Even a week after the former governor was roundly defeated and his political career dealt a deathly blow, it has not ebbed. In an interview that lasts less than two hours, he compares Cuomo to Macbeth, Cain of Cain and Abel, a mob boss, and the “Prince of Darkness.”
Such was Sliwa’s animosity towards Cuomo and the billionaires who rallied behind him that, at times in the campaign, it seemed as if Mamdani and Sliwa were on the same team. Both of them railed against the big money pouring into the race, both criticized the interference of the White House, and both wouldn’t miss an opportunity to mock Cuomo’s cozy relationship with the ultra-rich Hamptons set.
What was perhaps most confusing for Sliwa’s fellow Republicans, and for the billionaires trying to stop Mamdani, was that Sliwa did not fear a socialist mayor.
“Fiscally, I was along Republican lines. But the fear, the fright, the hysteria, is what drove this race,” he says. “I saw grown men and women shaking in the street…’I don’t know what I’m going to do about Mamdani.’ I would try to explain to them that in New York City— since I’m a student of our history—we’ve had socialists, we’ve had communists in our City Council. We had a socialist Congressman …It’s not at all unusual.”
