John Oliver celebrated Zohran Mamdani‘s win in the New York City mayoral race on Sunday’s episode of Last Week Tonight.
Mamdani prevailed over Andrew Cuomo, who’d been endorsed by President Donald Trump, in Tuesday’s election.
Oliver showed footage of Mamdani’s victory speech, in which the mayor-elect stated: “I wish Andrew Cuomo only the best in private life. But let tonight be the final time I utter his name as we turn the page on a politics that abandons the many and answers only to the few.”
Oliver noted that many pundits criticized the speech, with CNN’s Van Jones opining that it was “sharp” and marked a “character switch” for Mamdani. (Other criticism came from the Washington Post, which ran an editorial that said: “Across 23 angry minutes laced with identity politics and seething with resentment, Mamdani abandoned his cool disposition and made clear that his view of politics isn’t about unity.”)
“That seems deeply unfair to me,” Oliver said after quoting Jones. “He just weathered one of the most Islamophobic campaigns in recent memory. ‘I wish Andrew Cuomo all the best in private life’ is a frankly superhuman level of grace to extend to a man who has yet to pronounce your name correctly once, especially given that he could have said, ‘Andrew, your campaign was terrible.’”
Oliver then pointed to Cuomo’s ads, including several reportedly produced by AI. One in particular featured “the bill from Schoolhouse Rock, pregnant, and with luscious kissable lips,” Oliver said, then continued with an alternate version of what Mamdani could have said to Cuomo in his speech: “Do you want to fuck the bill from Schoolhouse Rock, Andrew? Do you? Well, great news, now you actually can in your private life. I wish you the best, you pervert.”