{"id":12840,"date":"2025-10-23T02:23:06","date_gmt":"2025-10-23T02:23:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/12840\/"},"modified":"2025-10-23T02:23:06","modified_gmt":"2025-10-23T02:23:06","slug":"nyc-mayoral-candidates-clash-bitterly-during-final-debate-nbc-new-york","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/12840\/","title":{"rendered":"NYC mayoral candidates clash bitterly during final debate \u2013 NBC New York"},"content":{"rendered":"

New York City<\/a>‘s mayoral candidates clashed bitterly during their final debate Wednesday evening, as Democrat Zohran Mamdani tried to maintain his lead and former Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Republican Curtis Sliwa cast him as out of his league.<\/p>\n

While Mamdani began the debate accusing his rivals of being too consumed by fighting \u2014 suggesting he would instead focus on his vision for New Yorkers \u2014 the state assemblyman repeatedly ended up in the mud with his rivals.<\/p>\n

Mamdani\u2019s opponents have spent much of the race criticizing the 34-year-old democratic socialist for his relatively thin political resume, his pro-Palestinian advocacy, and President Donald Trump\u2019s threats to take over the city \u2014 and even arrest him \u2014 if he wins.<\/p>\n

Cuomo, who is now running as an independent after losing the Democratic primary to Mamdani, has spent recent days urging Sliwa to drop his bid, and has been courting conservatives and moderates, casting himself as a more viable candidate than Sliwa.<\/p>\n

But Sliwa, the swaggering creator of the Guardian Angels crime patrol group, has forcefully maintained he will not exit the race and has in turn ramped up his criticism of the former governor.<\/p>\n

Here are some key takeaways from the debate:<\/p>\n

Barbs all around<\/p>\n

Mamdani entered the debate saying he would try to stay above the fray and keep his focus on voters and issues \u2014 like affordability \u2014 that have defined his campaign.<\/p>\n

But the Democratic nominee landed plenty of digs against his rivals, whom he accused of spending more time calling on each other to drop out \u201cthan actually proposing their own policies.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cuomo and Sliwa, he said, “speak only in the past because that is all they know.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI am the sole candidate running with a vision for the future of this city,\u201d he went on, calling Cuomo \u201ca desperate man, lashing out because he knows that the one thing he cares about, power, is slipping away from him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cuomo, meanwhile, touted his experience, and portrayed Mamdani as out of his league. \u201cIt\u2019s Bill de Blasio rehash and we know how that turned out,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI did things. You have never had a job. You\u2019ve never accomplished anything,\u201d he said, insisting Mamdani lacks the merit and qualifications to run the nation’s biggest city or handle an emergency. “Shame on you!\u201d<\/p>\n

Sliwa accused both men of \u201cfighting like kids in a school yard,\u201d but piled on as well.<\/p>\n

\u201cZorhan, your resume could fit on a cocktail napkin. And, Andrew, your failures could fill a public school library in New York City,\u201d he quipped. He also made frequent references to Cuomo\u2019s decision to resign as governor amid a barrage of sexual harassment allegations, which Cuomo denies.<\/p>\n

Canal Street raid<\/p>\n

Candidates were asked within minutes about an immigration enforcement sweep targeting vendors on Manhattan\u2019s famed Canal Street that led to 14 arrests.<\/p>\n

Cuomo responded by touting his squabbles with Trump during the Republican\u2019s first term. Cuomo said the city does not need Immigration and Customs Enforcement to handle quality-of-life crimes like dealing in counterfeit bags.<\/p>\n

Mamdani similarly pledged to oppose federal interventions in the city, saying \u201cICE is a reckless entity that cares little for the law and even less for the people that they\u2019re supposed to serve.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Trump factor<\/p>\n

Trump again took center stage, as each of the candidates insisted that they would be most adept at handling the notoriously mercurial president.<\/p>\n

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 \u201cdream\u201d for the president.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe has said he\u2019ll take over New York if Mamdani wins, and he will! Because, he has no respect for him. He thinks he\u2019s a kid and he\u2019s going to kick him on his tuchus,” Cuomo said.<\/p>\n

Mamdani, meanwhile, tried to depict Cuomo as Trump’s \u201cpuppet\u201d and too aligned with the president.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe 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.<\/p>\n

Sliwa accused his rivals of trying to out-macho each other, and warned both were taking the wrong approach by antagonizing the president.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can\u2019t beat Trump,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New York City‘s mayoral candidates clashed bitterly during their final debate Wednesday evening, as Democrat Zohran Mamdani tried…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":12841,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[111,9,24,55,54,56,87],"class_list":{"0":"post-12840","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-city","8":"tag-decision-2025","9":"tag-new-york","10":"tag-new-york-city","11":"tag-new-york-city-headlines","12":"tag-new-york-city-news","13":"tag-ny","14":"tag-politics"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12840","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12840"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12840\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12841"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12840"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12840"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12840"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}