Former New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo, who resigned in disgrace in 2021 following a string of sexual misconduct allegations, recently decisively lost the primary to be the Democratic party’s candidate for New York City Mayor. But Cuomo isn’t a man accustomed to taking no for an answer, so he’s launched a fourth-party bid for the mayoralty in November’s general election — a bid that’s now attempting to ape the video style of the man who actually won the Democratic primary, Zohran Mamdani. This means lots of social media video, the latest of which is truly baffling: A clip of Cuomo jump-starting a younger driver’s car.
Cuomo is famously a boomer car enthusiast and at-all-costs subway avoider, so it’s no surprise that he’d have his Charger ready to go in Manhattan when some poor kid — or, perhaps, a non-union actor playing the part of a poor kid — needed a jump. The clip, originally posted to Threads and later to Instagram, has no dialogue but instead contains just ambient audio beneath the song “Birds Eye” by Junior State — a song that may have cost the campaign $600 or more to license. It went uncaptioned on Threads, though on Instagram it came with the caption “New Yorkers, start your engines.” Less than half of New Yorkers own a car with an engine to start.
Cuomo gets one part right
Many have dunked on Cuomo for the seemingly faking the video, given that his Charger is facing the same direction as the kid’s 2018-2020 Acura TLX, but that’s not an accurate critique. The Charger’s battery is in its trunk, so setting the cars up dog-meeting-dog style is actually proper in this specific instance. Cuomo’s cable etiquette, however, is improper — the positive (red) cable should go on the TLX first, then the Charger, then the negative (black) to the Charger, and finally the negative on a piece of unpainted metal in the TLX rather than the battery. Connecting the cables as Cuomo did risks a short, though the former Governor is no stranger to risky decision-making.
The clip was shot on Manhattan’s wealthy Upper East Side, along East 91st Street in front of Surprise Cleaners, where there’s a very real possibility the TLX was parked in front of a fire hydrant. The specific corner, East 91st and 2nd Ave, is actually in a district that Mamdani won in the primary. Cuomo can also be seen standing in the street to close the Acura’s hood, forcing traffic to move into the street’s unprotected bike lane. It’s abundantly clear that, staged or not, the video is a perfect example of why this sort of car-centric thinking doesn’t work in the densely-populated areas of New York City. New Yorkers get it, but it seems Cuomo still has to learn.
