New York mayoral frontrunner Zohran Mamdani mocked fellow candidate Andrew Cuomo in an X/Twitter post on Monday, following US President Donald Trump’s expression of lukewarm support for the former governor on Trump's CBS “60 Minutes” interview.
“Congratulations, @AndrewCuomo,” read the post, “I know how hard you worked for this.”
The post also included an image of Trump and Cuomo with the message “Trump endorses Cuomo” on it.
Trump said during the interview that if he had to choose between Mamdani and Cuomo, he would support Cuomo. “I’m not a fan of Cuomo one way or another, but if it’s going to be between a bad democrat and a communist, I’m going to pick the bad democrat all the time, to be honest with you,” he said.
When CBS’s Norah O’Donnell called Mamdani a democratic socialist, Trump interrupted, saying, “Communist, not socialist. He’s far worse than a socialist.”
Cuomo responded to the series of comments by calling Mamdani a “poser” in an X post. “If you want President Trump to take over the city - national guard on streets, choking federal funding - vote for @ZohranMamdani,” he wrote, “because Trump just said he will be coming and this poser won’t be able to stop him.”
Trump: Mamdani a 'disaster waiting to happen'
Cuomo previously mocked Mamdani for portraying himself as the “savior of the Jewish people” following the Muslim candidate’s failure to condemn the slogan “globalize the intifada,” which the former governor noted “means kill Jews.”
Trump has previously been outspoken about his opposition to Mamdani. “The Mamdani thing is - it’s a disaster waiting to happen,” he said following Mamdani’s meeting with a prominent imam in October.
In his recent CBS interview, Trump argued that it would be hard to give money to New York, “because if you have a communist running New York, all you’re doing is wasting the money you’re sending there.”
Early voting in the city ended on Sunday, with the highest early in-person turnout ever for a non-presidential election, according to The New York Times. The final election day for the race is Tuesday.