Socialist Zohran Mamdani skirted tough questions and offered few specifics as he smoothly swatted off a barrage of attacks from ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo during a heated first general mayoral election debate Thursday.
The rat-a-tat verbal brawl between the three contenders – including a zinger-lobbing Curtis Sliwa – from a 30 Rockefeller Center stage made for good TV, but arguably left New Yorkers without an idea how their next mayor would handle the nitty-gritty while governing the nation’s largest city.
The front-runner Democratic candidate Mamdani stayed on his “affordability” message, but could offer few specifics of how he’d actually put his platform into practice — and dodged straight answers when pressed on some contentious issues.
“Well, Zohran, boy, you have fantasies,” Sliwa said at one point during the two-hour slugfest hosted by NBC 4 New York, Telemundo and POLITICO.
“Never going to come about in terms of funding everything you want. It’s going to be free, free, free. It’s a fantasy. Let’s deal with reality.”
Cuomo, the former governor who’s running as an independent, spared no opportunity to hit Mamdani over his Democratic Socialists of America-backed policies on prostitution and misdemeanors, stance on Israel, past tweets calling the NYPD “racist” and lack of experience.
“He has literally never had a job,” Cuomo charged, adding, “God forbid — a 9/11, a health pandemic” should happen while he’s in office.”
But Mamdani, a Queens state assemblyman, appeared at ease on the stage, interlacing his dreamy, ambiguous promises of free buses, universal childcare and freezing the rent with put-downs tying Cuomo to President Trump and billionaires.
“As much as Andrew Cuomo wants to bring up tweets from 2020, which is around the same time that he was sending seniors to their death in nursing homes, I am looking to work with police officers, not to defund the NYPD,” he said.
The unrelenting torrent didn’t hit on any new issues though, and Cuomo was also dogged by old hits from his record, facing harsh condemnations from Mamdani and Sliwa over his handling of the COVID pandemic and the sexual harassment scandal that prompted his resignation in 2021.
“We have the architect and we have the apprentice” of ending cash bail, which has turned the city into a “disaster,” Sliwa — noticeably not wearing his trademark red beret — said as he stood at his podium between Cuomo and Mamdani.
Still, the bickering between Mamdani and Cuomo often left Sliwa behind, forcing him to colorfully pipe up with anecdotes from his past, such as saying he avoids taxis because “as you know, I was shot in the back of a yellow cab in 1992 by the Gottis and Gambinos.”
The Guardian Angels founder served up deep-cut blows on Cuomo’s record as governor – and at one point bitingly comparing the political scion to his father: “You are no Mario Cuomo.”
Here are some key moments from the first NYC Mayoral Debate
“I know you think you’re the toughest guy alive, but you lost your own primary,” Sliwa said to Cuomo after the ex-gov contended Trump would not send the National Guard to New York City if he told him to “back off.”
Both Cuomo and Sliwa clearly hoped to make a splash in the debate as polls consistently showed Mamdani holding onto a double-digit lead heading into November’s election.
But their combined onslaught failed to faze Mamdani, who turned time-and-again to his message of affordability – even as he had little to offer for how he’d cover the cost of his $10 billion in freebies for his socialist agenda, given Gov. Kathy Hochul has insisted she will not raise taxes.
“Look, a lot of people have called even my campaign a non-starter when we first began and now I stand before you proud to be the Democratic nominee who got the most votes in city primary history,” Mamdani said, dodging the question.
Repeatedly needled over his anti-Israel stance, Mamdani did finally say that “of course” he believes that Hamas should put down its weapons as part of the cease-fire deal, after telling Fox News on Wednesday that he had “no opinion” on it.
Mamdani also repeated he no longer supports defunding the police — but insisted he won’t hire more cops, even as the force is shy 1,500 of its 35,000 headcount.
He also said he’d support Local Law 97, which requires potentially costly upgrades to large buildings in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Mamdani didn’t have much of an answer when Cuomo went on a diatribe explaining why his rent-freeze proposal was half-baked. He reiterated his vow to freeze the rent on stabilized apartments — regardless of what the data showed about the potential financial burden landlords would incur.
“I’ve seen the data year after year of the fact that salaries are stagnating,” he said. “Costs are up and New Yorkers can’t actually afford their apartments.”
Sliwa didn’t spare Mamdani either, calling the democratic socialist’s plan to deal with mentally ill individuals with teams of cops and mental health workers “fantasy.”
The vicious debate likely will do little to move the needle, political insiders said afterward.
“The utter clown show debate is a sobering reminder that whoever wins in November, the New Yorkers will be the losers,” a Democratic strategist said.
“Mamdani has a slew of vulnerabilities on the issues that should make him an easy target,” said Andrew Kirtzman, a political strategist. “But as a communicator he is as good as we have seen in a generation – he’s smooth, succinct, on message and virtually unflappable. Cuomo and Sliwa had strong moments, but in the end they spent two hours trying to knock him off balance and failed.”
Cuomo, who lost the Democratic primary to Mamdani in stunning fashion, at one point accused his rival of not being enough of a Democrat.
When asked what he learned from his loss, the former governor focused on his lack of tech savvy.
“I did not do enough on social media, which is a very effective medium,” he said. “Now, I think the assemblyman did do a better job on TikTok, and social media than I did during the campaign.”
Mamdani shot back that the answer was obvious.
“I just have to say it’s been an hour and 20 minutes of this debate, and we haven’t heard Governor Cuomo say the word ‘affordable,’” he said. “That’s why he lost the primary. That’s why he’ll lose the general election.”
