- An ex-governor with something to prove, this week on "Firing Line."

- At this point in my career, I was a cabinet secretary, I was attorney general, governor of the state of New York, it's not about the thrill of winning an election.

Been there, done that.

- [Narrator] Andrew Cuomo is running to be the mayor of New York City in one of the strangest races in the country.

A lifelong Democrat, he is running as an independent, after losing the Democratic primary to a 33-year old newcomer, Zohran Mamdani, a Democratic Socialist.

- What I don't have in experience, I make up for in integrity, and what you don't have in integrity, you could never make up for in experience.

- [Narrator] The incumbent mayor, Eric Adams, mired in a corruption scandal, bowed out, and just endorsed Cuomo.

- [Margaret] Mayor Adams has endorsed you.

Do you welcome his endorsement?

- I welcome his endorsement.

- [Narrator] There is also a Republican, Curtis Sliwa, pulling voters from the right.

And looming over the entire race... President Donald Trump.

- If Zohran Mamdani wins the election, Donald Trump will take over New York City.

You will see tanks coming down Fifth Avenue with Donald Trump taking a selfie in front of Trump Tower.

- [Narrator] Cuomo resigned as New York's governor in 2021, facing numerous accusations of sexual harassment.

- In my mind, I've never crossed the line with anyone- - [Narrator] No charges were filed.

As he tries for a comeback, what does Andrew Cuomo say now?

- [Announcer] "Firing Line" with Margaret Hoover is made possible in part by Robert Granieri, The Tepper Foundation, Vanessa and Henry Cornell, The Fairweather Foundation, The Pritzker Military Foundation, Cliff and Laurel Asness, and by the following.

- Governor Andrew Cuomo, welcome to "Firing Line."

- Pleasure.

- As this interview airs, we are entering the final stretch for the mayor's race, and you are the underdog.

What is your path to victory?

- Common sense, common sense.

I think New Yorkers understand that they need a mayor who actually knows how to do the job, you know.

This city has real problems, and I think New Yorkers want someone who they know will actually make government work and make a change in their lives.

And that means you have to have someone who has the experience and the qualifications to make the government operate.

We've picked mayors in the past who have no management experience whatsoever, and it's been a disaster.

So I think they've learned from that.

They know me as governor, they know I get things done.

I ran the state, I built major projects, and I think they want someone who's going to make a real change in New York, and I think that's me.

- So why are you the underdog?

- Well, there's... It's a three-person race.

- I know you don't like that word.

- Well, it's a three-person race and you have a Republican who has some Republican votes.

My opponent in the Democratic primary, who's actually a Democratic Socialist, is on the Democratic line.

I'm a Democrat on an independent line.

So I think, you know, people are still sorting that out.

- So the current mayor of the city, Mayor Adams, has endorsed you.

Do you welcome his endorsement?

- I welcome his endorsement.

- He is seen to many as a Trump lackey.

Does that bother you?

- I disagreed with what the mayor did with President Trump.

I made that quite clear.

But Mayor Adams is a Democrat.

I'm a Democrat, and I think he's going to be very helpful in explaining to the people of New York City what it means to be a Democrat, and what it means to be a Democratic Socialist, and what it means to have the skills to run this city.

So I welcome his support.

- What did Mayor Adams get for his endorsement of you?

- He didn't get anything.

Except I think he believes that, well, I know he believes that Zohran Mamdami is an existential threat to New York and he's worked with me as governor.

He was a senator.

He knows that I know how to govern and he loves New York.

- You have said you're not a socialist.

You're not anti-police.

You're not anti-Israel.

Is your pitch to voters, "I am not Mamdani"?

- Margaret, the important point here, I think, is you're seeing a civil war in the Democratic Party.

Not just in New York, it's going on nationwide.

You have the Democratic Socialists of America, DSA.

This is the extreme far left of the Democratic Party that has been growing in support over the years.

This is Bernie Sanders, AOC, the socialist wing.

Zorhan Mamdani is part of that.

And then you have mainstream Democrats, which I represent, my father represented, Bill Clinton represented, Barack Obama represented.

And the far left is challenging the Democratic Party to take over the Democratic Party.

They have different views and a different philosophy.

Yes, they have the word Democrat in front of their name.

But they have nothing to do with the Democratic Party as far as I'm concerned.

- He won the primary, he beat you in the Democratic primary, largely because of identifying this issue of affordability, the crisis of affordability, and because of his authenticity.

