Mamdani zings Cuomo in rent-stabilized housing spat during anti-Trump tour stop

Zohran Mamdani, New York City’s Democratic mayoral nominee, continued his ‘Five Boroughs Against Trump’ tour in Brooklyn on Tuesday, as President Donald Trump’s agenda continues to take center stage on the New York City campaign trail. 

Speaking at the Flatbush Gardens Community Center, Mamdani’s second anti-Trump event of the week was focused on housing, a hot-button issue in the New York City mayoral race as former Gov. Andrew Cuomo has spent days criticizing Mamdani’s rent-stabilized apartment in Astoria. 

‘We must remember that Andrew Cuomo has spent more time talking about my apartment than asking why so many New Yorkers are being forced out of theirs. He has spent more time criticizing me than he has in criticizing the legislation that Donald Trump has passed,’ Mamdani said on Tuesday. 

Mamdani began his week-long tour alongside Rep. Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., in Manhattan on Monday morning. After visiting Brooklyn on Tuesday, Mamdani will travel to Staten Island on Wednesday, the Bronx on Thursday and Queens on Friday, Fox News confirmed. 

The 33-year-old self-described socialist’s tour is a rejection of the Trump administration’s sweeping second-term agenda and his so-called ‘authoritarian’ attack on working New Yorkers, with Tuesday’s event focused on housing.

‘While housing experts are ringing the alarm, Andrew Cuomo is ringing Donald Trump,’ Mamdani said. 

During Mamdani’s events on Monday and Tuesday, reporters peppered the 33-year-old socialist candidate with questions about Cuomo’s latest policy proposal – ‘Zohran’s law.’

The former governor, who lost the Democratic mayoral primary to Mamdani in June, began trolling the assemblyman over the weekend with an edited video of Mamdani admitting he pays ‘$2,300 for my one bedroom in Astoria.’

‘Rent-stabilized apartments when they’re vacant should only be rented to people who need affordable housing, not people like Zohran Mamdani,’ Cuomo told reporters in a video posted on social media. 

Cuomo said ‘Zohran’s law’ was designed to prevent high-income individuals from occupying rent-stabilized apartments.

But Mamdani fired back at Cuomo’s criticism on Tuesday, telling reporters, ‘It pains me to say that in our disgraced former Governor Andrew Cuomo’s mind, these units, these buildings, these tenants are but a political pawn.’

Chief among Mamdani’s now-infamous progressive policy proposals is his commitment to freezing rents. 

‘As Mayor, Zohran will immediately freeze the rent for all stabilized tenants, and use every available resource to build the housing New Yorkers need and bring down the rent,’ according to Mamdani’s campaign website. 

Mamdani has accused incumbent Mayor Eric Adams of appointing Rent Guidelines Board members to raise rents on stabilized apartments. While landlords and advocates argue the freeze would be illegal, Mamdani can accomplish this goal by appointing members to the board who wouldn’t vote to increase the rent. 

Former Mayor Bill de Blasio’s board voted to freeze the rent three times during his tenure. 

Cuomo had previously called the democratic socialist’s plan to freeze rent a ‘politically convenient posture,’ and said such a move would hurt landlords who would be ‘unable to maintain their buildings.’

As Cuomo’s fiery social media posts about Mamdani’s rent-controlled apartment made the rounds, de Blasio – who has yet to endorse a candidate in the race to run the nation’s most populous city – fired back at his former governor. 

‘I did a rent freeze and almost 2 million hard-working New Yorkers benefited. @ZohranKMamdani wants to do a rent freeze. You know who doesn’t want to do a rent freeze? @andrewcuomo, and he thinks he can trick us into forgetting that,’ de Blasio trolled on X.

During the first stop on his anti-Trump tour on Monday, Mamdani responded to Cuomo’s freshly proposed law ‘that will keep the rich out of New York’s affordable housing.’

‘What do we know about this policy proposal beyond the fact that it seeks to evict me from my apartment?’ Mamdani questioned on Monday.

‘Like so much of Andrew Cuomo’s politics, it is characterized by a petty vindictiveness. It leaves far more questions than it has answers. How many New Yorkers would this apply to? How many New Yorkers would be evicted from their apartments? How many New Yorkers would have their lives upended by a former governor who is responding to the fact that he was handily beaten by a tenant of a rent-stabilized apartment?’ Mamdani asked. 

‘I live rent-free in his head,’ Mamdani trolled Cuomo, arguing that he had many years to implement such policies as governor but is now only focused on trying to reckon with a ‘political defeat.’ 

Soon after Mamdani’s criticism, the Cuomo campaign unveiled his proposal to protect rent-stabilized apartments from being occupied by high-income individuals. 

‘Under Cuomo’s proposal, when a rent-stabilized apartment becomes vacant, the incoming individual income would be capped so that the annual rent makes up at least 30 percent of that income. For example, if an apartment rents for $2,500 a month ($30,000 per year), the new tenant’s income could not exceed $100,000,’ according to the plan. 

The Cuomo campaign also clarified that ‘Zohran’s law’ would only apply to vacant apartments. 

Mamdani poured cold water on Cuomo’s plan during the press conference on Tuesday, telling reporters, ‘What is so absurd to me about Andrew Cuomo’s proposal is that it wouldn’t even apply to me. The way that he has put forward this language does not actually apply to me, and yet he uses my name in it.’

When reached for comment regarding Mamdani’s anti-Trump tour, White House spokeswoman, Abigail Jackson, told Fox News Digital, ‘Comrade Mamdani is the American people’s worst nightmare. His communist policies will crater our economy, increase crime, crowd out Americans with free health care for illegal immigrants, and defund the brave men and women of law enforcement who keep us safe.’

The White House added that ‘Mamdani’s idea of ‘immigration reform’ is no borders and amnesty for all the violent criminal illegal aliens that Joe Biden released into our country. The American people have repeatedly rejected this Communist agenda and the more Mamdani shares his radical policies, the more the American people will recoil.’ 

Fox News’ Marly Carroll and Bryan Llenas contributed to this report.