STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — Former New York governor and independent mayoral candidate Andrew Cuomo recently sat down with the Advance/SILive.com editorial board to discuss his vision for a Cuomo administration in New York City.
Cuomo will face off against Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani and Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa come Election Day, in what is expected to be a highly scrutinized finale to a tumultuous political season.
Policing
Andrew Cuomo, former Governor and current candidate for Mayor of New York City meets with the Advance Editorial Board in the Bloomfield newsroom on Friday, Oct. 10, 2025.(Advance/SILive.com | Jason Paderon) Jason PaderonJason Paderon
Speaking candidly about New York City’s challenges, Cuomo argued the city has deteriorated under current leadership and needs a back-to-basics approach to governance.
“We have the lowest level of police we’ve had in modern political history,” Cuomo said, attributing the staffing shortage to the “defund the police” movement that “took a billion dollars out of the police budget.” He proposed adding 5,000 officers, with 1,500 specifically assigned to subway patrols, and raising police salaries to attract recruits.
Cuomo, like many Staten Islanders, said he does not feel safe in the city.
“I don’t feel safe. I am back to waiting for my daughter to call me before I go to sleep when she takes the subway and she’s 30-years-old… I’m afraid of her on the subway,” He explained. “‘Crime is down.’ No, it’s not. Certain crimes are down in a strange confluence of events. Murders are down. Shootings are down. Rapes are up. Assaults are up. Well, feel better. Your chance that you’re going to get murdered is lower.”
Borough-by-borough approach
An aerial view of the lower Manhattan skyline looking east, Oct. 22, 2023. (Advance/SILive.com | Steve Zaffarano) (Advance/SILive.com | Steve Zaffarano)
Cuomo criticized what he called a “Manhattan-based mentality” that he said ignores the needs of outer boroughs like Staten Island. “There’s a different reality in the outer boroughs,” he said, citing transportation policies, like bike lanes that he argued make “driving impossible” in areas where residents rely on cars.
He additionally pointed to the lengthy permitting process in New York City that often holds up construction projects for years at a time. Cuomo said that at present, it “takes four years to get a building permit in New York City.”
“I built LaGuardia Airport in four years,” he added.
Food affordability
Cuomo proposed a reworking of the city’s food pantry and green programs in addition to a “a city funded program on top of SNAP to extend the eligibility.”
“The eligibility of SNAP is very low. The cost of groceries has expanded so much that the SNAP eligibility doesn’t really work anymore. The feds won’t increase the income eligibility, so I would increase the income threshold subsidized by the city to 150% of federal poverty limit,” he explained.
Staten Island’s future
Andrew Cuomo, former Governor and current candidate for Mayor of New York City meets with the Advance Editorial Board in the Bloomfield newsroom on Friday, Oct. 10, 2025.(Advance/SILive.com | Jason Paderon) Jason PaderonJason Paderon
Cuomo pledged that should Staten Island need a public hospital, he “would push for one” despite opposition from the two private hospitals that call the borough home: Richmond University Medical Center and the two campuses of Northwell Staten Island University Hospitals.
The former governor acknowledged the unique challenges facing outer borough residents, drawing from his own experience growing up in Queens. “Staten Island does get less political accountability because it has less political representation,” he said, promising to “put my thumb on the scale to get things done” for underrepresented communities.
Additionally, he expressed support for stricter regulations on battery energy storage sites in residential areas.
A relationship with Trump
President Donald Trump speaks on Oct. 13, 2025, in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)AP
Cuomo said “it depends” when asked if he will work with President Donald Trump.
“I will work with him if it’s good for New York. If it is not good for New York, I will work against him. He’s the president… there’s a lot of good things we could do with the federal government… if he was doing something aggressive that was not helpful, then I would oppose him.”
He articulated his frustration with the president when it comes to renewable energy. Cuomo’s work — and then subsequently Gov. Kathy Hochul’s work — to bring offshore wind to New York was approved and then later rescinded upon Trump’s return to the Oval Office.
He accused the president of pulling the approval so that the NESE (Northeast Supply Enhancement) pipeline would be pushed through despite its failure to clear environmental hurdles in years past.
“He took it away in an arbitrary and capricious way. He’s only giving us back what we had. Why would you give him the pipeline that I fought for 10 years? It’s bad for Staten Island. It’s bad for a lot of places,” Cuomo said.
Economic viability
On economic development, Cuomo proposed aggressive tax incentives to attract businesses, comparing his approach to the Amazon headquarters deal that fell through under former Mayor Bill de Blasio. “We need more of that because we are losing jobs at a frightening rate,” he said, suggesting the city offer major companies “no income taxes, no corporate taxes” as incentives.
“You’re going to have to make tax incentive deals to get businesses to come back,” he added.
Controversies at large 
Andrew Cuomo, former Governor and current candidate for Mayor of New York City meets with the Advance Editorial Board in the Bloomfield newsroom on Friday, Oct. 10, 2025.(Advance/SILive.com | Jason Paderon) Jason PaderonJason Paderon
Cuomo resigned from his position as governor in 2021 after accusations of sexual harassment and covering up COVID-19 deaths.
“It was politically motivated. There was no truth to it,” Cuomo said of the sexual harassment allegations. “She [Attorney General Letitia James] sends the report to five district attorneys; Democrats and Republicans, upstate, downstate, all over the state. The district attorneys all say there’s nothing there. We then do four years of litigation, and I am dropped from the cases. So, it all materializes to nothing with the last judge saying it was all hearsay. I say, yes, you heard the allegations, and they were on page one. And I know people didn’t follow it for four years and I know the conclusion was on page 186, but that was the conclusion that there was literally nothing, and I was dropped from the cases.”
“If I ever said anything that was offensive, I apologize,” Cuomo said.
Regarding COVID-19, Cuomo emphatically denied any underreporting of deaths in nursing homes.
“We followed the federal guidance that has been proven in four different investigations, including the Department of Justice. The federal regulations changed because they would change the quarantine period… they want to know how many people died in nursing homes or how many nursing home residents died every day. I put out the total number of deaths. How many people died in a nursing home, how many people died in the hospital? Which is how the state always… quantified deaths. It was place of death — you died in a nursing home; you died in a hospital. We put out those numbers every day. Then it gets political. They say, ‘Well, hold on a second. We want to know the number of people who died in a hospital, but were referred from a nursing home.’”
Those figures, Cuomo explained, took over a year and a half to find out. It required a forensic audit from the controller’s office, which needed “to call every nursing home and track the patient.”
Generative AI was used to organize interview transcripts for this story, based on data provided by recorded interview. It was reviewed and edited by Advance staff.
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