Cuomo Laughed When He Was Told Mamdani Would Cheer Another 9/11
During an interview Thursday morning, former governor Andrew Cuomo appeared to laugh following a radio host’s assertion that Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani, who would be the city’s first Muslim mayor, would cheer in the event of a second 9/11-style attack occurring under his tenure.
In an appearance on host Sid Rosenberg’s program Sid & Friends in the Morning, Cuomo recounted his favorite moment of the previous night’s debate, saying he relished calling out Mamdani on his perceived lack of experience and suggested that he was unprepared to lead the city through a crisis.
“That job is a scary job. You wake up as mayor, you wake up as governor, any morning, there’s a prison uprising. There was just a mass shooting, there’s Legionnaires’ disease, there’s gonna be a fiscal collapse. Wall Street is moving to doubt,” he said.
Cuomo continued, “Any given morning, there’s a crisis and people’s lives are at stake. God forbid another 9/11. Can you imagine Mamdani in the seat?” Cuomo said.
Rosenberg cut in, “I could. He’d be cheering.”
The former governor laughed. “That’s another problem. But can you imagine that?”
Here is the audio in context.
— Henry Rosoff (@HenryRosoff) October 23, 2025
Cuomo talking about what he says is Mamdani's inexperience.
Rosenberg suggests Mamdani would cheer another 9/11.
Cuomo says deadpan: "ha ha," then adds "that's another problem."
Cuomo then continues talking about Mamdani's ability to handle a crisis. https://t.co/zmAeOWeck4 pic.twitter.com/FolfciP69k
Mamdani weighed in on the exchange in an interview with PIX11 Thursday morning, calling the remarks “disgusting.”
“This is Andrew Cuomo’s final moments in public life and he’s choosing to spend them making racist attacks on the person who would be the first Muslim to lead this city,” he said. “And, frankly, it’s not about me. It’s about the fact that there are more than 1 million Muslims who live in New York City. And to have our faith be smeared and slandered by someone who, at one point, was considered a leader in the Democratic Party, showcases the fact that bigotry and racism is not exclusively a Republican problem.”
Rich Azzopardi, spokesman for the Cuomo campaign, said Cuomo himself does not agree with Rosenberg’s assertion and that the former governor was alluding to his own past criticism of Mamdani for his association with Twitch streamer Hasan Piker who made controversial comments about 9/11. Mamdani, who has been interviewed by the streamer, denounced those remarks during last week’s debate after they were once again raised by Cuomo.
“He 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. This is not new — the governor held a press conference along with 9/11 families to denounce Mamdani’s association with and refusal to denounce Piker’s hateful comments. The overall topic of the conversation was that Mamdani is deeply unqualified and unprepared to be mayor of the greatest city on Earth, which every New Yorker saw last night,” Azzopardi said in a statement.
But numerous state and local leaders quickly condemned the moment between Cuomo and Rosenberg. “This is Cuomo’s closing message to New Yorkers: making light of 9/11 and stoking hatred against the first Muslim mayor in New York City,” Representative Jerry Nadler said. “Imagine if this kind of bigotry was used against any other faith — Jewish or Christian New Yorkers. Would we roll over and accept it?”
On X, Governor Kathy Hochul wrote, “Time to get out of the gutter. Fear-mongering, hate speech, and Islamophobia are beneath New York — and everything we stand for as a state.”
Even Representative Richie Torres, who has forcefully emphasized his differences with Mamdani’s policies on countless occasions, came to the assemblymember’s defense Thursday. “To insinuate that a mayoral candidate would celebrate a second 9/11 is beyond disgusting and disgraceful. We all have a responsibility to lower the temperature and to restore a measure of civility to our public discourse,” he said.
But Thursday’s incident is a stark example of the increasingly personal and coarse nature of the waning weeks of the mayoral race. In Wednesday night’s debate, both Cuomo and Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa went after Mamdani for his stances on the conflict in Gaza, with Sliwa alleging he supported “global jihad,” an assertion Mamdani swiftly rejected. When Sliwa blamed Cuomo for decreasing the number of mental-health beds as governor, Cuomo quipped, “There’s one bed I’m going to save for you.” Mamdani denounced Cuomo as “Trump’s puppet” and raised past allegations of sexual harassment against the former governor (which Cuomo has long denied), even inviting one alleged accuser, Charlotte Bennett, to the debate as his guest.
But the rhetoric has escalated outside the confines of the campaign. In September, a Texas man was arrested for making terroristic threats against Mamdani, including profane and racist references to his faith.