But it was his big ideas, which I know are not ideas you agree with.

What are your big ideas?

- Number one, it's about public safety.

Everything starts with public safety.

We went through a period in this city where the geniuses defunded the police.

Literally took a billion dollars out of the police, driven by the socialists.

We now have the lowest number of police officers in New York City in modern political history.

You have to increase the police department.

I want to add 5,000 cops, 1,500 in the subways.

Affordability; the only way to bring rents down is to increase supply.

You have a one percent vacancy rate in housing.

Forget the gimmicks.

Build more affordable housing.

Get it done.

Competent government.

You need 500,000 units to really increase the supply where you're going to see rents drop, which means we have to have hundreds of projects ongoing and efficiency in government we haven't seen in a long, long time.

I think those are the two cornerstones.

Third, it's about jobs, jobs, jobs.

And we have to say to this business community that we have been harassing for years, and now they are leaving New York, we have to say, we get it.

We want you here.

We need you here.

Democratic Party believes in jobs and opportunity.

It's the engine that drives the train.

And we understand that the cost of taxes and regulations in New York has gotten too high.

- What is your vision of the city if Mamdani wins the mayoralty?

- Businesses leave, wealth leaves.

That's a death spiral for an urban area, which is what is happening now, right?

We don't have to guess.

It is what is happening to New York now.

There is an exodus of wealthy people, but also middle class working families, exodus of businesses, and that will accelerate, and that is what they call the urban death spiral.

- You're running on experience.

Take the issue of affordability.

Explain to viewers why your experience governing as an executive makes you better equipped to tackle the affordability crisis than somebody who has been a member of the state legislature.

- To deal with affordability, there are several, first, you need to pass several pieces of legislation.

I think we should lower taxes and eliminate taxes for low-income New Yorkers.

I think we should pass what's called the property tax cap.

And then you have to build housing.

To build housing, you need to know how to put together a financing plan, deal with the legislative body, the city council, get it passed; deal with community opposition, because in New York City, whatever you go to do, there's going to be community opposition; pick a developer quickly, without getting ripped off, and then supervise the construction of the project.

That is the management necessary to build affordable housing.

And that is different than a set of legislative skills to articulate and get a piece of legislation passed.

- I mean Zohran Mamdani has done a very good job of being quick on his feet and standing up against you on a debate stage.

And that's done a lot to allay people's concerns that he isn't experienced enough.

We're talking about management skills.

Is there anything else that strikes you about where experience could make a difference in the lives of ordinary New Yorkers?

- Well, when you sit in the mayor's seat, you sit in the governor's seat of New York, other executives, on any given morning, anything can happen.

Any given morning can be another Hurricane Sandy, can be another COVID, can be, God forbid, another 9/11.

There is no on-the-job training for those things, Margaret.

And eight and a half million lives are in your hands.

And you have to respond like that.

And if you have not been through that and you don't know how to do it, you're not going to learn in a briefing in the first 20 minutes.

I guarantee you that.

- In a recent interview, it was on "The View," when you were asked by the ladies why you're losing to a Democratic Socialist, you said that it's because people don't understand.

What is it that people don't understand?

- I don't think they understand the difference between Democratic Socialist and mainstream Democrats.

And I don't think they understand what the Democratic Socialist Party stands for.

He is glib.

He is facile.

He has been extraordinary on social media, credit where credit is due, and TikTok.

And he has excited young people.

The 20 to 30 generation turned out in historic numbers.

And that's all to his credit.

But do they know what "freeze the rent" means?

Or free buses, what that actually means?

A grocery store, government-run grocery store in every borough, and it will be open to everyone, rich people, poor people, and it will be cheaper, the food will be cheaper because the New York City government will run it more efficiently than the private sector.

It's laughable.

There are 16,000 grocery stores in New York City.

You're going to add five run by government?

That's the answer?

It is ridiculous.

But do people understand it?

No.

Free buses.

Great.

It's been tried, it's been done.

They turned into mobile homeless shelters.

But it sounds great.

- Are you concerned that when you say they don't understand, it might come across as a little condescending?

- They don't understand the depth.

But there is no discussion on the depth.

It's just the expression, "freeze the rent."

- I know.

But do you understand what I'm saying?

I mean a lot of people like the idea.

When you say they don't understand, that can feel condescending to people.

