Local issues and the Canal Street raid

While the race has often been dominated by questions about the Israel-Hamas war, Trump and other national subjects, the candidates Wednesday were peppered for specifics about crime, the subways and the notorious Rikers Island jail complex.

Mamdani also said as mayor he would ask New York City’s police Commissioner Jessica Tisch to remain in her post. Mamdani, who was deeply critical of the city’s police in the past, has been trying to moderate his most contentious positions.

The candidates also railed against this week’s immigration enforcement sweep targeting vendors on Manhattan’s famed Canal Street that led to 14 arrests.

Cuomo said the city does not need Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in the city to handle quality-of-life crimes like dealing in counterfeit bags.

Mamdani similarly pledged to oppose federal interventions in the city, saying “ICE is a reckless entity that cares little for the law and even less for the people that they’re supposed to serve.”

The Trump factor

The candidates were again pressed on Trump and insisted that they would be most adept at handling the mercurial president.

Cuomo spoke repeatedly about how he had held Trump at bay during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic and said a Mamdani win would be a “dream” for the president.

“He has said he’ll take over New York if Mamdani wins, and he will! Because, he has no respect for him. He thinks he’s a kid and he’s going to kick him on his tuchus,” Cuomo said.

Mamdani, meanwhile, tried to depict Cuomo as Trump’s “puppet” and too aligned with the president. “He wants Andrew Cuomo to be the mayor not because it will be good for New Yorkers, but because it will be good for him,” Mamdani said.

Sliwa warned both were taking the wrong approach by antagonizing the president. “You can’t beat Trump,” he said.

Mamdani pulls from Trump’s playbook

Cuomo, meanwhile, continued to be dogged by the allegations that forced his resignation.

Mamdani said one of the women who had accused Cuomo of sexual harassment, his former aide Charlotte Bennett, was in the audience Wednesday. Trump used a similar strategy in 2016 when he appeared at a debate with accusers of Democratic rival Hillary Clinton’s husband, former President Bill Clinton, who has denied the accusations against him.

“What do you say to the 13 women that you sexually harassed?” he asked as he pressed Cuomo on the allegations and the millions in taxpayer dollars that were spent to defend him in court.

Cuomo dodged the question and chided Mamdani. “If you want to be in government, then you have to be serious and mature,” he said.

Bennett was the second woman to accuse Cuomo of sexual harassment, alleging he subjected her to invasive questions about her personal life and sexual relationships. Cuomo denies Bennett’s allegations.