This piece first ran as part of The Countdown, our daily newsletter rounding up all the developments in the New York City mayor’s race. Sign up here to get it in your inbox. There are 11 days to the election.
Andrew Cuomo has been widely accused of Islamophobia after a radio interview Thursday with Sid Rosenberg, a Jewish conservative shock jock. (We profiled Rosenberg last year after he emerged as one of Donald Trump’s leading Jewish surrogates.)
Cuomo was arguing that Mamdani lacked the experience to lead New York City through crises. “God forbid another 9/11,” he said to Rosenberg, who has hosted the former governor three times in recent days. “Can you imagine Mamdani in the seat?”
Rosenberg replied, “Yeah, I could. He’d be cheering.” Earlier in the program, Rosenberg called Mamdani a “terrorist.”
Cuomo laughed and said, “That’s another problem.”
Mamdani slammed the exchange shortly after in an interview with PIX11. “This is disgusting, he said. “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.” He added that Cuomo’s remarks “smeared and slandered” the more than 1 million Muslims living in New York City.
Rebukes also rained down from leading New York Democrats, including some, including Gov. Kathy Hochul, Rep. Dan Goldman and Rep. Ritchie Torres, who have previously expressed concern about Mamdani’s rhetoric on Israel.
Hochul told Cuomo to “get out of the gutter,” Goldman accused him of “naked Islamophobia” and Torres said the comments were “beyond disgusting and disgraceful.”
Rep. Jerry Nadler, who along with Hochul has endorsed Mamdani, also referenced New York’s line against antisemitism in his response. “Imagine if this kind of bigotry was used against any other faith — Jewish or Christian New Yorkers. Would we roll over and accept it?” he said.
Asked about the interview hours later, Cuomo said it was Rosenberg who used the controversial language. He added that he had in mind Mamdani’s interview earlier this year with Hasan Piker, a Twitch streamer who has been accused of antisemitism and once said that America “deserved 9/11.”
In the first mayoral debate last week, Mamdani said Piker’s comments on 9/11 were “objectionable and reprehensible.”
