Ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Thursday claimed President Trump will stage a takeover of New York City if Zohran Mamdani is elected mayor, as he also again tried to shift blame for the bail reforms he passed as governor.
Cuomo, during an event in Harlem near where an innocent woman was fatally shot by a stray bullet, cast Mamdani’s policies as “literally dangerous” for the city’s public safety.
“President Trump will wind up being Mayor Trump if Mamdani is elected,” said Cuomo, who is running as an independent in the November election after being bested by Mamdani in the Democratic primary.
He argued that if the socialist, arguably soft-on-crime, Mamdani is elected, it would give Trump a pretext to send federal troops into the Big Apple, as he did in Washington, DC — and has threatened to do if the Queens assemblyman becomes mayor.
“I don’t even think he would wait for Mamdani to be inaugurated,” Cuomo warned. “I think if Mamdani won the election, the next day I wouldn’t be surprised if you saw President Trump act.”
Trump wouldn’t send the feds into the city if Cuomo was mayor, he argued, claiming “there would be absolutely no rationale whatsoever” to do so.
But for all of Cuomo’s harping on Mamdani’s public safety stances, the former governor refused to take any blame for the 2019 bail reforms he signed into law — which critics argue led to a surge in recidivist-based crime on the city’s streets.
Cuomo blamed dastardly state legislators for not giving judges the ability to circumvent the mandate and order suspects they believed to be dangerous held behind bars.
“I wanted to add in that first law – judicial discretion on dangerousness. The legislature wouldn’t agree to it at the time,” he said, within minutes of casting himself as a steadfast bulwark against a power-mad Trump.
The thrice-elected Democrat’s claim of helplessness came as Trump on Monday issued an executive order aiming to end cashless bail — a key promise of the reform that Cuomo signed into law.
Trump’s vaguely worded directive threatened to cut off federal funding for states and local jurisdictions that “substantially eliminated” cash bail, giving accused criminals a a chance to commit more crimes, including violent offenses.
Gov. Kathy Hochul, in response to Trump’s order, argued New York doesn’t have cashless bail because violent crimes such as murder, rape and robbery are still bail-eligible. The reforms largely eliminated bail for misdemeanors and non-violent offenses.
Cuomo largely stayed silent over Trump’s executive order until Wednesday, when he said, “We don’t have cashless bail.”
His assertion stands in contrast to his 2019 State of the State proposal, which clearly states: “Governor Cuomo is advancing legislation that will end cash bail once and for all.”
The proposal calls for judges to consider whether a defendant represents a “current threat.”
Cuomo asserted that he always wanted that “judicial discretion,” and noted tweaks to the reforms over the years have added it.
The ex-gov’s attacks on Mamdani and his supposed weakness against the president unfolded as his rival was marching on Wall Street to protest the Trump administration alongside the Rev. Al Sharpton.
A spokeswoman for Mamdani’s campaign noted that Sharpton called out Cuomo and Mayor Eric Adams for not attending the march.
“It speaks volumes that Andrew Cuomo would politicize the tragic killing of a 69-year-old woman in East Harlem for his own personal gain, said spokeswoman Dora Pekac, referring to the former governor’s campaign event at a fatal shooting scene.
“As for the authoritarianism coming out of Washington, everybody knows that unlike Zohran — who will protect New Yorkers — Donald Trump’s choice candidate for mayor Andrew Cuomo will only kowtow to his federal overreaches.”
— Additional reporting by Vaughn Golden
