Talk about intense! New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and Cynthia Nixon went head to head on Wednesday, August 29, ahead of September’s Democratic gubernatorial primary. During the debate at Hofstra University in Long Island, New York, the two candidates engaged in an often contentious back-and-forth, which included accusations of lying on both sides.
“When it comes to opposing Donald Trump in New York State, we already have a corrupt corporate Republican in the White House, we don’t need a corrupt corporate Democrat in Albany as his main opposition. We need to oppose Donald Trump, not just with rhetoric but with policy,” Nixon, 52, said during the debate.
“My opponent lives in the world of fiction, I live in the world of fact,” the governor, 60, responded after Nixon brought up the “crisis in the New York City subway.” Following that statement, she cut him off with more questions.
“Excuse me, can you stop interrupting?” he asked.
She fired back with: “Can you stop lying?”
After some hesitation, he answered, “Yeah, as soon as you do.”
The debate continued with intense discussions like this, including Cuomo bringing up Nixon’s previous statement that she may not run if her opponent was someone like Michael R. Bloomberg.
“I said I would not run against him because he is not corrupt like you are,” the former actress said.
“Well then, he would be governor,” the governor answered.
Cuomo recently stated that America “was never that great” in response to Trump’s “Make America Great Again” slogan and was attacked by the president for the statement, something Nixon touched on during the debate. “You backed down pretty quickly and stood up to him about as well as he stands up to Putin,” she told him.
Nixon appeared on CNN’s New Day on Thursday, August 30, and said that after the president tweeted at Cuomo, her opponent “folded like a cheap suit.”
“What we need in New York out of our governor is not somebody who just, you know, attacks Donald Trump rhetorically. We need someone who’s actually fighting the Trump agenda,” she added.
New York’s primary election will take place on Thursday, September 13.
