Zohran Mamdani speaking at 32BJ SEIU in Manhattan on July 30.
Photo: Barry Williams/TNS/Getty Images
Democratic mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani is accusing Andrew Cuomo of coordinating with President Donald Trump following a New York Times report that the two men have spoken about the mayoral race, going so far as to call it “disqualifying.”
During an appearance on WNYC on Thursday morning, Mamdani said, “The fact is that the president has three candidates in this race: one that he’s directly been in touch with, another that he bailed out of legal trouble and now functionally controls, and the final one literally being a member of the same Republican Party,” in reference to Cuomo; Mayor Eric Adams, whose federal corruption case was dismissed at the direction of the Justice Department; and Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa.
The Cuomo campaign and the White House both denied the Times’s reporting. In a statement, campaign spokesman Rich Azzopardi said Cuomo and Trump haven’t spoken in “a while,” adding, “As far as I know, they have not discussed the race.” Trump also denied the call took place, though a Times spokesman told Semafor that the paper is “confident in the accuracy of our reporting.”
When Adams was asked about his relationship with the president during an unrelated press conference on Thursday, he said that mayors are supposed to work with whomever is in office, but that he doesn’t shy away from pointing out their disagreements. “This administration has taken the White House to court more than any mayor in the country,” he said, citing how the city sued over the revocation of $80 million in FEMA funds.
Adams said that his conversations with Trump are entirely related to the city and its needs: “When I speak with the president, it’s about resources for the city of New York.”
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