Top NYC mayoral candidates Andrew Cuomo and Zohran Mamdani spar over experience
The two top contenders in the Democratic primary for New York City mayor engaged in heated exchange Wednesday over who is most qualified to run the city and deal with President Trump.
With less than two weeks until the election, Andrew Cuomo and Zohran Mamdani are trying to take their best shots and exploit each other's weaknesses by slugging it out over experience.
Early voting in the mayoral primary starts Saturday.
Cuomo mocks what he calls Mamdani's inexperience
After picking up the endorsements of former New York Gov. David Paterson and Keith Wright, the chairman of the Manhattan Democratic Party, on Wednesday, Cuomo, the 67-year-old former attorney general and governor of New York, zeroed in on Assemblyman Mamdani, 33, who has held elected office for four years.
"Every job requires some experience. Mayor of the city of New York is a difficult job. It requires someone who knows what they're doing," Cuomo said.
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In typical Cuomo style, he mocked what a Mamdani job interview for mayor would sound like.
"OK, do you have management experience? No. Have you managed 100 people before? No. Have you managed 50 people before? No. You have experience dealing with Washington? Because we have this fellow named Trump who's a problem? No, I have no experience dealing with Washington," Cuomo said.
It was Cuomo's way of highlighting his belief that it takes a different skill set to deal with the problems of 8.2 million New Yorkers and 300,000 city workers, compared to the five staffers and an intern Mamdani employs to deal with the problems of his 130,000 constituents.
Mamdani strikes back
Mamdani, who began airing a new campaign ad on Wednesday on cheaper groceries, raising the minimum wage, and freezing rent, was having none of it.
"I think this is a moment when New Yorkers have to ask themselves, what kind of experience do they want? If they want the experience of a former governor whose campaign is being funded by Trump's billionaire donors, if they want the experience of someone who cut Medicaid, who stole hundreds of millions of dollars from the MTA, then their candidate should be Andrew Cuomo," Mamdani said.
CBS News New York's Marcia Kramer pointed out to Mamdani that Cuomo said the young assemblyman won't be able to deal with Trump.
"I've already dealt with a big, bad bully, and his name is Andrew Cuomo. He's a threat to New York City, and, ultimately, when he was the governor and I came into Albany as an assembly member, he didn't want to tax his donors, billionaires and corporations to fully fund the schools. We overcame his objections, raised $4 billion in new taxes," Mamdani said.
There were other developments in the mayor's race on Wednesday. City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams asked the Department of Investigation to probe current Mayor Eric Adams' collaboration with federal authorities, and a transit advocacy group, StreetsPAC, endorsed City Comptroller Brad Lander.
