Mamdani, Cuomo clash over who is better at supporting law enforcement after Manhattan mass shooting

Mamdani is the 33-year-old democratic socialist state lawmaker from Queens who shocked the political world last month by coming from behind to top Cuomo and nine other candidates to capture the Democratic Party mayoral nomination in the overwhelmingly blue city. He has been facing criticism after the shooting over his past comments calling to defund the NYPD. 

Cuomo has called Mamdani "anti-police," arguing he "doesn't understand the need for public safety."

In response to Cuomo's criticism, Mamdani slammed the former governor for politicizing the mass shooting that occurred in downtown Manhattan earlier this week, while blasting the former governor for being stuck in the past.  

They were Mamdani's first public remarks since New York City's worst mass shooting in a quarter century.

"Cuomo wishes he was running against me in the past. He wants to find every tweet he can. He doesn't want to look at the present but the past," Mamdani added. 

"The public safety discussion has been ongoing for months. It's a very important topic," Cuomo said. "It is an everyday issue and, yes, it is a political discussion that we have to have in this campaign."

Pivoting to the recent mass shooting in Manhattan, Cuomo also suggested that the magnitude of the shooting, which has grabbed plenty of national attention, could shake up the mayoral race.

"New Yorkers have PTSD from 9/11 and from other horrific situations, and I think it's always in the back of every New Yorker's mind that all it takes is one mentally ill person with an assault weapon and that's TNT, that's a public safety stick of dynamite," Cuomo said. "And, yeah, I think it brought that back. It's back to reality. In New York City you're a target."

"I'm proud of the public safety platform we've put together," Mamdani said. "For the former governor to have spent an entire day speaking almost exclusively about me and barely about the New Yorkers who have been killed is indicative of the very politics New Yorkers want to leave in the past."