High Large Apple mayoral contenders Andrew Cuomo and Zohran Mamdani continued flinging jibes at one another Thursday throughout a bruising debate — with third-place candidate Brad Lander additionally taking an enormous chew with a pointed stunt.
Assaults on the frontrunner Cuomo — who took the stage with six different Dem major candidates at John Jay Faculty — landed extra forcefully than within the first debate final week.
Mamdani, a socialist state Assemblyman from Queens, shortly landed a number of pointed physique blows towards Cuomo because the messy two-hour meals battle kicked off.
Nevertheless it was the town comptroller, Lander, who arguably rattled the ex-governor probably the most — as he refused to let up on the sexual harassment scandal that led Cuomo to resign in shame in 2021.
“Everybody here knows that you sexually harassed women, that you created a toxic work environment,” Lander mentioned to thundering applause.
The comptroller famous many within the viewers had been younger girls attending CUNY, together with a valedictorian quickly going to work on the Division of Homeless Providers.
“I don’t want to have to tell her, ‘Don’t go work at City Hall because the mayor is a sexual harasser,’” Lander mentioned.
“Those are just bold-faced lies,” Cuomo shot again, arguing the accusations had been disproven.
The unrepentant Cuomo additionally got here below hearth from Mamdani over the intercourse harass accusations and file as governor.
When Cuomo tried to hit Mamdani, the 33-year-old state Meeting member from Queens, over his lack of expertise, the Democratic socialist shot again: “I have never had to resign in disgrace.”
The 67-year-old Cuomo had been making an attempt to deflect a pointed query about his age by seemingly turning the tables on Mamdani.
“Experience matters, and I think inexperience is dangerous,” Cuomo mentioned.
Throughout a back-and-forth on Mamdani’s proposal to freeze rents throughout the town, Cuomo mentioned the socialist pol “should read” the regulation with reference as to whether it was within the mayor’s energy to take action.
“The law didn’t control you,” Mamdani quipped.
The mudslinging at instances acquired private — like when the lefty lawmaker corrected Cuomo’s repeated mispronunciation of “Mamdani,” which the ex-gov rhymed with “mom.”
“The name is Mamdani, M, A, M, D, A, N, I. You should learn how to say it, because we’ve got to get it right,” he mentioned.
Given the possibility to counterattack, Cuomo shortly repeated his pronunciation mistake.
“Mr. Mamdani is right,” Cuomo mentioned, however once more butchered his rival’s title’s first syllable.
Lander additionally gave a human face to the problems. He hammered Cuomo’s file on nursing dwelling deaths through the coronavirus pandemic in dramatic style — inviting Peter Arbeeny, whose father died from COVID-19 after a rehab stint at an area nursing dwelling, as a visitor.
It got here after Cuomo earlier Thursday made a surprising admission, lastly admitting that he noticed a controversial report on nursing dwelling COVID deaths whereas he was governor — and in addition could have doctored the doc.
Cuomo tried to dodge by dinging Lander for initially being from St. Louis, earlier than apologizing to Arbeeny — albeit with out providing a mea culpa for the rest.
“Maybe where you come from in St. Louis facts don’t matter, but here they do,” Cuomo mentioned.
“Mr. Arbeeny lost a father,”he added. “I am very, very sorry for that.”
In one other fiery second, Lander contended that Cuomo “screwed” lots of of immigrants who had been contracted through the COVID pandemic to scrub the subways.
Cuomo denied figuring out what Lander was speaking about — and made an eye-raising slip up.
“I don’t know what Mr. Lander is talking about,” he mentioned earlier than referencing the MTA hiring “illegal immigrants.”
“What did you call them?” Lander requested, prompting Cuomo to pivot to the time period “undocumented.”
The moderators at one level requested the candidates to ask one another questions, which Cuomo used as a possibility to outsource an assault on Mamdani’s arguably pie-in-the-sky marketing campaign guarantees through longshot mayoral hopeful and Wall Avenue investor Whitney Tilson.
“You’re a financial expert: Is it feasible and financially possible that he is telling the truth?”
Tilson argued Mamdani’s plan would end in crushingly excessive taxes that will trigger an exodus of jobs from New York Metropolis.
The tag workforce pointed to a brand new alliance within the race with Tilson later saying he’d rank Cuomo second on his poll.
One other union additionally emerged when former metropolis comptroller Scott Stringer and state Sen. Zellnor Myrie each heaped a great deal of reward on Metropolis Council Speaker Adrienne Adams and teed her as much as make her pitch to voters when the candidates got the possibility to grill a rival.
After the controversy, Myrie admitted a cross-endorsement was within the works.
However each Lander and Mamdani appeared on their very own political islands because the factions began to kind with simply 12 days left for the highest horses within the race to make a run on the long-standing frontrunner.
Mamdani did obtain a veiled dig from Stringer when the previous comptroller answered a query about Israel’s battle towards Hamas.
“BDS is antisemitic,” Stringer mentioned — moments after Mamdani had once more doubled down on his assist of the boycott, divestment and sanctions motion towards Israel.
Mamdani mentioned his assist of BDS was rooted in his perception in “nonviolence.”
The wounded Cuomo took practically the entire debate to swing again at Mamdani for repeatedly hitting the ex-governor on his large battle chest from his marketing campaign and state PAC full of donations from Trump donors and massive enterprise, corresponding to Doordash.
“I’m not for rent and I’m not for sale,” Cuomo lastly spat out.
“So, we wonder who’s funding DSA and who’s funding his BDS movement,” he added, barely touchdown the hit.
Cuomo once more stumbled when pressed by the moderators on his political blunder of seemingly not as soon as visiting a mosque anyplace within the state over the previous 14 years whereas in workplace and on the marketing campaign trial.
“Not off the top of my head. I can’t tell you where I went, but I’ll check the record,” Cuomo was capable of ultimately muster.
— Further reporting by Hannah Fierick and Matt Troutman
