Always a bully

But Cuomo, a career-long bully of an almost cartoonishly thuggish nature, was bound to break character. By November, things were starting to fall apart, and an unforced error caused his nice guy house of cards to collapse.

New York City public schools had reopened in September, after two delays, on a very part-time basis. It was hardly a win for students or their parents, but New York City was the first major city to open its schools and so enjoyed some praise.

Trouble, however, was brewing. The deal Mayor Bill de Blasio had struck with the teachers union to open schools included the provision that schools would close if the city’s positivity rate hit 3% across a seven-day rolling average. By mid-November, New York City was edging closer to that rate.

That Wednesday, the mayor was scheduled to hold a press conference at 10 a.m. Reporters were ready, and New York City parents braced for the worst. But the mayor didn’t show. The 11 o’clock hour came and went. At 1:30 p.m., Cuomo began his own press conference. In his roll call of positivity rates, Cuomo noted: “New York City yesterday, 2.9; their seven-day rolling average, 2.5.”

Ah, so schools wouldn’t close. How could they? Here was the governor who, in April, had barked, “He didn’t close them, and he can’t open them,” at the suggestion it was up to the mayor. Cuomo was in charge.

Then, Cuomo moved into equating numbers with colors, and things got confusing. “Yellow is 2.5, orange is at 3,” Cuomo said. “New York City could go to an orange zone if it hits 3%. You’re at 2.5, what comes after 2.5? 2.6 — I know, if you’re a wise guy. Three is the next demarcation to become an orange zone. What happens at 3%? Houses of worship, mass gatherings, business restrictions, dining restrictions, schools close.”

For a man who had won an Emmy Award for his communication throughout the pandemic, Cuomo was often painfully unclear.

That mid-November day, though, Jimmy Vielkind of the Wall Street Journal asked him to clarify what was going on with schools. The mayor was still nowhere to be found, and the governor was presenting information that seemed at odds with what people were preparing to hear from the mayor. Vielkind asked, “So, what’s going on? Does the city still have the ability to close its schools? Are you now taking control and saying that you have the power to make this decision? And for the millions of parents who want to know, are the schools gonna open tomorrow in New York City?”

Cuomo lost it.

“First of all, let’s try not to be obnoxious and offensive in your tone,” Cuomo began in response. “Because, you’re 100% wrong.” It was unclear what Vielkind could have been wrong about since he hadn’t alleged anything. His tone, while certainly questioning, was entirely typical for a reporter seeking answers from a politician.

Cuomo then said, “These laws have all been in effect for months.” No new legislation had been introduced to deal with schools, so Cuomo was certainly referring to his own guidelines and not actual laws. He accused Vielkind, twice, of not paying attention when the “orange zone law,” again, not an actual law, was introduced the month prior.

Cuomo continued his rambling about colored zones and closing schools for several minutes, angry and not making sense, yelling and berating the reporter to “follow the facts.” Vielkind shot back that he was still confused, and Cuomo yelled, “Then you’re confused!” When Vielkind pointed out parents were confused as well, Cuomo puffed up his chest and said, “They’re not confused, you’re confused. Read the law, read the law and you won’t be confused.”

New York Times reporter Jesse McKinley jumped in to ask, “Are the schools going to be open tomorrow?” Cuomo continued his intense, wild rant. “The schools … are open. By state law.” McKinley said he didn’t think Vielkind’s question was obnoxious at all. “Well, I don’t really care what you think. Of course you agree with him, because you’re in the same business with him.” McKinley and Cuomo continued shouting at each other.

At 3 p.m., five hours after his press conference was set to begin, de Blasio took the stage and closed New York City schools. Cuomo’s rambling, angry press conference exposed more than just the bully behind the golden image. It showed a control freak with no control.

To the millions who’d watched the comedy routine of Cuomo being interviewed by his CNN host brother Chris, in which they’d stage sibling arguments and use props to turn COVID-19 into source material, this might have seemed out of character. But, in fact, it’s the only version of Andrew Cuomo that has ever existed, especially to reporters, politicians, and anyone who has had the displeasure of knowing the governor in any professional capacity whatsoever.

In mid-December, Lindsey Boylan, a former aide to Cuomo, and candidate for Manhattan Borough president, tweeted that she was sexually harassed by the governor while working for him. Two months later, she wrote a piece for the website Medium that would elaborate on her accusations. Six other women would then come forward with their own stories of a governor who didn’t know the line and didn’t care when he crossed it.

On Jan. 28, New York Attorney General Letitia James released a report accusing the Cuomo administration of undercounting the nursing home death total. Since the Cuomo administration ordered nursing homes to accept COVID-19 patients, accelerating the spread of the deadly virus among the state’s vulnerable population, the attorney general’s report raised the explicit specter of a cover-up.

Yet, the fact that the numbers were fudged had been obvious for months. New York didn’t count deaths of nursing home residents unless they actually died in the nursing home. If they died in the ambulance or hospital or anywhere else, they didn’t enter the count.

It was an open secret that the numbers were a mess.

In May, Betsy McCaughey, former lieutenant governor of New York under Gov. George Pataki, alleged in the New York Post that “COVID-19 has killed at least 11,000 to 12,000 nursing-home and assisted-living residents in New York, nearly double what the state admits to.” The attorney general report indicates exactly those totals. An independent count by the Associated Press in May found that over 4,300 COVID-19-positive patients were reintroduced into nursing homes. That number was revised to 9,000 in February.

In February, the Cuomo administration finally apologized for hiding the nursing home numbers — but only to Democratic lawmakers in New York. Cuomo’s senior adviser Melissa DeRosa had a call with Democratic politicians in which she said, “So, we do apologize. I do understand the position that you were put in. I know that it is not fair. It was not our intention to put you in that political position with the Republicans.”

