Former NY Gov. Andrew Cuomo says Trump's hush money case should have 'never been brought'

Andrew Cuomo agreed the New York hush money case against Donald Trump was politically motivated.

The former Democratic New York Governor who was also Attorney General in the state from 2007-2010 said the charges would have never been brought if Trump wasn't running for president again.

'The Attorney General's case in New York, frankly, should have never been brought,' Cuomo said in an interview Friday on HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher.

'And if his name was not Donald Trump and if he wasn't running for president – I'm the former AG of New York – I'm telling you that case would've never been brought,' he added. 'That's what is offensive to people, and it should be because if there's anything left, it's belief in the justice system.'

The case was brought by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, and the Democrat has been accused by MAGA world of unfairly targeting Trump as the presumptive 2024 GOP nominee. 

Former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) said Friday that if Donald Trump wasn't running for president in 2024, the hush money case wouldn't have been brought against him

Trump was convicted last month by a Manhattan jury of 34 felonies related to a hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 election to keep quiet about their extramarital affair a decade earlier.

The former president still denies the affair and has pledged to appeal the case.

President Joe Biden and Trump are facing off Thursday in Atlanta on stage for their first debate of the 2024 general election.

Maher said in the interview with Cuomo that he agreed the particular case against Trump was never going to be something that could sink his campaign and felt it was a longshot to bring the charges against him.

'I was always with you on the one in New York, the hush money trial,' the night show host told Cuomo in a joint interview with former U.S. Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.). 'I don't think they should have brought that one.'

'It was just always going to look like a sex case and people were always just going to look at it that way,' he argued.

There are three other criminal cases against Trump with dozens of other felony charges. One case is in Florida and related to taking classified documents from the White House. The other two are related to election interference – one brought in Washington, D.C. and the other in Fulton County, Virginia.

'The trial in New York, the one he got convicted for, was the greatest fundraising bonanza ever,' Maher said in the Friday episode.

'He was lagging behind Biden and now he's pulled quite a bit ahead,' he continued. 'That trial was the greatest reason people had to send their checks for $ 5, $10, $25, to Donald Trump.'

And Maher isn't wrong.

HBO host Bill Maher agreed with Cuomo that the case against Trump was never going to sink his campaign and would only bolster his support ahead of November

Both self-reported fundraising figures as well as post-conviction poll numbers skyrocketed for Trump after he became a felon.

More than a quarter of voters (27 percent) said in a poll taken after the ruling that the conviction increases their likelihood of voting for Trump in November.

Cuomo says Americans are losing faith in democracy the more that it seems the justice system is getting involved with elections and deciding who and who cannot serve in public office.

'You want to talk about a threat to democracy – when you have this country believing you're playing politics with the justice system and you're trying to put people in jail or convict them for political reasons, then we have a real problem,' the former governor said.