With less than a week until New Yorkers elect their next mayor, former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo doubled down on his dark prophecy for New York City under Zohran Mamdani and escalated his scathing criticism of the Democratic Party’s left wing, saying it would “come to kill” moderates.
In an interview with the sports host and political commentator Stephen A. Smith on SiriusXM Wednesday, Mr. Cuomo painted a bleak picture of the city if Mr. Mamdani is elected, with the National Guard patrolling streets, airports closed and residents fleeing.
“I believe that Mamdani can kill New York City,” he said.
Mr. Cuomo has insisted that President Trump would use Mr. Mamdani, whom Mr. Cuomo said the president viewed as an “incompetent 34-year-old socialist,” as an excuse to take over the city and cut its federal funding.
“The federal government controls everything,” Mr. Cuomo said. “They can close your airports. They control your health money, your housing money. You’re basically bankrupt if the federal government turns off the faucet.”
Mr. Cuomo, a lifelong Democrat running as an independent after losing the Democratic primary to Mr. Mamdani, said the party had lost its identity to “extreme-left socialists” like Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, who he said were waging “a war with the moderate, mainstream Democrats.”
He blamed moderate Democrats for acquiescing to progressives and waved off endorsements of Mr. Mamdani from prominent New York Democrats like Gov. Kathy Hochul — Mr. Cuomo’s former lieutenant governor — and Representative Hakeem Jeffries, the House minority leader, saying they were only trying to “buy peace with the far left.”
“You have moderate Democrats who are just trying to make nice, because they’re afraid the far left is going to come after them,” he said. But, he added: “The far left is never going to declare peace. They’re going to come for power and they’re going to come to kill” moderates.
Hours after Mr. Cuomo’s interview, Mr. Mamdani called in to Mr. Smith’s show to respond, saying that the former governor was sounding increasingly like President Trump. “What we heard from Andrew Cuomo was not leadership,” he said. “It was him spending 20 minutes talking about me, because he has no vision left to actually offer New Yorkers.”
Mr. Cuomo has said that his path to victory depends on his ability to tie Mr. Mamdani to positions that have been embraced by the Democratic Socialists of America. He followed that playbook on Wednesday, denouncing Mr. Mamdani as “anti-business” and “anti-corporate.”
If “this socialist wing wins,” Mr. Cuomo said, “the Democratic Party dies, in my opinion.”
Ashley Ahn covers breaking news for The Times from New York.
The post Cuomo Says Mamdani Could ‘Kill’ New York and Democratic Party if Elected appeared first on New York Times.
