New York City mayoral hopeful Andrew Cuomo has been widely labeled as racist after his official X account posted – and then deleted – an AI-generated ad depicting “criminals for Zohran Mamdani”.
Not even 20 minutes into the second mayoral debate, Cuomo’s official account, @andrewcuomo, tweeted the video. It was reshared by many before being deleted.
The Cuomo and Mamdani campaigns did not immediately respond to the Guardian’s request for comment.
The video, which has been saved and reshared by various people, runs a little over two minutes and opens with an AI iteration of Mamdani, first running through the streets of New York and then eating rice with his hands.
It goes on to show a Black man in a keffiyeh shoplifting, a man abusing a woman, a sex trafficker, a drug dealer, and others, all showing their support for Mamdani.
Reaction to the video, which was re-uploaded by journalist Prem Thakker, was fast and negative.
Shannon Watts, the founder of Moms Demand Action, a grassroots organization that advocates for gun violence prevention, called it “so gross and full of racist stereotypes, including a Black man dressed like a pimp trafficking a car full of white women. Cuomo needs to be thrown in the ash heap of history.”
Laila Al-Arian, executive producer of Al Jazeera’s Fault Lines, pointed to the imagery of the keffiyeh and asked on X: “How are Palestinian New Yorkers supposed to feel about this, or do they not matter?”
Benjamín Schultz-Figueroa, associate Professor of Film and Media Studies at Seattle University, wrote on Blsky: “This is next level fascist AI slop. It’s also such a weird ‘greatest hits’ of scary stereotypes from NYC history.”
Antonia Hylton, co-anchor of MSNBC’s The Weekend: Primetime, said: “Well this is sad. And pretty racist.”
This video follows a trend from the Cuomo campaign, who have published a handful of AI-generated videos in the lead up to 4 November. In one early October video, Cuomo was seen performing various jobs around New York City including driving a subway car, trading on the New York stock exchange and washing high-rise windows.
In response, Mamdani posted on Instagram: “In a city of world-class artists and production crew hunting for the next gig, Andrew Cuomo made a TV ad the same way he wrote his housing policy: with AI. Then again, maybe a fake Cuomo is better than the real one?”
Just this week, Cuomo shared a video featuring an AI-generated Bill de Blasio and, again, Mamdani. That video attempted to paint Mamdani as a “mini” De Blasio and emphasize a moment from the first debate where Cuomo compared the former mayor to the mayoral hopeful.
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