Politico reports that at a Hamptons fundraiser last Saturday, Cuomo told his well-heeled supporters that, contrary to all available evidence, he could win the New York mayoral race as an independent—because he was likely to have the implicit support of President Donald Trump.
The imperative of defeating Mamdani justified the new coalition Cuomo is trying to create of his die-hard loyalists (who are Democrats) with Trump Republicans.
Some of that latter group might be tempted to back Curtis Sliwa, the actual GOP nominee in the race. Cuomo told these donors, “We can minimize [the Sliwa] vote, because he’ll never be a serious candidate. And Trump himself, as well as top Republicans, will say the goal is to stop Mamdani. And you’ll be wasting your vote on Sliwa.” Cuomo went on to emphasize that he’d be a mayor who could find common ground with Trump:
I traveled to Thailand once for a work related meeting in the oughts.
I stayed in a pretty nice hotel that they booked for me. Nicer than anything I’d have paid for with my own money, or probably ever have.
From the window of my room I could see that at the edge of the parking lot for the hotel was the tallish wall I’d seen, and then (if memory serves) there wasn’t even a single row of transition. It was straight to shanties with roofs that looked put together with scrap, etc etc etc.
Maybe it wasn’t quite District 9 / Elysium over there, but the contrast was like that.
I came away from that moment looking out the window with some very similar feelings. (Then of course shrugged it off and went about doing what I had to do in fear of having to live like that myself…)