First, Zoran Mamdani upset former governor Andrew Cuomo in the Democratic primary for mayor of New York City. Then the sitting mayor, former police captain Eric Adams, dropped out of the race and this week, endorsed Andrew Cuomo as his successor. All of this activity and Mamdany remains the clear frontrunner in the race heading to election day.

If there was a ranked choice election, how would you vote, Mr. Mamdani?

Myself, number one and Curtis, number two

Mr. Sliwa

Oh, please don't be glazing me here, Zohran. Are you kidding me?

As you can hear from this moment in Wednesday night's final debate, there is one person who, despite the pleas and cajoling of many, simply will not go away: Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa.

You could be impaling me and say I'll stop if you drop out and endorse Andrew Cuomo and I would say finish the job.

He's been a fixture of the city for 30 plus years, and he's here to tell me what he's learned about the city and politics through this very memorable campaign. I'm David Chalian, CNN's Political Director and Washington Bureau Chief, and this is the CNN Political Briefing. Stay with us.

Mr. Sliwa, thank you so much for being here. Really appreciate it.

Oh, my pleasure. Anytime.

So obviously, the big news of the day in the race is that the current mayor, Eric Adams, has endorsed Andrew Cuomo, somebody he ridiculed just a few weeks back when he was still in the race. What is your response to the endorsement? How do you see it impacting the race?

'Well, obviously he called Andrew Cuomo a snake, which Cuomo is. So I guess the price was right, and Eric Adams, who was one and done, has become a snake charmer. Anyway, look, these are two crooked birds of a feather who flock together. They'll probably want to get together and co-author a book called The Art of the Steal. Because they've been guilty of stealing a lot of money from us over the years...

Sir, are you implying that you think Eric Adams got, you said the price is right, that is getting something out of this endorsement?

Oh, there's no doubt about it. Look, he was offered all kinds of money to drop out. So was I. I didn't drop out, I was offered $10 million.

Who offered you $10,000,000?

Well, I already went on record as telling them, you better kill the offers or I'll be wired up like a Christmas tree and take it to the DA and that stopped. But we've had other reporters confirm that and say they knew who it was that was offering me money. So I moved on from there to now being threatened with my life and my wife's life, and so that's why I have to have armed security. I've never had armed security in my life, even after I got shot five times on the orders of John Gotti Sr. To John Gottie Jr. And the Gambino crime family. Survived that. Never had armed security. So this has become a very intense race where the billionaires think they're going to pick the next mayor. And it couldn't have been more hopelessly wrong. We're going to let the people choose the next mayor through something called the vote. One person, one vote. No dropouts. And by the way, the billionaires don't get to choose their next mayor.

Let's talk about this pressure campaign. I'm a little confounded by it. It seems Andrew Cuomo seems to think his only path to possibly winning this race is if you weren't in the race. I'm not sure what that says about his belief in his own message and appeal to voters, But but I do wonde, your own boss at WABC has called on you to get out of this race, part of the pressure campaign. I think you've left your job there now. 10 million wasn't enough, as you said. Is there something that somebody can come to the table to in these final days and say, Curtis, this offer is better than you finishing out this campaign. Can you imagine what that might be?

Yeah, well, again, as some of these callers on behalf of dropping out for Cuomo said, oh, come on, Curtis, everybody has a price. Let me give you an image. You remember the end of Braveheart when Mel Gibson is on the gurney and they're impaling him. Remember they say a few words to him and he won't, he won't apologize. He won't surrender, retreat, and they finish the job. You could be impaling me and say, I'll stop. If you drop out and endorse Andrew Cuomo, and I would say, finish the job. Does that make it perfectly clear? There's 12 days left. I'm not dropping out. I got a pathway to victory. These are two Democrats. You have Cuomo who's the architect of no cash bail. His apprentice, Zohran Mamdani. Cuomo, the architect of "raise the age," which almost ended up causing the death of my oldest son, Anthony, when he was a victim of a vicious juvenile gang attack. And these young men went into family court, got a pat on the wrist, and were released right out after almost killing my son. The apprentice to that, Zohran Mandami. And Andrew Cuomo wants to close our jail, Rikers Island, he's the architect and Zoran Mandami is the apprentice. I'm the only law & order candidate. People have said, and I got his endorsement weeks ago, Rudy Giuliani, that I'm Rudy 2.0 plus the endorsement of George Pataki, the former governor. Why would I drop out?

So you said and I'm going to explore this with you in one second that you have a path to victory. I want to hear that but first I do want to just close this out and you've made clear I get you're going nowhere. The Staten Island Advance, the big newspaper on the Republican stalwart of Richmond County, Staten Island, the big Republican stronghold in New York City endorsed Andrew Cuomo today and in the endorsement, the editorial board there writes, "A vote for Curtis Sliwa is a vote Cuomo does not get, handing City Hall to Mamdani." What do you say to response to that?

