New York City Councilman Frank Morano, appearing on Newsmax Saturday, said the mayor’s race should be an easy win for Republican Curtis Sliwa, arguing Democratic front-runner Zohran Mamdani used Israel-Hamas questions to duck local issues while failing to explain how he would pay for his agenda.
Morano appeared Saturday on “The Count,” sharpening his critique of Democratic front-runner Zohran Mamdani while praising Republican Curtis Sliwa as the candidate focused on city basics.
Pressed about Mamdani’s stance on Israel and Hamas, Morano said the debate exchange revealed a larger problem: a campaign light on municipal specifics.
“Well, first of all, I agree with your analysis. That and I think it sounds like your 16-year-old’s analysis as well, that Mamdani did quite a bit of tap dancing to avoid answering actual questions,” he said.
That critique echoed a central attack line from the week’s first general election debate, where Andrew Cuomo and Curtis Sliwa tried to halt Mamdani’s momentum. Cuomo, running as an independent, framed Mamdani as inexperienced and too far left, while Mamdani hit back by relitigating Cuomo’s pandemic record and raising sexual harassment allegations that the former governor denies.
The two-hour faceoff ended with no clear breakthrough.
Morano added that the debate’s foreign-policy detour obscured bread-and-butter concerns. “In some ways, this focus on Israel really allowed Mamdani to avoid answering any specific questions about what he’d do in New York City.”
Morano argued that Mamdani still has not detailed how to finance his major campaign proposals, like the cost of his $10 billion in freebies for his socialist agenda.
“We don’t know how he’s paying for free buses. We don’t know how he’s going to deal with the exodus of taxpayers from New York, because he wants to raise taxes on all the high-income earners,” he said.
“So the 15 or 20 minutes that we got to spend on Hamas and foreign policy, it’s important. I’m not belittling it, but it did allow Mamdani to shield himself from actually explaining how he’s going to deliver on any of these promises,” he added.
Morano focused on municipal governance, saying New York voters want competence over national posturing.
“New Yorkers don’t want a mayor picking fights with Washington to score political points. We want a mayor who’s going to pick up the trash, fix the subways, and make sure our streets are safe,” he said.
“To me, Curtis Sliwa should be running away with it if that’s the criteria.”
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