Zohran Mamdani launches anti-Trump tour of New York City, fends off Cuomo's attacks on his rent deal

Zohran Mamdani is positioning himself as the anti-Trump candidate in the New York City mayoral race while trying to link his chief rival, former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, to the president.

Kicking off a five-borough campaign tour on Monday, Mr. Mamdani, a Democratic socialist, said President Trump’s polices will have a devastating impact on communities of color and the working class for years to come.

“There is no world that will be free from Trump’s cruelty,” Mr. Mamdani said, after warning the president’s policies will leave millions without health care and Medicaid coverage, and food and housing assistance. 

Mr. Mamdani said Mr. Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” will strip 2 million New Yorkers of their health insurance, boot 1.3 million New Yorkers off Medicaid, cut $3 billion in food assistance, and slice federal housing aid by 43%. He said it is adding to lingering concerns about the cost of living in the city.

While ostensibly about Mr. Trump, Mr. Mamdani used the press conference to warn that Mr. Cuomo is cast from the same mold, particularly in their treatment of women.

“We see far too many [similarities] between Donald Trump and Andrew Cuomo,” Mr. Mamdani said. “Far too many stories that make clear that both administrations have been characterized by corruption, by a sense of impunity, by an inability of an executive to understand that ‘No means no.’”

The sharp critique of Mr. Cuomo comes days after the former governor, who resigned from office in 2021 amid allegations of sexual misconduct and facing likely impeachment, opened up a new line of attack against Mr. Mamdani for living in a rent-stabilized apartment while earning $140,000 a year as a member of the New York State Assembly.

Mr. Cuomo announced that he plans to propose a new measure called “Zohran’s law,” which would seek to boot the “rich out of New York’s affordable housing.”

The latest salvo from Mr. Cuomo followed a New York Times report stating that Mr. Trump, who built a real estate empire in Manhattan and lived a flashy, tabloid lifestyle, is considering increasing his involvement in the race. The report stated that Mr. Trump had recently spoken with Mr. Cuomo over the phone.

Mr. Cuomo denied the report, saying the last time he talked with Mr. Trump was after he survived the assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania. 

Nonetheless, Mr. Mamdani on Monday said voters should be wary of Trump-Cuomo ties.

“We do not need a mayor who is secretly negotiating for support from a president whose budget will take health care and education funding away from the New Yorkers who need it most,” he said.

Mr. Trump has been closely monitoring the race. He has piled criticism on Mr. Mamdani, calling him a “communist,” “bad news” and “a nut job.” 

On the flip side, Mr. Trump urged Mr. Cuomo to stay in the race after Mr. Mamdani steamrolled him in the June Democratic primary by nearly 13 points.

Mr. Mamdani’s victory energized the Democratic Party’s left wing. It rattled the party’s political establishment, which has been slow to embrace him.

They are concerned that Mr. Mamdani’s brand of politics is too extreme for most voters outside New York, and that Republicans will herald him as the new face of the Democratic Party heading into the 2026 midterms and 2028 presidential elections.

That has fed into a sense of urgency among the anti-Mamdani forces, who say their best chance of stopping him is to consolidate their strength behind a single alternative.

Some believe Mr. Trump could play a key role by endorsing Mr. Cuomo or Mayor Eric Adams, a Democrat who is also running as an independent.

For his part, Mr. Cuomo has blamed his primary loss on a bad campaign and has followed through on his pledge to take a more aggressive stand against Mr. Mamdani in the general election race.

“Somewhere last night in New York City, a single mother and her children slept at a homeless shelter because you, assemblyman @ZohranKMamdani are occupying her rent controlled apartment,” Mr. Cuomo said Friday on X. 

Mr. Cuomo called it “disgusting,” “shameful” and “callous theft.”

On Monday, Mr. Mamdani pushed back, saying he is “not threatened by a former governor who cannot distinguish between rent control and rent stabilization.”

He also said he is not a fan of means-testing government assistance.

Mr. Mamdani has a one-bedroom rent-stabilized apartment in Queens, which he says he rents for $2,300 a month, and started renting when he was earning $47,000 as a foreclosure prevention housing counselor.

Almost half of all apartments in New York City, approximately 960,000, are rent-stabilized, which protects tenants from sharp rent hikes and grants them the right to renew their leases.

There are approximately 24,000 rent-controlled apartments available to tenants who have continuously resided in the same unit since July 1971.

Mr. Mamdani said the Cuomo attack underscores his “petty vindictiveness” and is “reflective of the fact that I live rent-free in his head.”

He also questioned whether Mr. Cuomo had considered the impact of his plan on the large pool of New Yorkers who benefit from rent stabilization.

“How many New Yorkers would be evicted from their apartments?” he said. “How many New Yorkers would have their lives upended by a former governor who is responding to the fact that he was handily beaten by a tenant of a rent-stabilized apartment?”