Democratic mayoral nominee and Meeting Member Zohran Mamdani accused rival Andrew Cuomo of treating rent-stabilized tenants like ‘political pawns’ throughout a Brooklyn information convention. Tuesday, Aug. 12, 2025.
Photograph by Lloyd Mitchell
Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani on Tuesday charged that his unbiased opponent, Andrew Cuomo, sees town’s practically a million rent-stabilized tenants as “political pawns,” after the previous governor floated a proposal this week to considerably restrict who can entry these items.
Mamdani made the remarks throughout a Tuesday Brooklyn press convention as a part of his “Five Boroughs Against Trump” tour in response to Cuomo’s Sunday proposal to means-test entry to rent-stabilized flats. At present, anybody can lease a stabilized unit, for which yearly lease will increase are restricted and managed by town’s Lease Tips Board (RGB).
“It pains me to say that in our disgraced former Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s mind, these units, these buildings, these tenants are but a political pawn, they mean nothing more than that,” Mamdani stated on Aug. 12.
Certainly one of Mamdani’s core marketing campaign pledges is to nominate RGB members who will vote to maintain stabilized rents flat annually that he’s in workplace, which is called a lease freeze.
Mamdani solid Cuomo’s proposal as purely an assault on his marketing campaign, moderately than a approach to make rent-stabilized flats extra accessible to low-income New Yorkers.
“This proposal, this policy, is indicative of so much of Andrew Cuomo’s politics, where it works backwards from a petty vindictiveness, and it does not care who it harms in the process,” Mamdani stated.
Assaults warmth up between Mamdani and Cuomo
Cuomo put ahead the measure following days-long social media screed towards Mamdani, calling on him to maneuver out of his rent-stabilized $2,300-a-month house in Astoria. He charged that the state lawmaker — who makes $142,000 yearly — is taking the unit away from tenants with much less means who actually need it. He known as the state of affairs “disgusting.”
The previous governor has additionally argued that Mamdani’s background, being the son of unbiased filmmaker Mira Nair and Columbia College professor Mahmood Mamdani, provides gas to the argument that he’s too priviledged to reside within the house.
In subsequent posts, Cuomo has tried to solid Mamdani’s house as a scandal by labeling it “#Rentgate” and demanding the Meeting member make his lease public in a bid to show he lied about not realizing it was stabilized when he rented it. Mamdani responded together with his personal video on Tuesday, calling on Cuomo to launch the listing of shoppers he stored as a non-public guide within the years after he resigned amid a sexual harassment scandal in 2021.
The measure, which Cuomo derisively dubbed “Zohran’s Law,” would stipulate that when rent-stabilized flats grow to be vacant, solely these for whom the lease makes up 30% of their earnings would qualify. Those that spend not less than 30% of their earnings on lease are thought of rent-burdened.
In response to Mamdani’s braodside, Cuomo spokesperson Wealthy Azzopardi identified the coverage applies to vacant flats, not lease renewals or generational transfers and has the identical earnings thresholds as public housing, Part 8, and different sponsored housing applications.
“Since Zohran is both wealthy and doesn’t work I understand why he doesn’t like it,” Azzopardi stated. “We called him out on his rank hypocracy, it hit him where it hurts, and now he’s trying to desparately change the subject from his wealth, his priviledge and the fact that he occupies an apartment from a program meant to help working men and women.”
Though Cuomo named the proposal after Mamdani, it could not really apply to him, Metropolis & State reported. That’s as a result of it solely covers vacant flats, not these which are already occupied.
Cuomo doesn’t reside in a rent-stabilized unit. He’s a multimillionaire who rents an $8,000-a-month house within the tony Sutton Place part of Midtown Manhattan. He moved again to town final September after spending many years dwelling both in Westchester County or Albany.
Cuomo’s newest line of assault towards Mamdani comes as he continues to lag within the polls behind the Meeting member, however remains to be putting second within the five-way normal election contest. It additionally comes after The New York Instances reported final week that Cuomo spoke with President Trump concerning the mayor’s race — a dialog he denies occurred.
Throughout Mamdani’s occasion, rent-stabilized Flatbush tenant Lex Rountree argued Cuomo’s proposal would trigger a “massive loss of affordability” for working-class and middle-income stabilized tenants.
“By subjecting vacant units to means testing and systematically removing working-class and middle-class families from the rent-stabilized system, Cuomo is ensuring that it will disappear,” Rountree stated. “Rent Stabilization is not a government handout. It is a basic right that covers half of New York apartments.”
