Bill Maher Accuses Mamdani: ‘Well, He Did Campaign with a Terrorist’

Bill Maher clashed with a guest on Friday over New York City’s mayoral race, and he accused Democratic candidate Zohran Mamdani of campaigning “with a terrorist.”

On Real Time, Maher and Kate Bedingfield, CNN commentator and former White House communications director under former President President Joe Biden, clashed on Mamdani and former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s attacks against him. Mamdani is leading Cuomo and Republican Curtis Sliwa by double digits in most polls leading into the race.

“I’m talking about what Cuomo’s doing, suggesting that Mamdani couldn’t be a leader in a terror situation if he were mayor of New York,” Bedingfield said, referring to Cuomo agreeing with a conservative radio host who claimed Mamdani would “cheer” if he were mayor when 9/11 happened.

“Well, he did campaign with a terrorist this week,” Maher said.

“He did say it, well, but Cuomo was pretty clear. I thought he talked about that in a way that I thought was was ugly,” Bedingfield responded.

Maher went on to explain his “terrorist” accusation about Mamdani being pictured with Imam Siraj Wahhaj.

Well, he campaigned this week with a guy who was an unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and served as a character witness for Omar Abdelrahman, the terrorist who organized it. So Sarah Palin used to say, [Barack] Obama palled around the terrorists, which

was bulls**t. I just don’t know if this is a great look for the party,” he said.

Maher also red flagged Mamdani’s dual citizenship at one point.

“You make it sound like he’s a little more mainstream than I think he is. I mean, the issue now that Andrew Cuomo is bringing up in New York is that he is a Ugandan citizen. Uganda’s a country where they kill homosexuals,” Maher said.

“So somebody who is a dual citizen can’t be mayor of New York or?” Bedingfield asked.

“If I was a dual citizen with a country whose policy, government policy, was we kill homosexuals. Yeah, I would renounce that citizenship,” Maher said to applause from the audience.

“I think that is buying into a fear framework that is not good for the country,” Bedingfield shot back.

Watch above via HBO.