Independent mayoral candidate Andrew Cuomo came under fire Thursday over his role in an exchange during which conservative talk show host Sid Rosenberg said Democratic candidate Zohran Mamdani, who is Muslim, would be “cheering” for a second 9/11.
As he sought to make a point about Mamdani’s lack of experience, Cuomo posed the question:
“God forbid, another 9/11— can you imagine Mamdani in the seat?”
“He’d be cheering,” Rosenberg replied.
Cuomo paused and appeared to laugh briefly as Rosenberg guffawed over his own comment.
“That’s another problem,” Cuomo continued.
Mamdani later excoriated the former governor over the exchange on Rosenberg’s WABC radio show “Sid & Friends in the Morning,” saying Cuomo’s goal was to “smear and slander.”
He also slammed Rosenberg, who the candidate pointed out has called him an “animal” and a “terrorist.”
“We’re speaking about a former governor who — in his final moments in public life — is engaging in rhetoric that is not only Islamophobic, not only racist, it’s also disgusting,” the candidate said at an unrelated press conference in Manhattan.
“It is both incredibly disappointing and yet not surprising, given how Andrew Cuomo has run this campaign and how little he thinks of the very people that he is also going to serve if he were to actually be a leader as a city.”
Mamdani has spoken throughout the race about the attacks on him for his faith.
Mamdani pointed out that Cuomo, on the debate stage the night before, had spoken about bringing New Yorkers together and fighting division.
“And then the next morning get on a radio show and say this kind of language, it shows both how hollow his commitments are and how he is, in fact, the illustration of the very division he says that he would fight.”
The remarks come amid Cuomo’s push to capture the vote of conservative New Yorkers as he trails Mamdani in the polls.
Cuomo claimed later on Thursday, at a joint press conference with Mayor Adams to announce the mayor’s endorsement, that his comment to Rosenberg was not about 9/11 but Mamdani’s ties to Hasan Piker and the streamer’s controversial 9/11 comments.
That was not clear on air, where Piker was not mentioned.
“I said about 9/11 that’s another problem, referring to what I have said repeatedly, which is I have a problem with the fact that Zohran pals around with Hassan Piker, who said ‘America deserves 9/11,’” Cuomo said.
Mamdani condemned Piker’s 9/11 remark during a TV appearance last week.
The former governor’s exchange with Rosenberg met with near-immediate backlash.
“Time to get out of the gutter,” said Gov. Hochul. “Fearmongering, hate speech and Islamophobia are beneath New York — and everything we stand for as a state.”
Rep. Ritchie Torres, a staunch supporter of Israel, wrote on social media that “to insinuate that a mayoral candidate would celebrate a second 9/11 is beyond disgusting and disgraceful.”
“We all have a responsibility to lower the temperature and to restore a measure of civility to our public discourse,” he said.
“All Cuomo has to offer is fear-mongering & hatred. They get enough of that from Donald Trump,” Comptroller and Mamdani ally Brad Lander wrote on X.
As he seeks to close the gap between himself and Mamdani, Cuomo is looking to a broad range of constituencies for support. Cuomo and his allies, along with Rosenberg and WABC radio owner John Catsimatidis, have been pressing GOP candidate Curtis Sliwa to exit the race.
In Thursday’s appearance, Cuomo sought to tie Sliwa to Mamdani, a democratic socialist on the opposite end of the political spectrum from Sliwa.
“Who’s your friend in cahoots with, Sid?” the ex-governor asked the host.
The Cuomo campaign also faced criticism for the release, and then deletion of an AI-generated advertisement that depicted Mamdani supporters as criminals, including video of a Black man in a keffiyeh shoplifting. A journalist recorded the video and posted it online after it was deleted by the campaign.
“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.
At the endorsement press conference, with Adams backed up Cuomo, saying he’s, in part, endorsing the ex-governor because “New York can’t be Europe.”
“You see what’s playing out in other countries because of Islamic extremism,” he said. “Not Muslims, let’s not mix this up, but those Islamic extremisms that are burning churches in Nigeria, that are destroying communities in Germany, that have taken over the logical thinking, and that’s what I’m fighting for. I’m fighting for the family of New York. That’s why I’m here today to endorse Andrew Cuomo to be part of this fight.”
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