would not receive any GOP political support from his camp if Reale stayed in the mayor's race.

"Do you think if you said, 'Hey, I’d like to run for school board, that’s going to happen?" McLaughlin said.

Gordon and Crist, who exerts immense influence over political campaigns in Rensselaer County, including judicial races, shouted at points during the meeting, with Gordon hurling obscenities at Reale and lunging in his direction. Crist suggested Reale's Senate job could be at stake if Crist ensured that his county GOP operation would not gather petitions next year for any Republican Senate candidates, including state Sen. Daphne Jordan.

Warning: This audio clip — which is a portion of the recording above — contains profanity.

"Next year there’s not a goddamn f---ing Senate petition that comes out of Rensselaer County, not one, and it’s because of two words: 'Tom Reale,'" Crist said. "So that’s the end, you got a lot to think on. We’re done with the meeting right now. … You keep your attitude. You’re going to do every motherf---ing petition from Stephentown to f---ing Spiegeltown. … and when (Senate Minority Leader John) Flanagan and those guys hear about it, it’s on you."

The re-election efforts of Jordan, a first-term senator from Saratoga County, would be devastated if she doesn't receive assistance with nominating petitions from Rensselaer County's GOP operation. Jordan declined to comment.

Warning: This audio clip — which is a portion of the recording above — contains profanity.

At one point during the confrontational meeting last month there was also what may have been an implied threat of violence from McLaughlin, who has described his personality type as "rockstar."

"Smirk at me. You’re f---ing lucky this ain't the old days, you little f---, I’m telling you," McLaughlin told Reale. "You don’t f---ing act this way around people that know a lot more than you do."

On Saturday, a political mailer distributed by the county GOP and featuring two Republicans, former Troy Mayor Harry Tutunjian and Neil Kelleher, a former chairman of the county Legislature, urged voters in the party to support Wiltshire while touting alleged failures in Reale's campaign.

"Whatever happens on election day, if they don't like the results, they don't have anyone to blame but themselves," Reale said Saturday, adding he would have agreed to step down months ago, earlier in the race, if he had been asked then.