Andrew Cuomo says radical left will 'destroy the Democratic Party nationwide'

Andrew Cuomo said Wednesday that New York City would face economic collapse if socialist candidate Zohran Mamdani wins the upcoming mayoral race, warning that far-left influence is tearing apart the Democratic Party from within amid what he calls a "quiet civil war."

Speaking on Mornings with Maria on Fox Business, Cuomo, who is now running as an Independent against Mamdani, said the city “will not survive” under a Mamdani administration. “New York will be a socialist economy if Mamdani wins,” he told host Maria Bartiromo. “The city will not survive that as we know it, and it will not recover for a long time.”

Cuomo accused progressives like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Bernie Sanders of pushing Democrats toward extremism. “The truth is there’s a quiet civil war going on in the Democratic Party right now,” he said. “You have an extreme left, radical left, Bernie Sanders, AOC, Mamdani is just the banner carrier for that movement, versus the mainstream moderate Democrats.”

“They used to call me liberal. Now I’m a moderate because the whole party shifted,” he added.

“And that's what this election is about, it is that civil war,” he said. “I believe that far left will destroy the Democratic Party. I believe that it will destroy the Democratic Party nationwide if that far left becomes dominant. This is not a socialist country. People are not going to accept anti-law enforcement, anti-business policies.”

Laying out his own plan for the city, Cuomo said his priorities would be safety, housing, and rebuilding New York’s relationship with businesses. “Safety first,” he said, promising to add 5,000 police officers, with 1,500 assigned to subways, and raise pay to retain officers.

He also vowed to build 100,000 affordable housing units in his first year, saying the city’s vacancy rate was driving up rents. “We can build housing, but you have to be organized and competent,” he said, noting his record rebuilding LaGuardia and JFK airports and other infrastructure projects as governor.

It comes as Mamdani was referred to the Department of Justice earlier this week by the Coolidge Reagan Foundation, a campaign finance watchdog group that filed two criminal referrals against him for allegedly accepting illegal donations from foreign donors.

A review of his campaign finances found that he took roughly $13,000 from 170 donors outside the United States.

“These are not isolated incidents or clerical errors,” a campaign finance expert with the foundation told Fox News. “This was a sustained pattern of foreign money flowing into a New York City mayoral race, which is a clear violation of both federal law and New York City campaign finance rules. Mamdani’s campaign was on notice for months that it was accepting illegal foreign contributions, and yet it did nothing meaningful to stop it.”

His campaign responded, saying many of the donations had already been reviewed or refunded. “Thirty-one of the 170 donors have proven their citizenship or legal permanent residence and have been deemed permissible by the Campaign Finance Board, and the remaining 139 have had their donations refunded,” the campaign said in a statement.