Bill Maher endorses Cuomo, brings up 1993 Trade Center bombing in criticizing Mamdani

“Real Time” host Bill Maher on Friday endorsed disgraced former Gov. Andrew Cuomo in the New York City mayoral race and excused his past allegations of sexual misconduct, while criticizing progressive opponent Zohran Mamdani as a danger to the Democratic Party.

“I think he seems like a sweet guy, Mamdani,” Maher said to laughter from the crowd. “But I would just like to say that, because the election is in a couple of weeks, it’s not just New York that’s on the ballot. I think the entire Democratic Party in the country is on the ballot.”

“And the entire country will be watching this race to see where the Democrats are going to go,” he continued. “No, Andrew Cuomo may not be as exciting or inspiring, but for a party that said, ‘We want to get back to normal,’ he’s normal.”

Maher’s guest, Kate Bedingfield, who served as White House communications director under former President Joe Biden, seemed surprised by that assessment. She disagreed, noting that “some things” in Cuomo’s story are actually not normal at all.

A Justice Department investigation published in 2024 concluded that the former New York governor’s “sexually hostile work environment” affected at least 13 state employees, one of whom said Cuomo grabbed her buttocks and put his hand down her shirt.

“Well, we delved into that because we had it in the program,” Maher told Bedingfield. “A lot of it is nonsense. I mean, maybe he was too skilled, too Italian, too touchy-feely, 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 end up with a guy who did a little more than Andrew Cuomo did,” he continued with a nebulous warning.

Bedingfield argued that his fellow Democrats have been excessively “wringing their hands” over Mamdani, who has brought “a lot of energy,” a healthy speech and an entirely new coalition to the party. She said beating fearmongering would be “a good thing.”

Then Maher introduced some of that scaremongering.

Not only did he reject that Mamdani is as popular as Bedingfield suggested, even though he currently leads the polls by double digits, but he also raised the “issue” raised by Cuomo: that Mamdani has citizenship in Uganda, “where they kill homosexuals.”

Bedingfield asked: “So someone who has dual citizenship can’t be mayor of New York or…?”

Left: Evan Agostini/Invision/News; Right: Yuki Iwamura/News

Maher doubled down, stating that he would renounce his citizenship of a country whose “government policy” was to kill homosexuals. Uganda executes people who engage in homosexual acts with minors, the disabled, and people over 75, according to Human Rights Watch.

Bedingfield responded, telling Maher that he is “accepting a frame of fear” and “race-baiting” employed by Cuomo, who made the stunning racist claim Thursday that Mamdani would be “encouraging” another 9/11-style attack if it occurred on his watch.

Maher tripled down by pointing out, as President Donald Trump told News, that Mamdani recently posed with Imam Siraj Wahhaj, the leader of a New York City mosque. Maher noted that he was an “unindicted co-conspirator” in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.

“I just don’t know if this is a good party look,” she said of Mamdani. “I really don’t.”