Well, let me ask you a question, who lost to Mamdan? Cuomo, right? Cuomo handed him the Democratic nomination by not campaigning against him. Cuomo was 40 points ahead three months before and lost by 13 points. So if you want to blame anybody for the rise of Zohran Mamdani, you blame the Democrats, a failed, crooked Democratic mayor who under normal circumstances would have been the incumbent running for reelection against Curtis Sliwa the Republican, round 2. He couldn't even run in a Democratic primary. He would have basically gotten nil votes. And then you have a corrupt, disgraced governor making a comeback and couldn't even be the guy who a year ago, his own neighbors didn't even know him, Zohran Mandami. So, hey, put it on the Democrats. They allowed the socialists into their house. They allowed the fox in their chicken coop. I am the Republican. I am running on Republican principles. I am the populist and I believe that people have a right to be heard. Billionaires don't pick mayors. And people don't drop out in elections. This you've never heard this before. I mean, be honest, have you ever heard this before? Come on!

Certainly not barring some major scandal and I take your point on that. Here's my question. You said you do have a path to victory. Can you paint that path? What does that path look like so our audience understands?

Sure, I got 28% of the vote the last time I ran against Eric Adams. And remember, he was going to be the new face of the Democratic Party. How did that work out? Nobody knew about his baggage back then. So I'll get even more. I'll get Republicans, conservatives. There are two and a half times more independents than there are registered Republicans. And I am favorably received by them, some moderate Democrats, and I have a brand new party line, first ever in electoral history, organized by my wife, an animal rights expert. It's called Protect Animals. No kill shelters, animal abusers go to jail. And boy, that resonates with a lot of people. So that's going to bring out a sizable vote. So why would I drop out?

No, no, no. The question is not about dropout. I understand you on that. The question is this path. I take your point about the the added line. You said you got 28% last time. I mean, I can't find a poll right now that shows you at that 28% level support in this race. So what makes you think you're going to increase your participation?

Well, obviously, you're a believer in polls. The polls were wrong in the Democratic primary.

Are you not?

The polls are wrong with Trump and Harris. It was supposed to be neck and neck the night of the election. He blew her out in the popular vote, won the seven battleground states. Why do you keep quoting polls that haven't been right yet? Haven't been right yet.

So you do not believe...

Not regarding this race.

Has your campaign paid for any polls for yourself?

Yeah, we have internal polls.

Right. Do you believe those?

Yeah, candidates paying for their own polls. Come on, who's going to believe that?

Said the candidate paying for the poll.

'Who paid for that poll? Oh, Curtis Sliwa paid for that of course he paid for that poll because it puts him in a good light. If Cuomo paid for a poll, if Zohran Mandami paid for a poll, come on. I don't believe in polls, I believe you have to have a get out the vote effort. We know Zohran Mamdani has because he already proved it. He whipped Andrew Cuomo, who had no get out the vote effort. We're twelve days away. I have a get out the vote effort. We keep running into the "Zohranistas" as we go door to door. We put literature. We make calls, texts, phone calls. There's no Cuomo get out the vote effort. The New York Post just wrote an article. He's been missing on the campaign trail for 10 days since Labor Day. You can't win a campaign if you're not campaigning every day, and I do it 20 hours of a twenty-four hour day.

Yep.

We'll be right back with Curtis Sliwa in just a moment.

I'm back with Curtis Sliwa. He's the Republican nominee for mayor of New York City. You and I are talking the day after the final debate. You were on that NY1 debate stage last night. How do you feel like what you accomplished on that debate stage? Do you feel like you were able to make arguments that you were not able to make in the first debate?

Well, big difference, and having nothing to do with my adversaries, it had to do with who was hosting the debate. NBC was the first debate. It might as well have stood for Never Broadcast Curtis because in the first 10 minutes, I basically had to take flags out like I was on an aircraft carrier. Hello! I'm right in the middle, too, so it's not like I'm a bookend. They completely ignored me. I had to sort of elbow my way in like it was roller derby. It was very uncomfortable for the audience and everyone else. This was your more traditional debate. Each of us had equal time. We were asked relevant questions about what our policies would do for the city. Sometimes we agreed, most times we disagreed. The audience response to that was a lot better. I looked mayoral again. I had the best grasp of the issues. And clearly I was the law and order candidate. I don't think there was any doubt about that.

