A week after actress and political activist Cynthia Nixon launched her campaign as a progressive challenger to New York’s Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo, the NYC native headed to the state capitol to talk corruption, inequality, and education.

“In New York City he puts on an entire Broadway show to parade around as a progressive Democrat leading the resistance, but in Albany he is deftly handing over power to the party of Donald Trump.”
—challenger Cynthia Nixon on Gov. Andrew Cuomo

Speaking on Monday about Cuomo’s 2010 campaign promise promise (pdf) to “Clean Up Albany,” Nixon said, “As most New Yorkers would tell you, he’s cleaned up Albany about as well as Donald Trump has drained the swamp.”

She not only attacked the governor’s lack of action on this front, but also denounced campaign donations and how powerful special interests influence the state’s politics, which she called “legalized bribery and corruption.”

“I have come to Albany mad as hell about Republicans, and I have come to Albany mad as hell about Democrats,” she said. “We just have to get big money out of politics,” she told reporters after the speech. “It’s completely subverting our democratic process.”

Nixon warned that Cuomo would soon do what he often does: “promise big, get some headlines, and ultimately hand over all the power to his buddies in the Republican Senate.”

While slamming the state’s budget progress and Cuomo’s priorities, Nixon, a long-time public education advocate, noted that “we have gross inequities across the system,” tying income inequality to flaws in the state’s public education system.

“The Cuomo budget does not value the lives of the majority of New York’s children,” Nixon asserted. “The Cuomo budget puts New York’s children at the back of the bus, while giving the best seats to millionaires and corporate freeloaders.”

Nixon, famous for playing Miranda Hobbes in “Sex and the City,” has been criticized because she is running for public office despite a career as an actress rather than a politician, but she accused Cuomo of being the real actor, masquerading as a progressive while scheming with Republican state lawmakers—a common critique of the governor.