By Andrew Joseph Moore
It was not that long ago when the governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo, had everything going for him. He was seen as a leader during the President Trump administration for COVID-19 and even wrote a book titled “American Crisis: Leadership Lessons from the COVID-19 Pandemic.”
However, all of that has begun to crumble down as bombshell news regarding the undercounting his administration did about the amount of COVID-19 related nursing home deaths. The sexual assault claims from multiple women have also been coming out.
Looking back to Cuomo’s success, he was the individual one had to watch on TV regardless if one lived in New York or not. As Mike Kelly, a columnist for Northjersey, puts it:
Cuomo’s daily briefings were broadcast nationwide — and not just on the cable stations that were hungry for content. Often, the networks interrupted soap operas and game shows for Cuomo. Yes, other politicians, from Trump to New Jersey’s Gov. Phil Murphy, tried to grab airtime. But Cuomo locked in that crucial midday slot. No matter your status in life, many of us stopped our routines to listen to him, if only to feel some measure of hope in a moment when despair seemed rampant.
He was America’s governor, similar to how Rudy Giuliani was America’s mayor. With these success stories, Cuomo was ranking himself up within the Democratic Party, with some arguing that he should run for President.
With the information that is available now, however, many have questioned their comments about the governor, with multiple individuals — including both senators from New York, Chuck Schumer and Kristen Gillibrand — asking Cuomo to resign from office.
So now the question is: how did Andrew Cuomo get to this point?
It all starts with his decisions regarding COVID-19 and nursing homes. In March 2020, Governor Cuomo issued a controversial executive order that required nursing homes to accept patients cleared for discharge from a hospital even if the patient has tested positive for COVID-19. Following that order, nursing homes in New York saw 6,000 COVID-19 patients come into their facilities.
Jumping forward to June 2020, the Department of Health for New York drafted a report regarding the nursing home infections and deaths, in which reporters from the The New York Times found that officials within Cuomo’s administration purposely intervened so that the report would not include the total amount of deaths connected between nursing home patients and staff.
Things for Cuomo and his COVID-19 response started going downhill dramatically in August 2020 when The Associated Press reported that the total number of deaths in nursing homes could be 11,000; this is significantly higher than what New York State said at 6,600. Come late January 2021, the Attorney General of New York, Letitia James, issued a report regarding nursing homes and the COVID-19 pandemic, stating that New York is undercounting the number of deaths in nursing homes and long term care facilities as much as 50%.
And finally, in February, the FBI announced it was now investigating Cuomo’s handling of nursing homes during the pandemic. This is merely a snippet of everything that has taken place so far, but even this tiny snippet of information shows how much trouble Governor Cuomo is in, especially since members of his party are beginning to strip away his power. The state legislator has begun the process to take away his emergency powers.
If the handling of nursing homes was not bad enough for Governor Cuomo, he is currently being buried alive from multiple allegations of sexual assault, with the seventh accuser coming out recently. The first woman to come out was Lindsey Boylan, who, in a detailed accusation, mentioned that Andrew Cuomo put her in an uncomfortable circumstance in 2016.
Aaron Blake from The Washington Post reported that she said, in October 2017, “the governor suggested they play strip poker. And in 2018, she said, he gave her an unwanted kiss on the lips. Cuomo and his office have denied the details of the allegations but have called for an investigation.”
The second woman to come out, Charlotte Bennett, was also a former aid to the governor, and she detailed her experiences in a New York Times article. She reported that Cuomo, back in June of 2021, asked her multiple questions regarding her personal life, including a question mentioning if she has ever been sexual with an older man. Cuomo responded to this specific allegation by explaining that he makes jokes in poor taste; however, he never called for an investigation regarding this accusation.
The third woman, Anna Ruch, mentioned that she never met the governor before her experience with him, which included a photograph in which Cuomo put his hand on her bare lower back; she was also asked by the governor if he could kiss her while having his hands on her cheeks, back in September 2019.
Ana Liss is also a former aide to the governor and the fourth woman to accuse the governor. She explained that Cuomo asked her if she had a boyfriend, kissed her hand, greeted her with a hug and a kiss on both cheeks, and put his hand on her lower waist during a photo.
Karen Hilton, who worked for Andrew Cuomo in the 1990s while he was the federal housing secretary under Bill Clinton, stated that Cuomo gave her an overly long hug, which was intimate when he summoned her to his hotel room for a conversation that quickly changed from professional to personal.
As of this writing, a sixth woman anonymously reported that Cuomo touched her inappropriately at the governor’s mansion. The seventh woman, Jessica Bakeman, has very recently come forward stating that she had been harassed by Cuomo multiple times since the start of her journalism career in 2012.
Given the number of women who have come out against Andrew Cuomo, it would not be surprising if more did shortly. As for Cuomo, these allegations do not stop here. The Attorney General of New York has announced that she has appointed two lawyers to investigate the claims, and Republican lawmakers in the state are working toward impeaching the governor.
If there is a lesson to learn from this story, it is even the most beloved individuals of any society can have dark things haunting them, and as individuals, we need to be careful what we say about the people we praise, as it is always possible that one can find themselves retracting the statements that they have made.
