For the first time this election cycle, all of the major Democratic mayoral candidates appeared on the same stage as frontrunner Andrew Cuomo Wednesday night. What resulted was a messy two-hour brawl in which Cuomo’s rivals hit him on all sides, and the former governor launched his own attacks right back.
During the first of two debates ahead of the June 24 Democratic primary, many of the candidates on the stage on June 4 got into heated back-and-forths with Cuomo over his record as governor and the scandals that brought down his administration. Cuomo responded more often than not, but also avoided answering the substance of their attacks on many occasions.
The state’s former top executive, who resigned in 2021 following roughly a dozen accusations of sexual misconduct that he denies, has maintained a double-digit lead in the race as he has avoided making public appearances or interacting with his competitors prior to Wednesday night.
NBC 4 New York/WNBC, Telemundo 47/WNJU, Politico, and the city Campaign Finance Board hosted the affair.
The debate included the nine contenders who will appear on Democratic voters’ ballots: Cuomo; Queens Assembly Member Zohran Mamdani — a Democratic socialist who is polling in second place; city Comptroller Brad Lander; City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams; former Comptroller Scott Stringer; state Sens. Zellnor Myrie (Brooklyn) and Jessica Ramos (Queens); former Assembly Member Michael Blake; and businessman Whitney Tilson.
Absent from the stage was current Mayor Eric Adams, who bowed out of the Democratic primary to run as an independent in the general election instead.
The moderators covered a bevvy of issues impacting the city, including how the candidates would address its affordability and housing crises, counter President Trump — on his funding cuts and immigration crackdown, and ensure public safety. The format, however, seemingly contributed to some of the chaos that ensued; most responses were limited to 30 seconds, and the moderators promptly interrupted a candidate whenever they went over their allotted time.
Many of the candidates on the stage began lobbing broadsides at Cuomo from the outset of the debate, at some points in the form of interruptions that led to shouting matches. They took nearly every opportunity to label him as corrupt, beholden to corporate special interests, and dishonest about the scandals that ended his governorship.
A matter of regret
One of many raucous scuffles took place when the moderators asked each candidate to name their greatest regret.
Cuomo did not name his own regret but instead said, “I regret the state the Democratic Party is in, that we elected Trump,” referring to Democrats’ loss of the 2024 presidential election to Trump.
Speaker Adams immediately interjected by listing several items from Cuomo’s time as governor that she believes he should have named among his missteps and show contrition for.
“No regrets when it comes to cutting Medicaid or health care?” the speaker said. “No regrets when it comes to slow-walking PPE (Personal Protective Equipment), and vaccinations in the season of COVID to Black and brown communities?”
In response, Cuomo contended that “Medicaid went up under me” and that he ‘led the nation under COVID,” in reference to his daily televised pandemic press briefings in 2020, and that it was Trump’s first administration and not his own that slow-walked vaccine distribution.
At another moment, Lander blasted Cuomo over a report his gubernatorial administration prepared on COVID-19 deaths in nursing homes in 2020, which state Attorney General Letitia James found undercounted those deaths. The comptroller charged that Cuomo committed perjury when he allegedly “lied to Congress” last fall about his involvement in authoring the report — allegations that led Trump’s Justice Department to open an inquiry into Cuomo in April.
Cuomo insisted that Lander was just “parroting Trump’s allegations” on the issue and that the report did not undercount COVID nursing home deaths. However, he would not answer the moderator’s question about whether he personally had a hand in producing the report.
“I was very aware of the report … I stand by the report,” Cuomo said, prompting several other candidates to accuse him of evading the question.
When the conversation turned to regulating e-bikes, Mamdani contended that Cuomo will be beholden to the food delivery app companies, whose contracted drivers often ride the motorized vehicles when making deliveries. Mamdani cited a $1 million donation from the company DoorDash to a super PAC supporting Cuomo’s bid called “Fix the City.”
“I find it ridiculous to hear Andrew Cuomo talk about how we need to regulate the apps when this is the very mayoral candidate who has a super PAC that received a million dollars from DoorDash,” Mamdani said. “How are you going to regulate Door Dash when they are giving you $1 million to influence your street safety regulations and your labor regulations?”
“I work for the people of the state of New York, people of the city of New York, I don’t care who gave me what, I do what is right,” Cuomo shot back. He said apps like DoorDash should be responsible for licensing and registering the bikes their delivery workers use, as well as shouldering the fees.
Cuomo turns the tables on opponents
Cuomo lobbed plenty of his own attacks at his opponents throughout the program.
The former governor cast Mamdani, who has served in Albany’s lower chamber since 2021, as wholly unprepared to be mayor and thus unfit to tangle with Trump.
“Donald Trump would go through Mr. Mamdani like a hot knife through butter,” Cuomo said. “He’s been in government 27 minutes. He passed three bills. That’s all he’s done. He has no experience with Washington, no experience in New York City.”
Mamdani fired back, “It’s true that I don’t have experience with corrupt Trump billionaires who are funding my campaign. I don’t have experience with party politics and insider consultants.”
Cuomo also accused most other candidates on the stage of supporting the “defund the police” movement in 2020.
“The people on this stage, almost without exception, were all defund the police,” he said.
The claim sparked an interjection by Blake, who said that Cuomo “literally said defund the police himself when he was governor.” One of the moderators noted that Blake appeared to be referring to Cuomo, saying that “both are legitimate schools of thought, defund or don’t defund.”
For his part, Cuomo insisted that he then said he did not agree with the defund movement.
The candidates will duke it out again at the second debate on Thursday, June 12. NY1 will televise the proceedings.
