With Election Day rapidly approaching and early voting beginning Oct. 25<\/a>, Cuomo appeared on Sunday’s episode of “The Point with Marcia Kramer.”<\/p>\n What is issue No. 1 to New Yorkers?\u00a0<\/p>\n Fresh off the first debate<\/a> in the general election, Cuomo was asked what he thinks New Yorkers care about more than any anything else right now.\u00a0<\/p>\n He said affordability, crime and public education<\/a> are the key issues, adding they are all central to his campaign,<\/a> as they are to his opponents, Democrat Zohran Mamdani<\/a> and Republican Curtis Sliwa<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n So, is one of those issues more important than the others?<\/p>\n “I think the most important thing is, [New Yorkers] feel the city is headed in the wrong direction. There’s a sense of chaos, the city’s out of control, the city’s in decline,” Cuomo said.\u00a0<\/p>\n He said people are frustrated and worried about the future of the five boroughs.\u00a0<\/p>\n “And that’s how I feel also, by the way,” Cuomo said.\u00a0<\/p>\n Restoring New York City’s image<\/p>\n Amid those tensions, Cuomo was asked how the next mayor could restore New York’s image in the face of President Trump and other campaigns<\/a> saying the city is unsafe.\u00a0<\/p>\n “We have problems, there’s no doubt about it. Yeah, we have a president in Washington who poses a real threat, but we can handle this,” Cuomo said. “We are New Yorkers. We are a special breed.”\u00a0<\/p>\n Independent candidate former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo arrives to participate in a mayoral debate, Thursday, Oct. 16, 2025, in New York.<\/p>\n Angelina Katsanis \/ AP<\/p>\n He was asked how to change that ethos and get rid of people’s anxiety living in the city.\u00a0<\/p>\n “By actually making a difference and showing progress … Everybody promises and nothing happens, and then that adds to the skepticism, ” Cuomo said. “I have made it happen when I was governor, I have made it happen when I was [Housing and Urban Development] secretary, I have made it happen when I was attorney general, and I will make it happen as mayor.”\u00a0<\/p>\n The former governor has promised to hire 5,000 new police officers<\/a>, and add 1,500 more in subway system. That’s a difference, he says, that will be felt in his first 100 days in office.\u00a0<\/p>\n “You will feel safer when you see that,” Cuomo said.\u00a0<\/p>\n Affordability and the rent freeze “gimmick”\u00a0<\/p>\n On top of bolstering the NYPD, Cuomo said he would enact a plan to make rents more affordable in his first 100 days to ease New Yorkers’ anxiety.\u00a0<\/p>\n His plan is to build 80,000 new, affordable units and let the market do the rest, in contrast to Mamdani’s plan to build and freeze rent for stabilized units<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n “The only way you’re gonna get rents down is by increasing the supply,” Cuomo said.\u00a0<\/p>\n He said the costs for apartments can’t come down until construction is complete.\u00a0<\/p>\n “Not without a gimmick that comes back and bites you in the tuchus later on. That’s the ‘freeze the rent,'” Cuomo said.\u00a0<\/p>\n Since only about a quarter of the city’s apartments are rent stabilized, he said a freeze would not be felt by enough people.\u00a0<\/p>\n “It does nothing for the 75 [%] and you don’t really freeze the 25 [%], you just postpone the increase,” Cuomo said. “The real answer is build more housing because we have a 1% vacancy rate.”\u00a0<\/p>\n An “expectation gap” with younger people\u00a0<\/p>\n Cuomo said rents need to be lower, but he also sees an “expectation gap” with younger people moving to the city and what they should be able to afford, like living in a high-rise.\u00a0<\/p>\n “I have this conversation all the time with young people, because I remember my first apartment,” he said. “It wasn’t even a studio. It was like a hallway with a kitchen sink.”\u00a0<\/p>\n Independent candidate former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo arrives to participate in a mayoral debate, Thursday, Oct. 16, 2025, in New York.<\/p>\n Angelina Katsanis \/ AP<\/p>\n He said affordability can improve across the board, but it’s a matter of building more apartments.\u00a0<\/p>\n “It’s doable,” he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n Ratings from 1-10<\/p>\n Here’s what Cuomo said when asked to rate himself on a scale of 1-10.\u00a0<\/p>\n Likeability: “Depends by who,” he said with a laugh. “I like myself. I give myself a 9. Today, I’m not so happy with myself.”\u00a0<\/p>\n Personality: “Eight and a half.”<\/p>\n Ability to compromise: “Eleven!,” he said, again with a laugh. “I know, they’re throwing things at the TV right now.”\u00a0<\/p>\n Experience: “Twelve.”<\/p>\n Energy: “Twelve.”<\/p>\n Diligence: “Ten … Sometime you have to make a decision, right? Well, I need more time, I need more intelligence, I need more facts. Sometimes indecision is a decision … I know when it is time to decide.”\u00a0<\/p>\n Click here to watch Cuomo’s full interview<\/a>, including the part where he answers questions from viewers<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The New York City mayor’s race is one of the most closely watched political contests in the country.…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":316866,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,5297,405,403,5226,5225,5228,5227,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-316865","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-andrew-cuomo","10":"tag-new-york","11":"tag-new-york-city","12":"tag-newyork","13":"tag-newyorkcity","14":"tag-ny","15":"tag-nyc","16":"tag-united-states","17":"tag-united-states-of-america","18":"tag-unitedstates","19":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","20":"tag-us","21":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115402825592317301","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/316865","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=316865"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/316865\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/316866"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=316865"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=316865"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=316865"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Election](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/ap25289817748349.jpg#.jpeg\")
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