Cuomo cites NYC shooting in slamming Mamdani's 'defund the police' past

Andrew Cuomo believes Monday’s mass shooting in Midtown Manhattan will bring public safety to the forefront of this year’s mayoral race — and is already citing the tragedy in painting Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani as someone who would be ill-equipped to oversee the NYPD.

Cuomo, who’s running as an independent against Mamdani in November’s mayoral election, made the assessment in a wide-ranging interview with the Daily News on Tuesday afternoon.

In the interview, Cuomo argued issues related to public safety are political weak spots for Mamdani and affirmed he plans to start calling out his past rhetoric about policing as the general election season heats up.

Having vowed to run a more aggressive general election campaign after losing last month’s Democratic mayoral primary to Mamdani by a 12-percentage-point margin, Cuomo even questioned whether his opponent’s condolences for the NYPD officer killed in Monday’s shooting were genuine.

“[Mamdani] said that today because it was in his political interest, but everything he has said for years is the exact opposite,” said Cuomo, who resigned as governor in 2021 amid sexual and professional misconduct accusations he now denies.

The ex-gov continued, “You do a 180 right after this incident … and it’s just coincidental that the election is a few months away? Do you buy that?”

Cuomo was referring to an X post Mamdani put out Monday in which he, in part, wrote he was “grateful” for the cops and other emergency personnel who earlier in the day had responded to 345 Park Ave., where officials say suspect Shane Tamura fatally shot NYPD officer Didarul Islam and three others before killing himself.

Mamdani, a democratic socialist, embraced sharply different rhetoric about the NYPD during the Black Lives Matter protests that erupted in 2020 in the wake of the murder of George Floyd.

In social media posts at the time, Mamdani wrote the city should “defund” and “dismantle” NYPD, blasting the department as “racist, anti-queer & a major threat to public safety.”

“Oh, really, Officer Islam was racist?” Cuomo said Tuesday. “Who’s going to apply to be a police officer when that’s what the mayor thinks of them?”

Mamdani, who is in Uganda visiting family this week, wasn’t available for an interview Tuesday, but his spokeswoman Zara Rahim blasted Cuomo for using the shooting as fodder for a political attack.

“Families across our city are mourning — including members of our Muslim community grieving an officer who leaves behind his pregnant wife and young children. Multiple victims remain in the hospital, fighting for their lives,” Rahim said.

“Our focus is on supporting those who’ve lost loved ones and bringing our communities together in the face of tragedy. This is a moment for compassion and solidarity — not cheap shots in the press.”

Mayor Adams, who’s also running as an independent in November’s election after having dropped out of the Democratic primary amid fallout from his federal indictment, agreed with Mamdani’s campaign.

“It is deeply disappointing — and frankly despicable — that during a moment of tragedy, when our city is mourning the loss of one of its own, former Governor Cuomo would choose to inject politics,” Adams told The News in a statement. “Now is not the time for political potshots. Now is a time for unity, compassion and focus on the brave officer who made the ultimate sacrifice.”

Since launching his mayoral bid, Mamdani has shifted gears rhetorically on policing, saying he wouldn’t defund the NYPD as mayor. Instead, he has vowed he’d keep the department’s officer headcount flat and launch a new community safety agency focused on helping people with mental illness in order to let cops focus on fighting crime.

But Cuomo, who has pledged to as mayor hire 5,000 new NYPD officers, said he doesn’t trust Mamdani would make good on those promises.

“I don’t believe that pointing to one statement counteracts 10 years of activism and hundreds of tweets,” said Cuomo.

As governor, Cuomo voiced solidarity in 2020 with elements of the Black Lives Matter movement and signed an executive order that threatened to pull state funding from police departments that didn’t take steps to reform their use-of-force protocols to ensure accountability and to protect civil rights.

But on Tuesday, Cuomo struck a different tone, arguing the anti-police sentiment that took root in 2020 was dangerous.

“That whole movement was wrong and did tremendous damage and today is a reality check on that,” he said. Cuomo spokesman Rich Azzopardi later said the ex-gov was with that comment referring to the defund-the-police movement, not Black Lives Matter.

Mamdani is polling as the favorite to win November’s election after running a primary campaign focused on affordability that included pledges to freeze rent for stabilized tenants, drastically expand subsidized child care and make public buses free.

Policing was not a major theme of Mamdani’s campaign, and Cuomo as well as Adams are likely to come after him over that issue this fall.

Cuomo saved some criticism for Adams in relation to the Midtown shooting as well.

Touting that, as governor, he signed legislation that banned assault rifles in New York, Cuomo questioned why Adams hasn’t as mayor tried to do more to rally local elected officials around the country to push Congress to enact stricter gun control laws on the federal level.

“I haven’t heard or seen him doing that,” Cuomo said.

In his statement, Adams said Cuomo is mistaken, noting his administration “has convened national meetings with mayors from cities most impacted by gun violence.”

“This is not a moment for finger-pointing. It’s a moment to honor our heroes, support their families, and recommit ourselves to the hard work of keeping our cities safe,” he said.