One of the things you brought up on the debate stage last night is that you said that Zohran Mamdani had supported global jihad. He said back to you that that was just clearly not true. And I'm wondering, where do you have evidence that he supports global jihad?

'Well, he has supported those terrorists and those who wrapped their arms around terrorism, who always have flown the flag of global jihad. Most recently, we saw the Imam Siraj Wahhaj. just days ago, Zohran Mamdani visited him, embraced him, and this is an unindicted co-conspirator of the World Trade Center blast in '92. And by the way, the only person that is ever taking on Imam Siraj Wahhaj, even after being an unindicted co-conspirator, was me. I got sued for $5 million by the Imam. It drained me for two years.

But does taking a photo with that Imam make Mamdani a global jihadist, a supporter of global jihad?

'If you embrace people who promote global jihadiism, what does that make you? And I go on the record as saying, hey look, I've got two young sons who are brought up Jewish. I'm telling you, they're afraid of you. They believe that you have fanned the flames of the growing anti-Semitism, that from being an arsonist he can't all of a sudden as a mayor become a firefighter and be accepted.

Yeah, I wanted to talk to you about that moment that was, you know, listening to you talk about your young kids who are Jewish. I wanted just to understand a little bit more about how they expressed that fear, that concern to you, about Mamdani, what about his positions or things he said that they then said to you, this creates fear in me to be a Jewish New Yorker? I'm just trying to understand their connection.

Well, first of all, I'm not a Jewish New Yorker, I'm the Gentile. Their mother is the Queen's DA, Melinda Katz.

Melinda Katz, yes.

Lifelong Democrat. And I would just say these are conversations that I've had with my children, their friends, their families. Look, if you're in New York City right now, you're aware that there are some Jews who support Zohran Mamdani, as I've told my Jewish friends, according, if believe the polls, 35, 40%. And there are some Jews who are afraid of what a Zohran Mamdani would do as a mayor. They are more reflective of the fear and fright that has accompanied the rise of Zohran Mamdani as the Democratic candidate running for mayor.

If indeed this race does not work out, and I know you're going run through the tape here, but if this doesn't work out and Mamdani wins this election, do you envision playing a role in trying to bring the city together around him to make him a successful mayor?

Well, number one, I won't do what Andrew Cuomo told his Medici billionaire friends in the Hamptons. Well, you know, if Zohran wins, I'm fleeing with you to Florida. Nah, I don't cut and run. I believe you improve, don't move. No, I will be part of the adversarial wing of making sure that Zohran Mamdani understands I can be his worst nightmare because I'll be over everything he does, everything he says that clearly is not in the best interest of New Yorkers. And that's what democracy is about and that's free speech is about. And my attitude has always been if you're worried about hate speech, no, the only antidote is more free speech. You need to have dialogue, people talking. I'm not going anywhere. I was born in New York. They tried to kill me in New York. I'll die in New York, I'll be buried in New York. I'm the only genuine New Yorker here running for mayor.

'My last question for you, you've made clear throughout this campaign, your complete opposition on policy positions and in personality from your opponents, Andrew Cuomo, Zohran Mamdani. I am wondering, though, is there something- you talked about Cuomo being sort of lackluster in energy at times or absent from the campaign trail- is there anything from the Mamdani primary victory, what he's been able to energize around young people in the city and the like, that you think is a positive for New York? Is there something that you see in his campaign or candidacy that you think deserves some credit?

Two years ago, TikTok was a red Chinese conspiracy to take over America, right? Then all of a sudden, Trump realized, oh, I could use TikTok. That's going to help me with millennials and Gen Zers, which it did. Males, not females. He actually won them over. He's been a master with TikTok, no doubt about it. So when I'm mayor, he can handle my social networking when it comes to my TikTok. There's nobody better than Zohran Mamdani. I'm not even going to try to compete. I'm of a different generation, that's not my lane.

Wow, I think that was news there. You're going to offer Mamdani the role of social media manager in your city hall.

Who's better than him, right? I mean, everybody gives him credit. Even Andrew goes, oh, I wasn't as good in social media. Let me tell you something. He's tried, you know, with all that AI, doesn't he look foolish? Doesn't he understand that he gets clicks because Millennials and Gen Zs just like laughing at him? Laughing, laughing. Because it's like grandpa who tries to hang out with the kids. Doesn't work out. Andrew, stay in your lane. Oh my God, you look like a fool. That's why you get so many clicks.

Curtis Sliwa, Republican nominee for mayor of New York City, thank you for spending some time with us. Stay safe on the campaign trail for the duration of this run.

Oh, anytime. I'm always there for you.

Thanks for listening to my conversation with New York City mayoral candidate, Republican Curtis Sliwa. That's all for this week, talk to you next Friday.