Gov. Cuomo defiant as wave of lawmakers calls for him to resign
ALBANY, N.Y. >> Facing unprecedented political isolation, a defiant New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo insisted on Friday that he would not step down in the wake of sexual harassment allegations and condemned the sprawling coalition of Democrats calling for his resignation as “reckless and dangerous.”
The third-term Democratic governor, a leading critic of former President Donald Trump’s pandemic response, evoked the Republican in defending himself against “cancel culture.”
“I’m not going to resign,” Cuomo said during an afternoon phone call with reporters. “I did not do what has been alleged. Period.”
He added: “People know the difference between playing politics, bowing to cancel culture and the truth.”
The embattled governor’s comments came on the day his party in New York and beyond turned sharply against him following allegations of harassment as
well as sweeping criticism of Cuomo for keeping secret how many nursing home residents died of COVID-19 for months.
Cuomo’s growing list of detractors now covers virtually every region in the state and the political power centers of New York City and Washington. A majority of Democrats in the state legislature and 21 of the state’s 27 U.S. House members have called on him to step down.
The escalating political
crisis jeopardizes Cuomo’s 2022 reelection in an overwhelmingly Democratic state, and threatens to cast a cloud over President Joe Biden’s early days in office. Republicans across the country have seized on the scandal to try to distract from Biden’s success with the pandemic and challenge his party’s well-established advantage with female voters.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, declined to comment Friday on Cuomo’s crisis, but stood alongside Biden in a Rose Garden ceremony celebrating the passage of the Democratbacked $1.9 trillion pandemic relief bill.
Hours earlier, White House press secretary Jen Psaki declined to say whether President Biden believes Cuomo should resign. She said every woman who has come forth about harassment by the New York governor “deserves to have her voice heard, should be treated with respect and should be able to tell her story.”
Dozens of Democrats had already called on Cuomo to resign this week, but the coalition of critics expanded geographically and politically on Friday to include the likes of New York City progressive Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez; the leader of the House Democratic campaign arm, Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney; Buffalo-based Rep. Brian Higgins; and a group of Long Island-based state lawmakers who had been loyal Cuomo allies.