Hours before Tuesday’s Democratic primary for mayor, former Gov. Andrew Cuomo sounded off on the far-left movement that he says is “really taking over” the Democratic party.
Cuomo made the remarks during a Sunday morning appearance at the Christian Cultural Center in Brooklyn on June 22.
“They’re called the Democratic Socialists,” he said. “And it is a far-left view, and I don’t think it is productive for the Democratic party, for the city. It’s about dismantling the police department, legalizing prostitution, abolishing the jail system, everything free—free transportation, free schools, free food, free everything. And we’ll figure out a way to tax the wealthy. All great ideas, but just in practice, it doesn’t work.”
Recent polls have Cuomo ahead among the Democratic primary field, with Democratic socialist Queens Assembly Member Zohran Mamdani his closest threat and gaining ground in the final weeks of the race.
While alluding to Mamdani’s candidacy and what he considers to be socialist policies as being unrealistic for New York, the former governor said his experience as a competent manager makes him uniquely qualified to run the country’s largest city.
“I don’t do a lot of things in life, but I know how to make government work. I did it at HUD. I did it when I was governor of the state of New York,” Cuomo said. “I can’t sing. I can’t dance. I don’t play golf. But I can make the government work. I can turn the city around.”
He then turned to international politics, focusing on President Donald Trump’s Saturday night missile attack on Iran.
While the former governor denounced the way Trump launched the attack without consulting with Congress, he agreed with the President that Iran “can not have nuclear weapons.”
“It’s dangerous not only for the region, it’s dangerous internationally, it’s dangerous for the United States,” he said. “As a New Yorker, my natural instinct as a former governor of New York is that New York should get ready for a possible reprisal from Iran. I would be on high alert here.”
Clinton backs Cuomo
Meanwhile, former President Bill Clinton has also given Cuomo his support, the former governor’s campaign announced Sunday.
“The election will decide the next mayor of New York, and I urge you to vote for Andrew Cuomo,” Clinton said in a statement. “As President, I chose Andrew to be my Secretary of Housing and Urban Development [HUD], and he never let me down—but more importantly, he didn’t let the nation down.”
Cuomo served under Clinton as the head of HUD from 1993 to 1997.
“He built public housing all across the country, from Chicago to L.A., designed and implemented new innovative programs to successfully combat homelessness, and fought discrimination, including against the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) and antisemitism,” the former President added as he cited the “desperate need” for affordable housing in NYC.
Cuomo thanked Clinton for his support in a statement to the press, returning the accolades to the country’s 42nd President.
“His administration was one of the most accomplished in modern political history — and that’s what government is supposed to be all about,” Cuomo said. “He never ran from a challenge and, in fact, ran towards them. Together we built housing, battled homelessness and fought for justice for communities too often left out and left behind.”
