Trump back Cuomo for New York City mayor and threatens to cut funding if Mamdani wins
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The United States President Donald Trump has chosen Andrew Cuomo as his preferred candidate in the New York City mayoral election and he has been using his influence to keep the left-wing Zohran Mamdani from winning the election by persuading the public not to vote for the latter.
“Be it your personal opinion or not about Andrew Cuomo, it does not matter really because he is the only one who is capable of doing a fantastic job and you should vote for him,” was the message Trump wrote on Truth Social on Monday night. “Mamdani is not capable of it!”
Cuomo, the independent candidate, who has been one of Trump’s critics for a long time, and who was the former Democrat New York governor, responded to the lukewarm support: “He’s not supporting me; rather he is opposing Mamdani.”
The president had earlier spoken of his unwillingness to send more than the minimum federal support to his native city of New York in case Mamdani got elected.
According to opinion polls, the Democratic candidate Mamdani, who is the nominee, is leading over Cuomo, who is contesting as an independent after Mamdani defeated him in the primary, the Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa is placed third and is way behind.
Trump, who is also a Republican, refrained from endorsing Sliwa in his statement and remarked “A vote for Curtis Sliwa … is a vote for Mamdani”.
He also mentioned, “If Mamdani is elected, it is very unlikely that I will be contributing Federal Funds, other than the very minimum as required.”
This was in line with Trump’s comments during a TV interview on Sunday when he mistakenly called Mamdani a “communist”.
“It’s gonna be hard for me as the president to give a lot of money to New York,” Trump said. “Because if you have a communist running New York, all you’re doing is wasting the money you’re sending there”.
Mamdani, in his response to Trump’s comments on Monday, stated that he would “treat that threat for what it is: a threat. It is not the law.”
The Trump administration has tried cutting federal grants and funding in Democratic-run areas several times. Federal funding of $7.4 billion (£5.7 billion) has been allocated to New York City for the present fiscal year.
Mamdani, speaking on Monday, said that “the MAGA movement’s acceptance of Andrew Cuomo mirrors Trump’s realization that he would get the best mayor in the person of Cuomo”.
“Not the best mayor for New York City, not the best mayor for New Yorkers, but the best mayor for Donald Trump and his administration,” said Mamdani.
In his extensive interview with CBS’s 60 Minutes Sunday, Trump stated that if Mamdani was in power, he would make the left-wing ex-Mayor of New York City Bill de Blasio look “great”.
“I had to witness de Blasio, how bad a mayor he was, and this man will do a worse job than de Blasio by far,” the president said of Mamdani.
Trump lived in the Queens borough of New York and still has property in the city.
“I have no personal preference for Cuomo, but if the choice is between a bad Democrat and a Communist, I will always go for the bad Democrat, to be honest with you,” said the Republican president to CBS.
Mamdani claims he is a democratic socialist and refuses the label of a communist, even teasingly saying that he is “somewhat like a Scandinavian politician,” only a little browner.
If he is successful, he will be the first Muslim mayor of the city and also its youngest in more than a century.
The 34-year-old state assemblyman has called Cuomo, the former governor of New York, a Trump puppet and a parrot.
Monday, Mamdani said: “The answer to a Trump presidency is not to create its mirror image here in City Hall.”
“It is to create an alternative that can connect with what New Yorkers so desperately want to see in their city and what they find in themselves and their neighbors every day – a city that recognizes everyone’s dignity who lives here.”
Cuomo trying to off-set that attack line has been presenting himself as the only candidate with enough experience to tackle the Trump administration.
During the Covid-19 pandemic, he was the governor of New York when many states were in conflict with the Trump administration; however, Cuomo himself faced criticism after state investigators found that the number of nursing home deaths had been understated significantly during the outbreak.
“I fought Trump,” Cuomo claimed in a debate. “When I am fighting for New York, I am not going to stop.”
Trump has sent National Guard troops to Democrat-led cities as part of his efforts to fight crime while at the same time attempting to cut funding to jurisdictions that do not cooperate fully with federal immigration authorities.
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