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NYC mayoral candidates face off in final debate ahead of election

admin - Latest News - October 23, 2025
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The New York City mayoral candidates went face-to-face in the final debate ahead of the election where they clashed over topics like public safety and the Trump administration. NBC News’ Sam Brock has the highlights. 



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Oct. 22, 2025, 10:00 PM EDTBy Adam EdelmanZohran Mamdani and Andrew Cuomo clashed Wednesday in the final New York mayoral debate, which put on full display their personal animosity and their array of disagreements over both city and national issues.Throughout the 90-minute debate, Cuomo — the former Democratic governor running as an independent — called Mamdani, 34, a state assemblyman, a “kid” who would get knocked “on his tuchus” by President Donald Trump, a “great actor” and a “divisive force in New York” who brings “toxic energy for New York.”Mamdani, the Democratic nominee, who defeated Cuomo in the party’s primary in June, slammed Cuomo as a “desperate man” and “Trump’s puppet” whose political career was decidedly in the past.The contentious event, held three days before early voting kicks off and less than two weeks before Election Day, comes as Mamdani has maintained a double-digit lead in public polling. With time to further narrow the gap before the election running out, Cuomo took swing after swing at Mamdani, criticizing him for not having adequate experience to lead a city of nearly 9 million and to stand up to Trump, who has repeatedly vowed to withhold federal funding from New York if Mamdani wins.Cuomo ripped Mamdani, a self-described democratic socialist, in his opening statement as someone with “no new ideas” and a “rehash” of Mayor Bill de Blasio, saying he has “never run anything, managed anything, never had a real job.”Mamdani slammed Cuomo as someone who “will only speak of the past” “and a “desperate man lashing out because he knows that the one thing he’s always cared about, power, is now slipping away from him.” Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa, who also took part in the debate, teed off on both of his opponents. “Zohran, your résumé could fit on a cocktail napkin,” he said. “And Andrew, your failures could fill a public school library in New York City.”Wednesday’s debate also came amid growing calls among Mamdani’s opponents for Sliwa to drop out of the race to create a more competitive two-man contest with Cuomo. Sliwa, who earlier in the day said he’d be leaving his conservative talk radio perch, gave no indication that he’d exit the race.Affordability, housing, homelessness and New York-centric issues like education and policing — Mamdani confirmed that he’d retain New York Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch — accounted for the bulk of the night’s debate. But the candidates were first asked to weigh in on questions with national implications, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids and how to deal with Trump.Candidates were asked how city officials should have approached an ICE raid this week that targeted undocumented immigrants who may have connections to illegal street vending. Cuomo replied that he would have called Trump and told him, “Look, you’re way out of bounds.”“I’ve had a lot of dealings with President Trump, and there’s only one way to deal with him. He puts his finger in your chest, and you have to put your finger right back in his chest,” Cuomo said. “We don’t need ICE to do quality-of-life crimes. We don’t need them to worry about illegal vendors. That’s a basic policing function for the NYPD.”Mamdani slammed ICE as a “reckless entity that cares little for the law and even less for the people that they’re supposed to serve,” and he promised to “end the chapter of collaboration between City Hall and the federal government.”Responding to a question about how he’d work with or against Trump, Mamdani said he’d fight him “every step of the way” over deporting Americans and going after his political enemies. But when it came to Trump’s promises to lower the cost of living, Mamdani said he’d be open to working together. “If he wants to talk to me about the third piece of that agenda, I will always be ready and willing,” he said. “We heard from Donald Trump’s puppet himself, Andrew Cuomo. You could turn on TV any day of the week, and you will hear Donald Trump share that his pick for mayor is Andrew Cuomo, and 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 added. Trump has called Mamdani a communist and threatened to withhold federal funds and deploy the National Guard, as he has done in other major cities, if he wins the November election.Cuomo seized on the comments from Trump.“You are going to have to confront him, and you can beat him. I confronted him, and I have beaten him,” Cuomo said. Trump, he added, “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 knock him on his tuchus,” Cuomo added. Tensions surfaced yet again after the candidates were asked how their views on Gaza and Israel might affect their ability to be an effective mayor. In a fiery exchange, the three candidates sparred over who would best combat antisemitism in the city, with Mamdani starting by promising to protect Jewish New Yorkers and backing a plan to introduce more lessons about the Jewish experience in New York in public schools.But Cuomo told Mamdani: “Not everything is a TikTok video. You’re the savior of the Jewish people? You won’t denounce [the phrase] ‘globalize the intifada,’ which means ‘kill Jews.’” He added that Mamdani was among a group of leaders “who stoke the flames of hatred against Jewish people.”Cuomo’s comments referred to Mamdani’s past decision not to condemn the phrase “globalize the intifada.” The New York Times later reported that Mamdani privately promised to “discourage” use of it.Mamdani responded that the city needs “a leader who takes [antisemitism] seriously, who roots it out of these five boroughs, not one who weaponizes it as a means by which to score political points on a debate stage.”Sliwa then jumped in, calling Mamdani and Cuomo “two kids in a schoolyard.” He said several of his family members view Mamdani “as the arsonist who fanned the flames of antisemitism.” “They cannot suddenly accept the fact that you’re coming like a firefighter and you’re going to put out these flames,” he said.Mamdani also drew attention to the sexual harassment allegations that prompted Cuomo to resign as governor in 2021 by announcing that one of the women who made such accusations, Charlotte Bennett, was in the audience.“You sought to access her private gynecological records. She cannot speak up for herself because you lodged a defamation case against her,” Mamdani said. “I, however, can speak.”“What do you say to the 13 women that you sexually harassed?” he asked Cuomo.Cuomo, who has denied the allegations, responded that “everything you just stated, you just said, was a misstatement — which we’re accustomed to.”Bennett this year settled her lawsuit against New York that alleged the state didn’t do enough to prevent Cuomo’s alleged sexual harassment. Cuomo threatened to sue her this year for defamation.Mamdani also attacked Cuomo over a scandal involving undercounting nursing home deaths during the Covid pandemic that embattled his administration as governor.“You will hear from Andrew Cuomo about his experience, as if the issue is that we don’t know about it. The issue is that we have all experienced your experience,” Mamdani said. “The issue is that we experienced you taking a $5 million book deal while you sent seniors to their deaths in nursing homes.”“The issue is your experience,” he added.Cuomo hit back by diving back into his own key accusation against Mamdani.“The issue is you have no experience,” he said. “You’ve accomplished nothing.”Adam EdelmanAdam Edelman is a politics reporter for NBC News. Alexandra Marquez contributed.
