Mayoral frontrunner Zohran Mamdani railed against President Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” on Wednesday during an appearance in the Bronx, warning of the devastating impact its cuts will have on New Yorkers’ healthcare while doubling down on criticism of his competitors and their Trump ties.
The Democratic nominee sounded the alarm on the upcoming loss of federal funding for key programs, such as Medicaid and SNAP, while appearing with members of 1199SEIU, the country’s largest healthcare union, outside St. Barnabas Hospital in Belmont. The powerful union endorsed Mamdani in the summer after backing his rival, former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, in the Democratic primary.
“This is the kind of a decision, of legislation, that will be felt in more ways than we can count,” Mamdani said. “It could mean that low-income New Yorkers will not seek out treatment. It could mean that outer-borough hospitals will be deprived of the resources that they so desperately need to provide adequate care. It would mean that hard-working health professionals who are already being asked to do too much while being paid too little will be asked for even more.”
The law could lead to more than 2 million New Yorkers losing their current insurance coverage — leaving 1.5 million people uninsured — while roughly $8 billion would be cut annually from hospitals and healthcare systems statewide. New York City alone would lose an estimated 32,500 jobs and $7.4 billion in economic activity.
Elva King is a longtime nurse at St. Barnabas and delegate for 1199. She predicted the “most devastating” impact of the cuts would be widespread layoffs and subsequent short-staffing.
“The main thing is patient care,” she told The News. “If you don’t have workers to do the job, who’s going to be taking care of the patients?”
She was particularly concerned about the effect on the most vulnerable patients, such as those with suicidal ideation.
“Without Medicaid we’re doomed,” King added. “We are overwhelmed, overworked and underpaid. [With the cuts] it will be worse.”
Mamdani said he is open to exploring several possible solutions to help at least partially plug the multibillion-dollar hole, such as facilitating public health bonds and advocating for the state to target indigent-care pool funding.
But he conceded that “the scale of this devastation is one that Washington has to answer for, because the state and the city cannot simply snap their fingers and cover it all.”
Mamdani has long been critical of Trump and his “Big Beautiful Bill,” describing it in July as “robbery, plain and simple,” and accusing Trump and congressional Republicans of “trying to pull off one of the biggest heists in U.S. history.”
On Wednesday, however, he said he is “always willing to have a conversation with Donald Trump, so long as it is to the benefit of New Yorkers.”
The assemblymember took the opportunity to criticize not just the Trump administration but his opponents in the mayor’s race, Cuomo and Mayor Eric Adams, and their comparatively warmer relations with the White House.
Mamdani referred to Cuomo, his main competitor, as a “clown” who is “more interested in a favor than in pushing back on the cutting to funding.”
“It’s time that we understand that Andrew Cuomo’s unwillingness to stand up to Donald Trump is not just a red flag, it is a five-alarm fire,” he said.
Cuomo campaign spokesperson, Rich Azzopardi, dismissed Mamdani’s comments as “preposterous.”
“Mamdani is a liar and a lightweight who, if he actually becomes mayor, will get run over by Donald Trump. He doesn’t know what he’s talking about,” he told The News. “Andrew Cuomo actually has a record of standing up to Donald Trump.”
Cuomo has decried Trump’s cuts and targeting of migrants, describing the president Sunday as “a threat to every New Yorker.”
Meanwhile Mamdani suggested City Hall has begun to resemble “an embassy of D.C.” and lambasted Adams’ “abandonment of what it means to be a leader of the city.” He also slammed the administration’s recent attempt to kill the Just Home housing development in the Bronx for ex-inmates while praising the City Council for defending it.
Todd Shapiro, a spokesperson for Adams, said, in part, “Let’s be clear: Mamdani’s campaign is being fueled by money from outside the city because he’s out of touch with the real struggles New Yorkers face. While cops are being shot and families are working hard to build a future here, Mamdani is busy grandstanding abroad and pushing policies that would legalize prostitution, bankrupt the city, and abandon public safety.”
But Mamdani did give a nod to Republican mayoral nominee Curtis Sliwa, who claimed Wednesday he has been offered money to quit the race.
“I can tell you that of Andrew Cuomo, Eric Adams and Curtis Sliwa, I trust Curtis Sliwa’s word the most,” he said. “And I appreciate Curtis Sliwa — even amidst all of our disagreements, all of the vast separation between our policy proposals — that he is someone who cares more about this city than he does about what these billionaires want him to do.”
Mamdani, Adams, Cuomo and Sliwa are set to face off in the general election on Nov. 4.