Cuomo suggests Mamdani would cheer a future terror attack

NEW YORK — Andrew Cuomo suggested Thursday that his main rival in the race for New York City mayor would cheer if the 9/11 attacks happened again — a serious escalation in the war of words between the former governor and front-runner Zohran Mamdani.

Cuomo was speaking on a conservative-leaning radio show when he made the argument that Mamdani lacked the experience to lead the city if another terrorist attack happened.

“Can you imagine Mamdani in the seat?” Cuomo asked.

"Yeah, I could," replied WABC radio host Sid Rosenberg, who called the Democratic nominee a terrorist earlier in the program. “He’d be cheering.”

“That’s another problem,” Cuomo said.

The former governor’s comments come as he trails Mamdani by double digits less than two weeks out from Election Day, with early voting set to kick off Saturday. In the hopes of hurriedly stitching together a viable coalition, Cuomo has ramped up efforts to pitch himself to Republicans as a more viable alternative than the GOP nominee, Curtis Sliwa — in part by appearing on programs like Rosenberg’s.

His suggestion that Mamdani would welcome an attack on the city marked a new level of acrimony between the two that drew immediate condemnation from the democratic socialist, who would be the first Muslim mayor if elected on Nov. 4.

“This is disgusting,” Mamdani said during a sitdown with PIX 11. “This is Andrew Cuomo’s final moments in public life and he’s choosing to spend them making racist attacks on the person who would be the first Muslim to lead this city.”

Mamdani argued Cuomo’s remarks denigrated all Muslim New Yorkers. The Muslim community faced intrusive surveillance from the NYPD in the aftermath of 9/11, and the city was sued over that policy — a lawsuit it ultimately settled.

“There are more than 1 million Muslims who live in New York City, and to have our faith be smeared and slandered by someone who at one point was considered a leader in the Democratic Party showcases the fact that bigotry and racism is not exclusively a Republican problem. It is also a problem within our own party,” Mamdani said. “It is time that we turned the page on Andrew Cuomo and on those that would tolerate this rhetoric from him.”

Cuomo’s campaign said afterward that the former governor was referring to an April interview Mamdani did with streamer Hasan Piker, an influential voice on the left. Piker once said that America deserved 9/11 and has referred to Jews as “inbred.”

"He was referring to Mamdani's close friend Hasan Piker, who said 'America deserved 9/11,' a statement 9/11 families called on Zohran Mamdani to denounce but he refused for months,” Cuomo spokesperson Rich Azzopardi said in a statement. “This is not new — the Governor held a press conference along with 9/11 families to denounce Mamdani's association with and refusal to denounce Piker's hateful comments.”

Piker, who later said his 9/11 comments were inappropriate, was not mentioned during the Thursday morning interview between Rosenberg and Cuomo. Mamdani denounced Piker’s 9/11 comments as “objectionable and reprehensible” during a debate last week.

As Cuomo continues to lag in the polls, he said Thursday morning that Republican voters will play a key role in whether he is able to advance within striking distance of Mamdani.

“The Republican voter is going to make the difference here, right? We know that,” Cuomo said.

While the governor has had mixed results with his overtures across the aisle — all five GOP county chairs have reiterated their support for Sliwa — he did pick up the endorsement of the Staten Island Advance on Thursday, a paper serving the largest concentration of Republicans in the city.

In pursuit of his goal, the former governor has been leaning back into messaging focused on law and order and Mamdani’s rhetoric around Israel — themes reminiscent of the early part of his primary campaign.

“The Democratic Party is a law-and-order party. It's a pro-business party, pro-growth party, pro-jobs party, that's the Democratic Party,” Cuomo said during a speech earlier this week. “So it's getting Democrats to come and vote for me, even though I'm not on the Democratic line, and Republicans not to vote for Curtis Sliwa because he’s not viable.”

To that end, during Wednesday night’s debate, Cuomo doubled down on highlighting Mamdani’s longstanding criticism of Israel. At one point, the former governor suggested Mamdani was applying a double standard to the Jewish state by calling for economic sanctions against it while not doing so against Uganda for its anti-LGBTQ+ laws. Mamdani is a dual citizen of the United States and Uganda.

Cuomo’s campaign also released an AI-generated ad during the debate that purported to show criminals — including a Black shoplifter wearing a keffiyeh — endorsing the Democratic nominee. Mamdani is portrayed at one point eating rice with his hands and unlocking a jail cell full of detainees before speaking to the camera and suggesting he doesn’t have enough experience.

The ad, which drew immediate criticism from left-leaning voices for employing racist stereotypes, was pulled shortly afterward.

“The video was a draft proposal that was neither finished nor approved, did not go through the normal legal process, and was inadvertently posted by a junior staffer — which is why it was taken down five minutes later,” Azzopardi said in a statement.