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Savewith a NBCUniversal ProfileCreate your free profile or log in to save this articleOct. 7, 2025, 3:21 PM EDTBy Maya Rosenberg and Jay BlackmanWASHINGTON — Federal funding for air travel in rural areas will run out Sunday if the government shutdown continues, threatening to isolate remote communities across the country.The Essential Air Service (EAS), established in 1978, provides funds to airline carriers to operate out of rural airports for routes that would otherwise be unprofitable. The program is a lifeline for remote communities because it connects them to cities with larger airports, ensuring access to medical treatments, work opportunities and commercial goods that would otherwise be a lengthy travel away. “Money runs out this Sunday. So there’s many small communities across the country that will now no longer have the resources to make sure they have air service in their community,” Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said in a press conference Monday. “Every state across the country will be impacted by the inability to provide the subsidies to airlines to service these communities.”The EAS gives money to regional air carriers in 177 communities across all 50 states, as well as Puerto Rico, according to DOT. The Regional Airline Association, an advocacy group for regional airlines that receive EAS funds, said that “commercial air service at EAS airports had an economic impact of $2.3 billion and supported more than 17,000 U.S. jobs” before the pandemic. FAA announces possible staffing issues potentially caused by government shutdown 02:10“This program is an essential economic lifeline for over 500 rural communities who are often hit the hardest whenever there is disruption in the National Airspace System,” the association said in a statement. “[We] continue to urge Congress to come together and reopen the government for the good of the American public. The current government shutdown only adds stressors to an air transportation system that is already plagued with delays, disruptions, and cancellations.”As the shutdown continues with no end in sight, the Federal Aviation Administration is already confronting staffing shortages and slight increases in sick calls as air traffic controllers work without pay. NBC News reported Monday that no air traffic controllers were expected at Hollywood Burbank Airport in the Los Angeles area for hours, and that the main airports in New Jersey and Denver also experienced staffing issues.We’d like to hear from you about how you’re experiencing the government shutdown, whether you’re a federal employee who can’t work right now or someone who is feeling the effects of shuttered services in your everyday life. Please contact us at tips@nbcuni.com or reach out to us here.Congress appropriated nearly $500 million to the EAS in 2024; The expenditure is typically bipartisan, serving rural communities in states across the country. However, earlier this year, President Donald Trump looked to slash the program’s budget by $308 million in his discretionary budget. He had recommended eliminating the program in its entirety in a budget blueprint during his first term. The federal funding is particularly important for Alaska, where the state’s hundreds of islands and vast swaths of tundra make traveling by air a necessity. According to an October 2024 Transportation Department report, Alaska received more than $41 million in EAS subsidies. Duffy told reporters that the “number one user” of rural airspace is Alaska, and that the state “will be impacted” if funding runs out. “This is almost breathtaking, when you think about the implications for these communities, because there is no road for any of these places,” Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, told NBC News on Monday. “This is a big stressor right now.”Murkowski said that Alaska Airlines would maintain service at a handful of airports regardless of EAS funding but that she was worried for smaller carriers. She added that she was trying to get in touch with Duffy. Alaska Airlines did not immediately respond to a request for comment.Meanwhile, Murkowski’s fellow Alaska senator, Republican Dan Sullivan, said he was already in talks with the transportation secretary about the issue. “We’re working through it to make it have as little impact as possible. These are EAS subsidies, but this just goes to the whole damn Schumer shutdown,” Sullivan said, referring to the GOP nickname for the shutdown, which Republicans say was caused by Democrats. “But right now, what I’m trying to do is work with the secretary of transportation, who I was exchanging text messages and voice messages with, to try and limit that kind of damage.”Ryan Huotari, the manager of the Sidney-Richland Airport in Sidney, Montana, said the airport and his community depend on EAS funding.“If the EAS didn’t exist, I don’t think it would be able to function,” Huotari said of the airport. “Our winters out here are 20-below, they’re pretty treacherous. 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There are a lot of federal grants out there that I’ve got right now,” he said. “There’s a lot of money hanging out there, like in the millions.”Maya RosenbergMaya Rosenberg is a Desk Assistant based in Washington, D.C.Jay BlackmanJay Blackman is an NBC News producer covering such areas as transportation, space, medical and consumer issues.Brennan Leach and Frank Thorp V contributed.
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