(NEW YORK) — Less than a month after dropping out of the mayor’s race, embattled incumbentEric Adams on Thursday endorsed former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who has been ramping up his attacks against Democratic nominee state Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani.
Adams, who stepped aside due to low poll numbers and scandals involving a federal indictment that was later dismissed, made the announcement the day after he and Cuomo sat courtside together for the New York Knicks NBA home opener at Madison Square Garden on Wednesday night, right after a contentious mayoral debate between Mamdani, Cuomo and Republican Curtis Sliwa.
Mamdani responded on his social media accounts.
“Corruption goes courtside,” he wrote, sharing the photo that Cuomo posted.
Adams and Cuomo appeared together Thursday afternoon to announce the endorsement.
“Am I angry that I’m not the one taking down Zohran, the socialist and the communist? You’re darn right I am,” Adams said. “But you know what? The city means more to me than anything, and it is time for us as a family to come together.”
Mamdani is a self-identified democratic socialist but does not identify as a communist.
Cuomo thanked Adams for putting his ambition aside to endorse him “because he cares more about New York City, and he believes Zohran is an existential threat to New York City, and we all have to do our best to make sure that Zohran does not become the next mayor.”
Mamdani, who defeated Cuomo in the primary and is leading in the polls, slammed Adams’ endorsement and linked both men to the Trump administration.
“We also know that this is the art of the deal. We have a president of this country who has spoken publicly of his desire for Eric Adams to drop out of the race. Eric Adams dropped out. [He has] spoken of his desire for candidates to consolidate behind Andrew Cuomo. Today, Eric Adams is endorsing Andrew Cuomo,” Mamdani told reporters at an event.
Adams’s indictment on bribery charges was dismissed by the Department of Justice in the spring and led to several career federal prosecutors resigning in protest. The mayor, who spoke with White House officials since Trump returned to office, had pleaded not guilty and denied any wrongdoing.
Cuomo resigned from the governor’s office in 2021 following mounting sexual harassment allegations and probes into his handling of nursing home deaths during the COVID pandemic.
Cuomo denied the sexual harassment allegations and accusations that he didn’t do enough to prevent deaths during the pandemic. The governor hasn’t been charged in either of those instances.
Mamdani argued that Cuomo, who is running on a third-party line after losing the Democratic primary, and Adams are “two illustrations of the same broken politics.”
Adams called Cuomo a “snake” during the campaign and criticized the former governor for his scandals throughout the summer before Adams dropped out of the race. He initially refused to endorse any candidate but vocally opposed Mamdani.
Cuomo has also been attacking Mamdani over several issues, including his inexperience, ties to the Democratic Socialists of America and comments about the Israel and Gaza conflict that the former governor has argued were antisemitic.
Mamdani has refuted those arguments and promised to work for all New Yorkers, including its Jewish population.
The Democratic nominee also slammed Cuomo over recent comments and posts the former governor and his campaign made in the last 24 hours.
Cuomo took a shot at Mamdani during an interview that aired Thursday morning with conservative radio host Sid Rosenberg.
“God forbid, another 9/11 — can you imagine Mamdani in the seat?” Cuomo said.
“I could — he’d be cheering,” Rosenberg replied.
Cuomo responded, seemingly chuckling, “Another problem.”
Rich Azzopardi, a spokesman for Cuomo, told ABC News that the former governor “was referring to Mamdani’s close friend Hasan Piker, who said ‘America deserved 9/11,’ a statement 9/11 families called on Zohran Mamdani to denounce but he refused for months.”
Piker, a left-leaning streamer, later said his remarks were inappropriate and meant to be satire. Mamdani has appeared on Piker’s podcast but said during the first mayoral debate, “I find the comments that Hasan made on 9/11 to be objectionable and reprehensible.”
Cuomo did not bring up Piker’s name or his comments during the Rosenberg interview.
Mamdani was asked on Thursday if he thought Cuomo’s comments were Islamophobic.
“Yes, I believe that they were,” he said. “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, is also disgusting and is his final closing argument with less than two weeks before Election Day.”
Cuomo is also under fire for an AI-generated video that was posted briefly by his X account during Wednesday’s debate.
The now-deleted video consisted of stereotypical imagery that declared that Mamdani is supported by criminals. The start of the video features a small watermark saying that it is AI-generated and at the end says it was “paid for by Cuomo for NYC.”
“Zohran Mamdani’s opponents want you to believe he’s an inexperienced radical whose policies will make New York City more dangerous. But what do his actual supporters think?” the video begins.
A slate of people portrayed as aligning themselves with the Democratic candidate are then depicted in a stereotypical manner with stereotypical attire — including a Black man shoplifting and at one point wearing a Palestinian keffiyeh, a domestic abuser, a trespasser, a man with a van full of prostitutes, a drunk driver and a homeless man buying drugs.
Cuomo’s campaign said the video was a “draft proposal” that was not approved and posted by accident.
The Cuomo campaign has launched ads online and on TV over the last few weeks that use AI-generated videos
One took a subtle shot at Mamdani’s lack of experience, showing Cuomo in a several different jobs like Wall Street broker before he says, “I’m Andrew Cuomo and I could pretend to do a lot of jobs, but I know what I know, and I know what I don’t know.”
Another shows former Mayor Bill de Blasio dressed up and talking like the “Austin Powers” character Dr. Evil with his sidekick Mini Me that looked like Mamdani.
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