Zohran Mamdani Declines to Disavow Past Attacks on Police — Blames Them on Murder of George Floyd
Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic nominee to serve as New York City’s next mayor, passed up an opportunity to disavow his past attacks on the NYPD after being asked directly if he regrets them during a Wednesday afternoon press conference.
Mamdani’s chief rival for Gracie Mansion, former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, slammed progressive opponent over his past rhetoric on Tuesday in the wake of a shooting in Manhattan that left four — including an NYPD officer — dead.
“Literally, he has said he was part of this defund the police movement. He has said that the police are a threat to public safety, that they are racists, that he would dismantle the police department. So these are all very harsh statements,” observed Cuomo on CNN.
One particularly controversial 2020 tweet, in which Mamdani remarked that “Nature is healing” in response to a post about a cop crying in his car, has garnered special attention since the high-profile shooting.
At Wednesday’s press conference, Mamdani criticized Cuomo for trying to score “points” after the tragedy, causing a reporter to ask a follow-up about how Mamdani’s views have changed.
“I was actually just with former Governor Cuomo, and he was asked specifically, you know, about the statement I believe you already made a day or two ago that cheap political points, which you just said, should not be scored in a moment like this. And he said, effectively, if he doesn’t like it, perhaps he should retract some of the words he has said previously, talking about police being racist, or anti-LGBTQ, or that they should be defunded or dismantled,” began the reporter. “So this is a little bit of what Marsha asked, but as you’ve grown and reflected, and I feel, in fairness to you, you’ve been good about talking about growing, and reflecting, and always having conversations. Do you wish you hadn’t said some of those things a few years back?”
“My statements in 2020 were ones made amidst a frustration that many New Yorkers held at the murder of George Floyd, and the inability to deliver on what Eric Adams of all people described as the right for all of us to be able to enjoy safety and justice, that we need not choose between the two. I know that Governor Cuomo is far more comfortable in the past, whether it be his own, or whether it be in attacking me for tweets made before I was even an assemblymember,” replied Mamdani. “What I have said time and time again is the campaign that I am leading, the campaign that I’m asking New Yorkers to consider, is one that has been clear on its public safety approach. It’s one that speaks about a desire to work with police officers. And what has been quite frustrating to me has been the inability of so many, including the former governor, to reckon with the crisis we face in this moment, where 200 officers are leaving the department every month, a leading cause of this is forced overtime. And all they have to offer, they being these politicians of the past, are the same ideas they put forward years ago.”
He continued:
What I am speaking of is a vision that will not only address public safety, but also keep officers in this very police department. Will ensure that they can actually respond to the crimes that are being committed in this city. Because as we’ve seen in the first quarter of this year, we were only able to resolve 35% of all of those crimes that were reported. And part of that is a reflection of asking officers to do nearly every single thing we can think of. And so I’m proud of the public safety platform we’ve put together. And I would say that 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. We want to honor the New Yorkers who have been taken from us far too soon. We want know their stories, they are not merely statistics. We want to know of their smiles, their hopes, their dreams. And yet here we have a former governor calling every reporter he can find to speak about tweets. What kind of leadership is that?
Watch above via Fox News.