The calculating coldness of her comments, that they were sorry for hiding nursing home deaths only because it put their colleagues in a tough political position, was noxious even to their fellow Democrats on the call. Several immediately rebuffed the apology. Among them was Assemblyman Ron Kim of Queens, who had lost a family member in an affected nursing home.

That callous tone comes from the top and exposes the rot running through the Cuomo administration. During a press conference following James’s report, Cuomo ranted, “Who cares if they died in the hospital, died in a nursing home? They died.”

Fox News meteorologist Janice Dean has been an outspoken critic of Cuomo’s nursing home policies since the spring. Dean had been calling for an investigation into Cuomo’s March 25 order requiring nursing homes to readmit COVID-19-positive patients returning from the hospital. Dean had lost both of her in-laws in New York nursing homes.

In January, Cuomo aide Rich Azzopardi, who proudly notes in his Twitter bio that he has been called “Andrew Cuomo’s bulldog spokesman,” said that Dean is “not a credible source on anything except maybe the weather.” That poisonous rhetoric, toward a family member seeking answers about her loved one’s death, comes straight from the top.

In response to Assemblyman Kim’s comments, Cuomo publicly accused Kim of taking bribes from nail salons. “I believe that Mr. Kim acted unethically, if not illegally, on that matter. I do believe he has a continuing racket where he raises money from [nail salon owners].” Cuomo, in free fall, resorted to his first language: threats.

Kim says he received a threatening phone call from the governor demanding he retract his statements. After Kim refused, the dam broke, and many others started reporting threatening phone calls they’ve received from the governor or members of his administration. McKinley and Luis Ferré-Sadurní reported in the New York Times that Cuomo “once threatened to end the career of a staffer who failed to properly transfer a call to his office, according to one person who worked for him and requested anonymity for fear of retribution. He has been known to refer to his top female aides as the ‘mean girls,’ said the person, who described the governor’s office as toxic and controlling.”

“Those who work in the halls of the Capitol say the governor’s conduct has an additional impact: scaring some employees into near paralysis for fear of earning his wrath,” they continued. “Many of the tactics involve a threat to hurt people’s careers.”

The problem is that Cuomo’s behavior wasn’t an open secret — it wasn’t a secret at all.

“This is who he has always been,” Rebecca Katz, a progressive political consultant, told the paper.

Few are happier to discuss it than de Blasio, who had spent the last year being abused publicly by the governor. “That’s classic Andrew Cuomo,” de Blasio told MSNBC. “A lot of people in New York state have received those phone calls. The bullying is nothing new.”

Kim has made a further accusation, that Cuomo’s nursing home death cover-up is the tip of the iceberg of the scandal. “On March 25th, the governor issued an executive order that sent COVID-19 positive patients into unprepared nursing homes. At the same time, he surreptitiously slipped legal immunity into our state budget bill for hospital executives and for-profit nursing homes at the request of powerful lobbyists like the Greater New York Hospital Association — a group that donated $1.25 million towards his campaign. All while his administration lied about the data.”

This kind of corruption allegation will only sound shocking to those new to Cuomoworld. In 2012, Cuomo announced the Buffalo Billion project, an infusion of investment cash into Buffalo, during his State of the State address. By 2016, a federal grand jury had indicted Cuomo’s top aide Joseph Percoco on charges of bribery connected to the Buffalo scheme. Percoco was convicted in 2018. Others tied to the project have also been convicted. Cuomo was forced to return over half a million dollars in campaign contributions from people involved in Buffalo Billion.

In 2013, Cuomo appointed the Moreland Commission on Public Corruption to investigate political corruption throughout New York state. He mostly staffed it with his friends. The first commission investigated a Long Island power company in the wake of Hurricane Sandy. “Its executive director was Regina M. Calcaterra, a longtime associate of Mr. Cuomo’s most senior aide, Lawrence S. Schwartz,” according to the New York Times.

Members of the commission reported receiving phone calls from Schwartz, imploring them to make findings in line with Cuomo’s prescriptions.

Not much has changed. Earlier this month, Schwartz, who is currently New York’s vaccine czar, called Democratic county executives to see if they were on the governor’s side. Many took the message to mean: Side with the governor, or your county might be delayed in getting the vaccine.

When the second Moreland Commission turned to investigating Cuomo’s allies, Cuomo quickly shut it down. That led to an investigation by then-U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara. Cuomo’s ability to get what he wants has long been enhanced by his authoritarian way of shutting down any consequences for his actions and punishing only those who try to bring accountability.

The new scandal on the horizon involves a bridge named after Cuomo’s father, the former governor. The Mario M. Cuomo Bridge replaced the Tappan Zee Bridge in 2017 at a cost of $3.9 billion. A new report alleges that the New York Thruway Authority was aware of structural problems with the bridge. The New York Post editorial board asks the obvious question of how anyone can trust anything the Cuomo administration says or does at this point.

Cuomo is who he always was. The lies, the bullying, and the incessant cover-ups have been part of the Cuomo administration for years. The current unraveling might have begun with a bad press conference in November, but the stories had been there all along to discover if a compliant media had done a better job investigating a popular governor riding on his high approval ratings. The governor of the state with the most COVID-19 deaths by population produced a poster, a sculpture, and ultimately a book on leadership touting his own success, a book that reportedly fetched a seven-figure advance, and few in the press questioned it. His administration has admitted to staggering corruption in hiding the nursing home deaths and has forcefully targeted anyone who dared criticize it. There are seven women who say he sexually harassed them.

Andrew Cuomo isn’t a gregarious, even-keeled, data-driven public servant. He just played one on TV.

Karol Markowicz is a New York Post columnist and a Washington Examiner contributing writer.