Comedian Bill Maher gave the Democratic Party a stern warning if its New York City mayoral nominee, Zohran Mamdani, were to win his election as expected, during Friday’s “Real Time with Bill Maher.”
Maher emphasized that the Democrats are at a crossroads between moving to the center and lurching left, noting if Mamdani defeats former Democratic New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Nov. 4, it would have “very important national implications.” The host also sparred with one of his guests, former Biden administration White House Communications Director Kate Bedingfield, who called the prospect of Mamdani winning “a good thing” for her party and dismissed concerns recently raised about the socialist as “race-baiting.”
“This is not just New York that’s on the ballot. I think the whole Democratic Party in the country is on the ballot,” said Maher, who called Mamdani a “sweet guy” seconds earlier. “And the whole country will be looking at this race to see which way are the Democrats going to go. No, Andrew Cuomo may not be that exciting and that inspirational, but for a party that said, ‘We want to get back to normal,’ he’s [Cuomo is] kind of normal.”
Cuomo, who is running as an Independent after losing the June 24 Democratic mayoral primary to Mamdani, remains a registered Democrat. The mayoral election also includes Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa, who is consistently polling in third place.
“The Democrats, let’s face it, they’re kind of split right now. There’s the far-left version that did not do too well in recent elections, and then people like the governor say, ‘We got to come back to the middle, common sense,” Maher added, referring to Democratic Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, who he also had on as a guest for that same episode. “And whenever this discussion comes up this is what you hear a lot … some issue where the Democrat says, ‘Look, I’m not with the far left and this is where you know you can trust me that I’m not.’”
Bill Maher sounds the alarm on impending threat for Democrats posed by Mamdani https://t.co/rBjgua311b pic.twitter.com/ltM5Jh5ArK
— New York Post (@nypost) October 25, 2025
Bedingfield criticized Cuomo over his sexual harassment allegations, which ultimately led to his 2021 resignation in disgrace from the New York governorship. She then made the argument that Mamdani winning the mayoral election could help the struggling Democratic Party’s electoral chances.
“I think that if Mamdani wins, with a coalition of voters who have been not all that excited about the Democratic Party over the last few years, I think that’s a good thing for Democrats,” Bedingfield said. “And I think if you’re in a purple district, say you disagree with some of the things that he does, and use that … to establish your independent cred.”
“Well, you make it sound like he’s a little more mainstream than I think he is,” Maher replied, referring to the self-avowed socialist mayoral candidate. “The issue now that Andrew Cuomo is bringing up in New York is that he [Mamdani] is an Ugandan citizen. Uganda’s a country where they kill homosexuals.”
Mamdani was born in Uganda and moved to the United States at the age of seven, after living in South Africa for the previous two years. He is of Indian descent and both of his parents were born in India.
“So, somebody who is a dual citizen can’t be mayor of New York?” Bedingfield asked Maher.
“I would renounce — if I was a dual citizen of a country whose policy, government policy was, ‘We kill homosexuals.’ Yeah, I would renounce that citizenship,” Maher told his guest, prompting audience applause.
Current Uganda law punishes some homosexual acts with penalties up to life imprisonment and death.
The former Biden administration official then accused Maher of “buying into a fear framework” which is “not good for the country.”
“You shouldn’t be afraid of that?” Maher asked, referring to the law in Mamdani’s birth country.
“I think the way that Cuomo is closing out this race and really, really race-baiting … I don’t think that’s good for the country,” the Democrat political adviser said.
“Just because something is done by people in Africa, doesn’t mean it’s always okay,” Maher fired back. “You said ‘race-baiting.’ It has nothing to do with race.”
“I’m talking about what Cuomo’s doing suggesting that Mamdani couldn’t be a leader in a terror situation if he were mayor of New York and, God forbid, something else like 9/11 happened,” Bedingfield told the HBO host, referring to comments the former governor made during his Thursday appearance on “Sid & Friends in the Morning,” a radio show on WABC.
“Well, he [Mamdani] did campaign with a terrorist,” Maher pointed out, bringing up the Democratic nominee’s recent campaign trail photo op with Imam Siraj Wahhaj.
“Well, but Cuomo was pretty clear, I thought, in the way he talked about that, in a way that I thought was ugly,” Bedingfield said
“He [Mamdani] campaigned this week with a guy who was an unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and served as a character witness for Omar Abdel-Rahman, the terrorist who organized it,” Maher said, referring to Wahhaj. “I just don’t know if this is a great look for the party.”
Wahhaj had once called for an American Islamic state. The 1993 World Trade Center terrorist attack left six dead and 1,042 injured.
A recent poll shows Mamdani leading Cuomo by double digits, due to the Democratic nominee holding a commanding lead with foreign-born voters. Cuomo, meanwhile, leads with American-born voters, according to the same poll.
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