“Real Time” host Invoice Maher on Friday endorsed disgraced former Gov. Andrew Cuomo in New York Metropolis’s mayoral race and excused his previous sexual misconduct allegations, whereas slamming progressive opponent Zohran Mamdani as a hazard for the Democratic Occasion.
“I think he seems like a sweet guy, Mamdani,” Maher mentioned to laughter from the gang. “But I would just like to say, because the election is in a couple of weeks, this is not just New York that’s on the ballot. I think the whole Democratic Party in the country is on the ballot.”
“And the whole country will be looking at this race to see which way are the Democrats going to go,” he continued. “No, Andrew Cuomo may not be that exciting and that inspirational, but for a party that said, ‘We want to get back to normal,’ he’s kind of normal.”
Maher’s visitor Kate Bedingfield, who served because the White Home communications director beneath former President Joe Biden, appeared stunned by that evaluation. She disagreed, noting “some things” in Cuomo’s historical past really aren’t regular in any respect.
An investigation from the Division of Justice launched in 2024 concluded the previous New York governor’s “sexually hostile work environment” affected at the least 13 feminine state workers, one among whom mentioned Cuomo grabbed her buttocks and put his hand up her shirt.
These mounting accusations of sexual misconduct had led Cuomo to resign in 2021.
“Well, we did a deep dive on that because we had him on the show,” Maher instructed Bedingfield. “A lot of it is kind of bullshit. I mean, maybe he was a little too handsy, a little too Italian, a little too touchy, you know?”
“If you Democrats want to keep doing this, throwing guys like that under the bus, because ‘that’s not good enough’ and ‘pure enough,’ you’re going to wind up with a guy who did a little more than what Andrew Cuomo did,” he continued with a nebulous warning.
Bedingfield argued that fellow Democrats have “wrung their hands” excessively over Mamdani, who has introduced “a lot of energy,” wholesome discourse and a complete new coalition to the celebration. She mentioned him successful within the face of fearmongering could be “a good thing.”
Maher then launched a few of that fearmongering himself.
He not solely rejected that Mamdani is as fashionable as Bedingfield recommended, regardless of him at the moment main within the polls by double digits, however raised the “issue” introduced forth by Cuomo — that Mamdani has citizenship from Uganda, “where they kill homosexuals.”
Bedingfield requested, “So somebody who is a dual citizen can’t be mayor of New York, or…?”
Left: Evan Agostini/Invision/Related Press; Proper: Yuki Iwamura/Related Press
Maher doubled down, claiming he would resign his citizenship from a rustic whose “government policy” was to kill homosexuals. Uganda executes individuals who have interaction in same-sex acts with minors, the disabled and folks over 75, per the Human Rights Watch.
Bedingfield fired again and instructed Maher he’s “buying into a fear framework” and the “race baiting” employed by Cuomo, who made the shockingly racist declare Thursday that Mamdani could be “cheering” on one other 9/11-style assault if one occurred beneath his watch.
Maher tripled down by noting, simply as President Donald Trump instructed Fox Information, that Mamdani lately posed with Imam Siraj Wahhaj, a New York Metropolis mosque chief. Maher famous that he was an “unindicted co-conspirator” within the 1993 World Commerce Middle bombing.
Wahhaj denied any wrongdoing on the time and was by no means charged within the case.
Maher failed to say that New York Metropolis Mayor Eric Adams, who was then the borough president of Brooklyn, posed with Wahhaj in 2015 whereas presenting him with an award. Former Mayor Michael Bloomberg reportedly met with the imam himself again in 2009.
“I just don’t know if this is a great look for the party,” he mentioned about Mamdani. “I really don’t.”
