The panel of MSNBC’s Morning Joe reportedly delivered a scathing review Wednesday of former New York governor Andrew Cuomo’s attempt to return to political life, this time as a candidate for New York City mayor.
Panelists openly mocked the campaign as incoherent and doomed, with one commentator calling it “a textbook terrible campaign.”
The conversation began when host Joe Scarborough referenced a Politico report claiming that Cuomo believes President Donald Trump could play a decisive role in the city’s mayoral race.
According to the report, Cuomo has suggested that Trump may step in during the final days of the campaign and even instruct his supporters not to vote for Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa, in order to sink Democratic frontrunner Zohran Mamdani.
Scarborough, who has sparred with Trump for years, appeared genuinely dumbfounded. “In the words of Aristotle … this confuses me so much, my teeth hurt,” he said.
MSNBC’s Jon Lemire was equally dismissive. “I’m starting to wonder if the Cuomo mayoral campaign is a performance art where he’s trying to lose,” he remarked.
He pointed to Cuomo’s lethargic primary effort, in which the former governor “barely actually campaigned.” The notion that Cuomo could convince wealthy donors in the Hamptons that Trump might intervene against Mamdani struck Lemire as absurd. “You’re telling a rich Hamptons crowd that you think Donald Trump’s gonna come in to attack Mamdani. And in New York City, you think that’s gonna hurt Mamdiani?”
For Scarborough, the most surprising element was what he framed as a sudden collapse in Cuomo’s political instincts. “He was never Mr. Wonderful, but he kind of knew politics,” Scarborough said. “He really did. So I don’t understand why all of the miscues.”
Lemire added that the race itself presents steep odds for Cuomo. “It would take something extraordinary” for the former governor — or any of the other candidates, including incumbent Eric Adams — to overtake Mamdani, he argued.
He also reminded viewers of the baggage weighing down the top contenders. “You have the incumbent mayor — who of course is scandal-scarred, to say the least, and is perceived by most to be in the pockets of Donald Trump,” Lemire said. “And then you have Cuomo who had to resign and now has run what is simply a textbook terrible campaign.”
“Cuomo is just making one mistake after another,” Lemire concluded.
For conservatives, the panel’s derision underscores a broader truth about Democratic leadership in New York: that the party has become mired in scandal, arrogance, and poor judgment. Cuomo, once heralded as a national figure, left the governor’s office in disgrace.
Now, even sympathetic media voices describe his comeback effort as hapless. Meanwhile, Adams — the sitting mayor — faces his own credibility problems. And Mamdani, the progressive Democrat, represents a far-left vision for the city that many believe will only accelerate its decline.
The ridicule from Morning Joe offered a rare moment of candor from mainstream media figures often reluctant to criticize Democratic leaders.
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