- I don't think they would like the idea if they understood the details of the idea.

- But when you say people don't understand, they hear somebody saying they don't know what they're talking about, they feel like you don't understand.

- They have not heard the story because they're not told the story.

It has nothing to do with people.

It has to do with the political process that lets you get away with three words without explaining yourself.

- After you lost the primary, you acknowledged you needed to run a very different kind of campaign.

Beyond political tactics, did you learn anything about yourself in that process?

- I learned, I didn't know what I was talking about with social media.

(Margaret chuckles) I learned that I should have been more physically present, shown up more places, touched more people directly.

- Those are tactics.

What about yourself in terms of self reflection?

- I didn't learn that much more about myself.

You know, it's probably my eighth, ninth campaign, you know, so- - The reason I asked this, I think there are people who are watching you run this campaign and they wonder if you want it as badly as Mamdani clearly does.

Is the fire in the belly for you the way it has been in previous campaigns?

- The fire in the belly is probably stronger, because the stakes are higher.

I think we're talking about the future of the city of New York.

I think you're at a crossroad, and you can see this city dramatically decline and quickly decline.

Take a ride to Chicago.

It can happen very quickly, and it is happening already, which is what people don't get.

Or, I think, there is an upside where you can have a city better and stronger than we have seen in decades.

I think those are the stakes and those are the options.

So to me, it's more urgent.

You start to lose more businesses, you start to lose more people, crime goes up higher.

Margaret, it's a really potentially frightening situation.

So that's what drives me, right?

At this point in my career, I was a cabinet secretary, I was attorney general, governor of the state of New York, it's not about the thrill of winning an election.

Been there, done that.

It's about the consequences and how I think I can make a difference.

I think I can make a dramatic difference in the trajectory of New York City.

And I think that the variable on that trajectory is all the difference in the world.

- Your opponent has been reaching out to people.

He's met with rabbis who are concerned that he's anti-Semitic.

He has met with business leaders who are concerned about his association with Democratic Socialists.

He has gone on Fox News, who, some say, would like to make him an albatross for the Democratic Party.

He is seen as somebody who is building bridges and reaching out.

Are you doing enough of that?

Because your opponent said it took him beating you in a primary to get you to show up at a mosque.

Is that true?

And are you doing enough of that?

- Yeah, well, is it true?

No, it's not true.

- Had you been to a mosque before the primary?

- Sure.

But am I reaching out more to the Muslim community?

Yes.

Why?

Because that's a base of votes that's very important.

He is a Muslim, and yes, I would like to get a share of that vote.

He reaches out to the Jewish community because the Jewish community is very suspect of him, right?

That's why he's doing that.

- If you had President Trump on the phone right now, you're mayor of New York, what do you say to him?

- I say, before you do anything crazy, call me and let's talk.

Because I don't want to have a problem, but you don't want to have a problem.

So call me first, please.

- Why'd you resign as governor?

- Because there were allegations made, which I said were political at the time.

And it was going to be a political mess in Albany at a very sensitive time.

And it would have been a distraction to state government.

I said the report was political.

I said it was false.

There was no truth.

I did nothing wrong.

- You said last May in an interview before the primary in retrospect that you shouldn't have resigned.

- Well, here's the yin and the yang.

Yes, it took four years, and it took lawyers and it took depositions and witnesses, et cetera.

So it took four years to prove there was no there there.

Those four years, this would have been a constant distraction to state government because it was the height of the Me Too movement, and this is sexy.

That's the yin.

The yang is I did nothing wrong.

And I was doing a very good job as governor.

And I wanted to finish the job as governor.

- Have you learned anything?

- I think I learned a painful, expensive lesson that there, you have to be hyper cautious always because there is a new cultural sensitivity that people may feel.

And if they feel it, it is real.

You may not intend to offend a person.

You may think you're complimenting a person.

But there is a cultural sensitivity, so be very careful about everything you say.

- I wanna just be very clear.

I'm asking because I think that there are women and I think there are Democrats and I think particularly Democratic women who are afraid of the opposition and they want to support you.

But they're looking for contrition.

They're looking to see that you've self reflected on your behavior and that you've learned.

- Oh Margaret, I get it.

I get it.

- What can you tell them so that they're convinced that you get it?

- I... My... I get it in that I am so hyper cautious now.

By the way, I won't meet with a person alone anymore.

I won't meet with a person who I don't know unless I have a witness.

