The former New York governor surely misses those heady days when he was the mid-pandemic anti-Trump avatar. But there’s no coming back from his failures.
Disgraced former New York governor Andrew Cuomo thinks he is on a comeback tour. The three-term governor emerged from the political wilderness earlier this year following his resignation amid allegations of sexual misconduct, and he has devoted his reemergence to crafting a brand-new persona for himself. The new Andrew Cuomo is far less tolerant of progressivism’s radical conceits than the figure who spent a decade in the governor’s mansion had been. This curious attempt at reinvention has a purpose. According to the whisper campaign Cuomo’s allies are mounting, the personality makeover is a prelude to a run for New York City mayor. Given the corruption allegations engulfing Eric Adams’s administration and the informed speculation that the city’s Democratic primary voters are increasingly skeptical of left-wing utopianism and its advocates, Cuomo seems to think he has a shot.
At least, that’s what Cuomo is telling himself, and it’s surely what he’s hearing from the sycophants with whom he is likely surrounded. A story in Thursday’s New York Times provides only some evidence for why the Cuomo comeback narrative is the product of a deluded mind.
The Times begins with a reflection on Cuomo’s recent testimony before a closed-door session of the congressional subcommittee investigating the hash he made of his response to the pandemic. The story notes that Cuomo denied having any input on a State Health Department report that attempted to absolve his administration of responsibility for excess deaths in nursing homes — a result of a directive that forced senior-care facilities to accept admissions even if residents had just come from hospitals where Covid was present or could be carrying Covid themselves. It turns out that his denials weren’t strictly true.
Not only do emails reviewed by the Times indicate that Cuomo was aware of the document during its drafting process, he even provided his own input. “Mr. Cuomo apparently inserted language to underscore how ‘community spread among employees or possibly visitation by family and friends were relevant factors” that contributed to nursing home deaths,’” the Times revealed. “A week later, the report was released with some of Mr. Cuomo’s revisions included.”
Recall that this report was included as evidence of what New York attorney general Letitia James’s office indicated was a cover-up designed to prevent the public from learning that the death toll in nursing homes might have been as much as 55 percent higher than official estimates. The governor’s defenders bristled at the suggestion that Cuomo’s directive (one that was followed by the governors of neighboring states, too, with similarly disastrous results) produced unnecessary death. But the counterexamples presented by states that didn’t follow Cuomo’s protocol, like Florida, expose the gravity of New York’s error.
That was just one of the ways Cuomo bungled the pandemic response. A June 2020 Wall Street Journal investigation concluded that Cuomo’s public feud with former New York City mayor Bill de Blasio “contributed to an uncoordinated effort” between state and city officials in which communication broke down, and medical equipment in state stockpiles was found to be “faulty or inadequate” far too late. In an interview with ProPublica reporters, one city official characterized Albany’s approach to relations with their downstate counterparts as “radio silence.” Even by the summer of 2020, the report continued, “the city can’t always get basic data from the state, such as counts of ventilators at hospitals or nursing home staff.” It was “like they have been ordered not to talk to us,” that despondent city official lamented.
Cuomo spent the early phase of the outbreak downplaying its severity and arguing publicly with Donald Trump over the equipment he would need, only to transform into the most zealous prosecutor of draconian pandemic mitigation strategies. The point of both exercises was to establish a contrast with Trump, and the press ate it up. Because media and their Democratic constituents needed a mid-pandemic anti-Trump avatar, Cuomo fit the bill. He was lauded as “America’s governor,” an “articulate, consistent” figure with a “comforting manner.” More than a few prominent commentators in the period came out publicly as “Cuomo-sexual,” but it was all an exercise in overcompensation. Cuomo served as a useful foil to Trump. When he stopped being useful, he was compelled to abdicate his office.
Surely, the former governor misses the adulation he received in those heady days. And his staff are probably filling his head with the idea that his restoration to fame and power is right around the corner. They’re delusional. Cuomo long ago sacrificed the support of moderates and conservatives who resent the corruption he oversaw during the pandemic. Democrats forced him into resignation amid allegations that he had groped, kissed, and sexually harassed eleven women during his time in the governor’s mansion. This year, the Justice Department increased that total to 13. There’s no coming back from all that — not even in a city famous for second acts.