{"id":16769,"date":"2025-10-25T22:04:06","date_gmt":"2025-10-25T22:04:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/16769\/"},"modified":"2025-10-25T22:04:06","modified_gmt":"2025-10-25T22:04:06","slug":"bill-maher-warns-dems-on-potential-impact-zohran-mamdani-will-have-on-party","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/16769\/","title":{"rendered":"Bill Maher warns Dems on potential impact Zohran Mamdani will have on party"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cReal Time\u201d host Bill Maher battled<\/a> CNN political commentator Kate Bedingfield on Friday over New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani\u2019s dual citizenship, as the comedian warned electing the democratic socialist candidate might not be a good look for the party.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the whole Democratic Party in the country is on the ballot, and the whole country will be looking at this race to see which way are the Democrats going to go,\u201d Maher said.<\/p>\n

Maher said former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo wasn\u2019t inspirational or all that exciting, but said he was \u201ckind of normal.\u201d Bedingfield said that there were things in Cuomo\u2019s past that she didn\u2019t want to embrace as normal.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re going to have to decide on this mayor\u2019s race. Now, they say it\u2019s getting closer. If it is Mamdami in New York, again, I think this has very important national implications,\u201d Maher said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that if Mamdani wins with a coalition of voters who have been not all that excited about the Democratic Party over the last few years, I think that\u2019s a good thing for the Democrats. <\/p>\n

Maher argued that electing Mamdani would not be a good look for the Democratic Party. Real Time with Bill Maher \/ YouTube<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd I think if you\u2019re in a purple district, say you disagree with some of the things that he does and use that to establish your independent cred,\u201d Bedingfield said.<\/p>\n

Maher pushed back as he pointed to Cuomo\u2019s criticism of Mamdani\u2019s ties to Uganda, where he was born, due to the country\u2019s treatment of LGBTQ people<\/a>. Cuomo is running as an independent against Mamdani.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou make it sound like he\u2019s a little more mainstream than I think he is. I mean, the issue now that Andrew Cuomo is bringing up in New York is that he is a Ugandan citizen. Uganda is a country where they kill homosexuals,\u201d Maher said. \u201cI would renounce, if I was the dual citizen with a country whose policy was we kill homosexuals. I would renounce that citizenship,\u201d Maher said.<\/p>\n

Maher criticized Mamdani\u2019s ties to Uganda, and the country\u2019s treatment of LGBTQ people. POOL\/AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n

At the Oct. 22 mayoral debate, Cuomo said to Mamdani, \u201cHow do you not renounce your citizenship or demand BDS [Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions] against Uganda for imprisoning people who are gay just by their sexual orientation? Isn\u2019t that a basic violation of human rights?\u201d<\/p>\n

On the HBO show, Bedingfield told Maher he was buying into a \u201cfear framework\u201d that wasn\u2019t good for the country. She also accused Cuomo of \u201crace baiting\u201d and said the former governor suggested that he couldn\u2019t be a leader in a \u201cterror situation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maher pushed back on Bedingfield, suggesting it wasn\u2019t a good look<\/a> for the Democratic Party.<\/p>\n

Mamdani is seen outside of LaGuardia Community College Performing Arts Center in New York City. Derek French\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n

\u201cHe campaigned this week with a guy who was an unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and served as a character witness for Omar Abdel Rahman, the terrorist who organized it. So Sarah Palin used to say Obama palled around with terrorists, which was bulls\u2014, but I just don\u2019t know if this is a great look for the party,\u201d Maher said, referring to an image of Mamdani posing alongside Siraj Wahhaj.<\/p>\n

Follow The Post\u2019s coverage of the NYC mayoral race<\/p>\n

Mamdani addressed criticism of the photo at a \u201cCost of Living\u201d soccer tournament, according to CBS New York.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe same imam met with Mayor [Michael] Bloomberg, met with Mayor [Bill] de Blasio, campaigned alongside Eric Adams, and the only time it became an issue of national attention was when I met with him. And that\u2019s because of the fact of my faith and because I\u2019m on the precipice of winning this election,\u201d Mamdani said, according to CBS New York.<\/p>\n

MSNBC host Michael Steele also appeared on the panel and said it was ultimately up to New Yorkers to decide.<\/p>\n

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\u201cMy take is, I think what\u2019s being left out in this conversation is probably the most important ingredient \u2014 and that is the people of New York. They will decide whether or not everything you\u2019ve just leveled up, and every concern that people have put out there about Mr. Mamdani, is relevant to them when they go to the polls,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Mamdani\u2019s campaign did not immediately return a request for comment from Fox News Digital.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cReal Time\u201d host Bill Maher battled CNN political commentator Kate Bedingfield on Friday over New York City mayoral…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":16770,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[11852,2132,6131,1208,9,24,55,54,56,563,82],"class_list":["post-16769","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-bill-maher","tag-democrats","tag-hbo","tag-media","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-city-headlines","tag-new-york-city-news","tag-ny","tag-nyc-mayoral-election-2025","tag-zohran-mamdani"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16769","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=16769"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16769\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16770"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16769"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16769"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16769"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}