Cuomo goes full gutter racist down the stretch

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The first New Yorkers will cast their ballots on Saturday as early voting for the general mayoral election begins. And Independent candidate, Democratic primary loser and 13-time accused sex pest Andrew Cuomo has decided he’s going to close out his second campaign this year by being as racist as possible. 

As you might recall, Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani handily beat Cuomo in the June Democratic Primary, setting him up to become the first Muslim-American Mayor in city history. For most people this would spell the end, but Cuomo believes, in the words of the band Semisonic, “every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.” So he dusted off the crumbs from the car he used to drive around everywhere in New York City and dared to dream: What if this time around I’m even more racist?

Thursday morning immediately following the second of two mayoral debates between Cuomo, Mamdani and Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa, the disgraced former governor stopped by the radio show of Trump’s personal friend Sid Rosenberg. In the course of their discussion about Mamdani’s perceived inexperience, the two had this exchange:

When reached for comment on Thursday, Cuomo campaign spokesman Rich Azzopardi gave me a confounding explanation: That Cuomo “was referring to Mamdani's close friend Hasan Piker,” a widely popular influencer who has made controversial comments about 9/11 in the past. He referenced Cuomo’s problem with Mamdani’s “refusal to denounce Piker's hateful comments,” which is patently false. During the first debate last week Mamdani said "I find the comments that Hasan made on 9/11 to be objectionable and reprehensible."

The biggest problem with this explanation, however, is that Piker did not come up at all in the course of the interview with Rosenberg. He was talking about his perception of Mamdani not being experienced enough for the job and was sure to stress that New York’s first Muslim mayor wouldn’t be able to handle—gasp!—something like 9/11. When I followed up with Azzopardi to ask again if Cuomo believed Mamdani would be cheering for a 9/11-style terrorist attack, I did not receive a reply.

It was an interesting choice the morning after the debate going on the radio show of a man who spoke at Trump’s Madison Square Garden Nazi rally, but it makes more sense when you realize who Cuomo is pandering to: People he knows he can scare into turning out and voting against Mamdani.

The choice was also entirely consistent with a another move the Cuomo campaign made Wednesday night. In the middle of the debate, his team posted and then quickly deleted an outrageously racist AI-generated video, Zeteo’s Prem Thakker reported. It depicted “criminals for Zohran” and painted Mamdani’s New York as a criminal free-for-all.

Aside from the various racist and cartoonish caricatures of criminals, the video also shows the AI-generated approximation of Mamdani eating rice with his hands—a callback to a moment right after Mamdani trounced Cuomo in the June Democratic primary. At the time, the racist X account “Ending Wokeness” posted a real video of Mamdani eating rice with his hands, prompting a racist Texas Congressman to chime in “Civilized people in America don’t eat like this. If you refuse to adopt Western customs, go back to the Third World.” 

Campaign spokesman Rich Azzopardi told the New York Times that the video “was posted in error” and “wasn’t done yet.” But it’s hard to imagine how some editing tweaks could have prevented it from being something that would make Lee Atwater blush.

Mamdani was born in Uganda and Cuomo has used every opportunity during his second run at mayor this year to remind people of that fact. During the most recent debate he asked Mamdani why he doesn’t support BDS (boycott, divest, sanction) of Uganda for its inhumane treatment of and policies towards LGBTQ+ people in the country. BDS is, of course, a dog whistle since it’s an idea and practice that has long been championed by pro-Palestinian freedom activists against the Israeli government. At no point in his many years in various offices has Andrew Cuomo expressed any concern about queer and trans Ugandans; no, he was trying to score a cheap political point. He wanted to remind viewers that Mamdani is from somewhere else.

The real cherry on top was Cuomo going directly from the debate stage to court-side seats at the Knicks home opener where soon-to-be former Mayor Adams was saving him a spot. His attendance served two purposes: one, to make up for a boneheaded comment he made during the first debate; and two, to be photographed with the disgraced mayor. After all, he knew just a few hours later Adams would be announcing his endorsement for a man he called “a snake and a liar” just last month.

It’s bad—and frankly insulting—enough that the focus of so much of this local domestic election has focused on Mamdani opposing genocide in another country. The suspicion with which his support of Palestinian and Muslim New Yorkers as a Muslim New Yorker himself has always felt like barely-concealed racism, and questioning his loyalty to Israel has felt like questioning his loyalty to America.

Playing on white people’s fears is a political tactic as old as time—it’s just not one you expect from New York Democrats in the year 2025. Then again, one need not look back too far to find similar examples. 

Last year in the Democratic primary for New York’s 16th Congressional District, challenger George Latimer (who is white) weaponized white grievance and Jewish fear against incumbent Jamaal Bowman (who is Black) to win that contest. Latimer claimed Bowman had an “ethnic benefit” in the race and in a debate said Bowman’s “constituency is Dearborn, Michigan,” referring to the majority-Muslim city represented by Rep. Rashida Tlaib, the only Palestinian American member of Congress. He also lied by saying Bowman was taking money from Hamas (at a Black History Month celebration at a high school in the district commemorating the 70th anniversary of school desegregation, no less), much in the way Cuomo has tried to dishonestly paint Mamdani as a Hamas sympathizer because he supports Palestinian freedom.

Before the June primary, I wrote about the appalling smearing of Mamdani as “anti-semitic” by his opponents—chief among them Cuomo. In the intervening months, it’s only gotten worse, metastasizing beyond thinly-veiled Islamophobia into outright racism. And it went completely unchecked on the debate stage Wednesday night.

This mayoral campaign season has been one of stark contrasts. On the one hand you have Mamdani, whose positive vision for the city and prosperity for all New Yorkers has been a breath of fresh air, especially during the death and destruction of the Trump administration. On the other hand, Cuomo’s unwillingness to accept his first loss, insisting on trying again and tripling down on his despicable attacks reminds us of the same old ugly politics that people hate—and reminds us why he was forced out of his job as Governor. 

Both polls and vibes make me feel fairly certain Mamdani will comfortably prevail on November 4th, hopefully ushering in a better future for New York and protecting our family, friends and neighbors from ICE kidnappers and the skyrocketing cost of living. But even still, it will be difficult to forget the gutter racism he had to withstand in order to emerge victorious.