Mayor Zohran Mamdani is stepping up his role in Gov. Kathy Hochul’s reelection campaign, calling Republican challenger Bruce Blakeman a "bad apple" over Medicaid, child care, and ICE in a new video released Thursday.

Mamdani, who had already signaled plans to campaign for Hochul in the closing weeks of the governor’s race, also said Thursday that he expects to join Hochul on the campaign trail before Election Day on Nov. 3.

“I was excited to put together a video for the governor to make the case as to not only what her vision is and what her record has been on delivering for this city, but also the lack of a vision when it comes from her opponent Bruce Blakeman beyond that of trying to make working-class New Yorkers’ lives even harder than they already are,” Mamdani told reporters after appearing alongside Hochul at an affordable housing event in East New York.

“I’m looking forward to being out there with her on the trail in the weeks to come,” he added. The roughly one-minute video argues Blakeman would make life harder for working New Yorkers and strings together clips of the Nassau County executive discussing Medicaid, child care and his county’s cooperation with federal immigration authorities.

“There’s some politicians who want to make life better for everyone. And then, there’s Bruce Blakeman,” Mamdani says at the outset. On child care, the video revisits Blakeman’s criticism of providing subsidized care to parents who are not working. Blakeman has said he supports child-care tax credits for working families, but drew criticism earlier this year after describing a hypothetical unemployed parent receiving assistance as “some lazy ass who’s gonna sit on the couch and send their kids off to day care.”

“When it comes to your healthcare? Bruce doesn’t think a trillion dollars in cuts went far enough,” Mamdani says. The video then cuts to an earlier appearance in which Blakeman says: “We make sure we cut Medicaid in half.” The clip comes two days after Blakeman claimed during Tuesday night’s lone gubernatorial debate that he had never said he would cut Medicaid in half.

“Let me be clear. I never said that I would cut Medicaid in half,” Blakeman said during the debate. Hochul’s campaign seized on the earlier footage Thursday as evidence to challenge that denial.

In response to the video, Blakeman accused Hochul and Mamdani of making New York less affordable and defended the child-care remarks featured in the ad.

“I support universal childcare for working parents, but why would any common sense leader pay for childcare for someone who is not working?” Blakeman said in a statement. “That is not childcare; that is a dereliction of a parent’s responsibility to raise their children.”

Blakeman also criticized Hochul and Mamdani over taxes, utility costs and transit fares. He did not address the Medicaid clip featured in the ad or explain how it squared with his statement during Tuesday’s debate that he had never said he would cut Medicaid in half.

In the video, Mamdani also attacks Blakeman’s support for working with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, saying the Republican would “rather send that money to ICE, so they can kidnap your friends, family, and neighbors.”

The video follows that statement with several clips of Blakeman praising his relationship with the federal agency, including one in which he says, “ICE is doing an excellent job,” and another in which he says his administration’s relationship with ICE “has been a very successful relationship.”

Blakeman has made Nassau County’s cooperation with federal immigration authorities a central part of his public-safety pitch during the campaign and defended that approach during Tuesday’s debate.

The video also comes after Blakeman spent much of the campaign trying to make Mamdani’s relationship with Hochul a political liability for the governor.

Mamdani pushed back on that idea Wednesday, a day after Hochul and Blakeman faced off at NY1, when a reporter asked whether he viewed himself as an asset or liability to her campaign. “I think the work that we’re doing is an asset,” Mamdani said. He argued that Blakeman had waited until late in the debate to focus heavily on him because “it’s hard to attack universal child care for parents,” while also citing delivery worker back pay and city street repairs.