I won't kiss a person on the cheek, unless they initiate a kiss on the cheek, you know?

- Does that mean you regret some of your previous behavior?

- Oh well, to the, I regret that the entire situation happened.

Yes.

I will- - Does that mean you've changed your behavior?

That's not the same, because it's not the same thing.

You said you don't even initiate a kiss now.

I mean, so does that mean you regret some of your previous behavior?

- Well I, yeah, I won't even do that.

I won't comment on anyone's appearance.

So I'm hyper cautious.

And I get it.

Well, because whatever sensitivity level you have is, should be respected.

And there is a much higher level of sensitivity.

And I think it is, I think it was increasing dramatically, especially at that time.

And I understood it intellectually.

But practically I wasn't as cautious as I should be.

- In 1977, your father ran for mayor of New York City against Ed Koch.

Koch won, went on to serve three terms in office.

He also made several appearances on "Firing Line."

And I want you to look at a clip from him in 1984 with William F Buckley Jr.

Take a look.

- The primaries regrettably bring out the most militant in both primaries, Republican and Democratic.

In the Republican it would be the most right wing.

In the Democratic primary, the most liberal or militantly liberal come out and have a greater impact on that primary than the broad number of Democrats who are basically mainstream and much closer to the center.

- Well, I think what the Mayor Koch, God rest his soul, said, applies very much to today, except it's worse today.

Frankly, it started with the Republican Party first.

It was the Tea Party.

And I remember a lot of colleagues of mine who were moderate just changing their whole philosophy because they were afraid of primaries from the Tea Party, from the far right.

And you now have it with the Democrats from the far left.

You have Democrats endorsing Zohran Mamdani out of fear.

They don't agree with any of his positions.

But they're afraid the DSA will then challenge them in a primary.

- You lost a closed partisan primary.

Should New York City have open primaries in addition to ranked choice voting?

- If you had open primaries- - Would that eliminate this situation where you have all these independent candidates running?

- If you had open primaries, it would do that, yes.

- Would that be better?

- And I opposed it at one time.

- Now?

If we're sitting from where you sit now, how do you feel?

- Well, I feel- - Would open primary solve that?

- Open primaries would help.

- Would help.

Final question.

Asked in an interview this summer if you would someday have regrets about entering the race, you said, "This is what I do, this is what I've done all my life.

I've done one thing, I'm not a golfer, I'm not a dancer, I'm not a tennis player, I'm a government professional, and I know how to make government work."

Is that what's driving you to keep fighting?

- A hundred percent.

If Zohran Mamdani wins the election, Donald Trump will take over New York City, he will be President Trump and Mayor Trump.

- Why?

- He has already said as much.

He will say... Because it'll be the perfect excuse for the president to do what he wants to do, which is seize power and control over New York City, the greatest city in the country, if not the globe.

And he will say, "This person is a threat to public safety.

He's 33 years old.

He's never had a job.

He's anti-police, anti-business, anti-Semitic.

I have to come in to protect New Yorkers."

And on what would be Mayor Mamdani's election inaugural day, you will see tanks coming down Fifth Avenue with Donald Trump taking a selfie in front of Trump Tower.

And it will be mayhem.

- Is that fear mongering or is that... How realistic do you think that is?

- It is what President Trump said he will do, and it is what makes total sense for him to do.

He sends National Guard into cities.

Why?

Because he's making a political point.

"These Democrats don't know how to run these cities.

And they endanger people.

And it takes me, Donald Trump, to send in the federal troops to clean up the mess these Democratic lunatics are creating."

That's what the National Guard is about.

They're not really there for any other purpose.

It's a political power play.

- Imagine you're mayor.

President Trump has threatened to arrest your opponent, by the way, Zohran Mamdani, and his administration has suggested that his citizenship could be revoked.

What would you do as mayor if the president tried to arrest and denaturalize your opponent?

- Oh, I don't think there's any legal basis for that whatsoever.

- What would you do?

- Everything I could.

I believe it's illegal.

- Governor Cuomo, thank you for joining me on "Firing Line."

- Margaret Hoover, thank you for having me.

- [Announcer] "Firing Line" with Margaret Hoover is made possible in part by Robert Granieri, The Tepper Foundation, Vanessa and Henry Cornell, The Fairweather Foundation, The Pritzker Military Foundation, Cliff and Laurel Asness, and by the following.

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