Assemblyman Eddie Gibbs, who just won his re-election bid in Harlem, is now catching heat for some nasty, post-victory remarks he directed at Rep. Jerry Nadler.
In a video taken after Gibbs’ win, the uptown pol can be seen referring to Nadler as “the old Jew man” and saying, “change his pampers later.”
The two Manhattan Democrats butted heads during Gibbs’ re-election run after Gibbs said Nadler, 77, endorsed him — a claim the longtime congressman subsequently denied.
Instead, Nadler formally backed Gibbs’ opponent, Xavier Santiago, a local TV producer.
Gibbs ultimately won the race. Afterward, he delved deeper into the controversy.
“Someone said it would be a bad thing to curse the old Jew man out during the election. Let’s start with Congressman Jerry Nadler,” Gibbs said in the widely circulated video.
“We had a joint press conference in the state building — him, I, Sen. [Kirsten] Gillibrand and state Sen. Cordell Cleare on cannabis,” he continued. “Clearly, we were all on the stage, camera rolling. One of the guys that’s running against me [is] sitting right there, so I’m a little bit pissed about that. So I say, ‘Congressman, this is the guy that’s running against me. I need your endorsement.’ He looked up and said, ‘Eddie, you’re doing a great job in Albany. You got it.'”
Gibbs then added that, “Jerry told me he endorsed me.”
“F— it, he can have his endorsement,” Gibbs then said. “Change his pampers later.”
Nadler responded by tarring Gibbs as a “disgrace,” a “liar” and an “anti-semite.”
“In addition to being a liar, we now know that Eddie Gibbs is a bigoted anti-semite,” the 17-term House lawmaker said. “He is a disgrace to the constituents he represents and the NYS Assembly.”
Gibbs, who was first elected to the statehouse in a January 2022 special election, is the first ex-con elected to the state legislature. In a statement to The News, he said he made a “poor choice” in his remarks about Nadler.
“While Congressman Nadler and I had fundamentally different recollections that impacted my campaign, I have the utmost respect for him and got carried away by my emotions following a bruising primary,” Gibbs said. “It was clearly a poor choice of words, and I will be more mindful moving forward.”
Nadler’s endorsement wasn’t the only one that sparked controversy during Gibbs’ run.
As first reported in The News, Gibbs’ re-election campaign sent out mailers to Harlemites touting support from pols such as Gov. Hochul, Lt. Gov. Antonio Delgado, U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries — even though none of them had formally endorsed him at the time.
Nadler’s name was also included in those mailers, which prompted a scathing rebuke after it became public.
“It’s outrageous that Gibbs is claiming that he was endorsed by me; neither I nor my office have any relationship to him. And in fact, I don’t believe I’ve even spoken to him in a number of years, if at all,” Nadler said in a statement to The News at the time. “Let me be clear: I wholeheartedly support Xavier Santiago for Assembly.”
In the video of Gibbs railing against Nadler, he also takes aim at Hochul — and gives a shout out to her predecessor, former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who did end up backing his run.
“Let’s go to Gov. Hochul — yeah, I’m going there,” Gibbs said in the video. “I’m not a politician. I’m a people-tician.”
In remarks first reported by Politico, Gibbs then added that Hochul told him: “We got you … We support you.”
“The news reporter asked her, ‘Hey, did you say you endorsed Eddie?’ And she said, ‘No, I didn’t say that this year.’ The governor played politics with me.”
Hochul’s camp did not immediately respond.
Gibbs then went on to praise Cuomo for donating, saying the former gov told him: “‘Hey, I don’t like how they’re beating on you, and I apologize for being absent all this long. I don’t know what I can do, but I’ve got moneys. And I want to give you moneys.'”
A rep for Cuomo, who’s recently been outspoken about anti-semitism, did not immediately respond when asked about Gibbs’ remarks.
