New York Governor Andrew Cuomo on Friday confronted a stunning series of defections amid allegations of sexual harassment that left the high-profile Democrat fighting for his political survival, angry and alone.
By day’s end, the three-term governor had lost the support of almost the entire 29-member New York congressional delegation and a majority of Democrats in the state legislature.
None of the desertions hurt more than those of New York’s two US senators, US Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and US Senator Kirsten Gillibrand.
“Due to the multiple, credible sexual harassment and misconduct allegations, it is clear that Governor Cuomo has lost the confidence of his governing partners and the people of New York,” the senators wrote in a joint statement. “Governor Cuomo should resign.”
The escalating political crisis has spawned an impeachment inquiry in an overwhelmingly Democratic state, and threatens to cast a cloud over US President Joe Biden’s early days in office.
Republicans have seized on the scandal to try to distract from Biden’s success tackling the COVID-19 pandemic and challenge his party’s well-established advantage with female voters.
Biden, a long-time ally of Cuomo and his father, former New York Governor Mario Cuomo, has avoided directly addressing the controversy, although it is becoming increasingly difficult.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki on Friday declined to say whether Biden believes Cuomo should resign.
She said every woman who has come forth “deserves to have her voice heard, should be treated with respect and should be able to tell her story.”
The senators’ statement, which cited the pandemic as a reason for needing “sure and steady leadership,” came shortly after Schumer stood alongside Biden at a Rose Garden ceremony celebrating the passage of the Democrat-backed US$1.9 trillion coronavirus relief bill.
A defiant Cuomo earlier in the day said he would not step down and condemned his Democratic detractors as “reckless and dangerous.”
“I did not do what has been alleged. Period,” he said, before evoking a favorite grievance of former US president Donald Trump: “People know the difference between playing politics, bowing to cancel culture and the truth.”
Never before has the brash, 63-year-old Democratic governor, who had been expected to run for a fourth term next year, been more politically isolated.
Some in Cuomo’s party had already turned against him for his administration’s move to keep secret how many nursing home residents died of COVID-19 for months, and the latest wave of defections signaled a possible tipping point.
Cuomo’s coalition of critics has expanded geographically and politically, now covering virtually every region in the state and the political power centers of New York City and Washington.
Among them are US representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Sean Patrick Maloney and Brian Higgins, and a group of Long Island-based New York state lawmakers who had been Cuomo loyalists.
“The victims of sexual assault concern me more than politics or other narrow considerations, and I believe Governor Cuomo must step aside,” Maloney said.
Ocasio-Cortez, in a joint statement with US Representative Jamaal Bowman, said that after a new groping allegation against the governor, she was concerned about the safety and well-being of the governor’s staff.
“We believe these women,” they said.
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