Curtis Sliwa, on WABC/770, lays into his NYC mayoral rivals Cuomo, Mamdani

Facing pressure from some conservatives to drop out of the three-way race for New York City mayor to benefit independent Andrew M. Cuomo, Republican Curtis Sliwa said in a radio appearance Wednesday he would rather be impaled than take a job in a hypothetical Cuomo mayoralty.

Sliwa said that he saw little difference between Cuomo and the man who is leading the race, democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani: "To me, they’re the same." His vision for the city contrasted with theirs, Sliwa said. "I’m fighting for law and order."

He also said, in the interview with host Sid Rosenberg on WABC/777, that he had been "bribed by the billionaires to drop out," that he feared for his and his wife’s safety and that he would never return to 77 WABC, which, until Sliwa declared his candidacy last spring, had employed him as host of "The Curtis Sliwa Show."

His vow came after station owner and billionaire John Catsamatidis urged him to leave the race. Because of the purported backstabbing by colleagues at the station, Sliwa said, "You will never see me, ever, in the studios of WABC again ... no matter how this election turns out."

At another point in the interview, conducted the morning before the second mayoral debate, Rosenberg suggested that his guest’s "hatred for Cuomo enveloped you to the point where I think you’re losing sight of who you’re running against ... You have to leapfrog Cuomo to beat the guy in first."

Hours after the show wrapped, Catsamatidis, speaking to reporters, said he’d had dinner with President Donald Trump and the president told him he’d rather have a Democrat than a "communist" leading the city.

Catsamatidis said that Sliwa had "a rough morning" and was "welcome to work here for a long time to come."

In a statement Wednesday, Sliwa’s campaign said that he "quit/resigned from WABC in February in compliance with the Campaign Finance Board and to campaign full-time. He is fully focused on winning this race and wants the voters, not the billionaires and professional politicians, to decide on November 4th."

By Nicholas Spangler

nicholas.spangler@newsday.comspanglernewsday

Nicholas Spangler is a general assignment reporter and has worked at Newsday since 2010.