So far, President Biden has made only a passive remark about the crises that engulfed Governor Andrew M. Cuomo, and he seems to be hoping to prevent him from being drawn in further.
But as a longtime friend of the governor of New York, Mr. Bid one of the few people in the country with the potential for a long-standing disagreement between an increasingly isolated Mr. Cuomo and the rest of the Democratic Party. This has Mr. Biden’s efforts to stay firmly on the sidelines are tense as the governor faces a conspiracy of calls to resign.
Mr. Cuomo is facing an increasing number of allegations and investigations into sexual harassment, a toxic workplace, the manipulation of the number of deaths at nursing homes in New York and guaranteed loyalty tests of the governor’s vaccination tsar.
People Biden and Cuomo did not speak, people close to both men said. On Sunday night asked if Mr. Cuomo must resign, Mr. Biden only said, “I think the investigation is underway, and we need to see what it brings to us.”
The governor and his allies urged people to wait for the outcome of the inquiry to buy time, hoping to get Mr. To stabilize Cuomo’s support. And Mr. Biden tends to give him that time – at least for now.
But a long period of intra-parties over Mr. Cuomo’s future may for mr. Bid be problematic. It threatens to distract from his early initiatives, including mass vaccination efforts and the need for his party to sell to the public on the nearly $ 2 trillion stimulus package that Mr. Biden signed it last week.
The New York Times and Washington Post reported over the weekend that Larry Schwartz, the governor’s vaccinated tsar and a longtime lieutenant, tried to assess the loyalty of provincial governors to Cuomo during telephone conversations about the distribution of vaccines – and drew particular attention at the White House on Monday.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki said the reports were ‘worrying’ and that Mr. Schwartz is ‘inappropriate behavior’. “
The calls led to one executive officer filing a preliminary complaint with the Public Prosecutor’s Office at the Office of Public Integrity. Mr. Schwartz denied discussing vaccinations in a political context.
Me. Psaki insisted that the system have ‘controls’ to prevent the vaccine from being spread on the basis of favoritism.
On Tuesday, the White House will appeal weekly to the coronavirus with the National Governors Association, which Cuomo usually chairs the group. Mrs. Psaki said she expects Mr. Cuomo would join the call and say, “We leave it to him.”
Both the New York senators Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand, Mr. Cuomo appealed to resign last Friday along with most of the state’s Democratic congressional delegation. One factor in the timing for members of Congress who made their successive announcements was the desire not to Biden’s signing of the pandemic aid package did not overshadow, according to people involved in the discussions.
Mr. Cuomo was surprised by the statement of Ms. Gillibrand and Mr. Schumer; according to someone familiar with him, he believed earlier that day that they would not act.
The governor, however, flatly refused to consider resignation, questioning the motives of the women who accused him of sexual harassment and calling for a “cancel culture,” a popular Republican talk, when he dug in Friday.
“There is a task to be done, and New Yorkers have elected the governor to do it,” Richard Azzopardi, Cuomo’s senior adviser, said Monday. “He remains focused on the distribution of vaccines and a state budget that is payable over two weeks, and we are grateful for the help the White House has provided on both fronts.”
During the presidential campaign, Mr. Biden successfully avoids being dragged into controversies that are not directly related to him. But the bullying behavior that Mr. Cuomo is accused of violating the standard Biden has set for his own White House.
There are two investigations into the allegations of sexual harassment against Mr. Cuomo, one overseen by the Office of the Attorney General and the other by the State Assembly.
Mr. Biden and Cuomo took different paths when they were accused of inappropriate behavior. When Mr. Biden accused in 2020 of sexually assaulting a woman who had worked in his Senate office decades earlier, he denied her allegation but did not state her motives. Mr. Cuomo questioned the motivations of some of his accused.
A senior administration official said Biden’s desire to stay away was driven in part by his personal relationship with Cuomo and in part by pragmatism.
If he eventually gets involved in the case, Mr Biden’s options vary to encourage Cuomo to resign and ask him not to run again in 2022, as the governor has indicated he still intends to do so.
‘Biden has a long friendship with Cuomo, and I think he and [Nancy] Pelosi and others clearly hope that the situation will resolve itself through this investigation process, and they give him so much leash, but how reliable it will be over time is very doubtful, ” said David Axelrod, a former senior adviser. of President Barack, said. Obama.
Although it would be an extraordinary step for Mr. Asking to intervene, there are precedents for a Democratic president who finds himself in a confusing situation involving a governor of his own party. In 2009, Mr. Obama gave a message through intermediaries to the then government. David Paterson, that he wished he would not serve for a term again next year.
Mr. Paterson, caught up in constant controversy, has become an undesirable distraction for the Obama administration; he soon announced that he would not run again, and opened the way for mr. Cuomo to get started in 2010.
But there was a significant difference between Mr. Paterson and Mr. Cuomo: the numbers of mr. Paterson was gloomy, with 21 percent approval in June 2009, and threatened democratic hold on a seat for which a Republican, George Pataki, held three terms, until 2006.
Mr. Cuomo has much more support from his constituents. A new poll by Siena College on Monday showed that only 35 percent of New York voters want Mr. Cuomo should resign immediately (and only 25 percent of Democrats), though the poll was mostly done before the congressional demand that he quit.
Understand the scandals that challenge Governor Cuomo’s leadership
The three-term governor is facing two crises at the same time:
Support for mr. However, Cuomo has significantly defended himself from the peak of his coronavirus press meetings in the spring of 2020 – when he approved 71 percent – and even from February, when his approval among all voters was 56 percent in a survey at Siena College.
His current approval rating, 43 percent, is lower than his disapproval rating, 45 percent. Among Democrats, however, his support remains high, at 59 percent, the survey showed, and 61 percent among black voters.
Already, a majority of state lawmakers – and more than 40 percent of Democratic lawmakers in Albany – have called for Mr. Thank you Cuomo. The State Assembly has launched an indictment, and further than Mr. Biden, is the politician with the most control over Mr. Cuomo’s speaker, Carl E. Heastie, who will determine if and when he continues.
The accusation and removal of a governor is a serious undertaking, and Mr. Cuomo can hope this is too big a leap, not even for those who signed a letter to resign.
“To mention the bluff of the legislature on an indictment, he acknowledges that the indictment vote is very difficult for voters to vote for,” said Bakari Sellers, a former member of the House of Representatives in South Carolina. Mark Sanford in 2009. (Mr. Sanford was eventually convicted.)
“The state is on the verge of equalizing with Covid cash,” Mr. Sellers said. Better days ahead of voters. Keep going until you become everyone’s favorite bank. ”
Some members of Congress and their assistants were deterred by a statement made by the former senior member of the delegation, Representative Nita Lowey, of Westchester, in defense of Mr. Cuomo according to a person familiar with the matter. The members felt that Lowey was improperly used as a shield for Mr. Cuomo was “instrumentalized,” the person said, adding that while it was not the depressing event for other members to speak last Friday, it left an impression. .
According to another person familiar with the events, a member of the Cuomo family, prior to her statement to Ms. Lowey issued.
“It’s ridiculous,” she said. Lowey said. “I do not get used to such things.” She said she has known the Cuomos for decades since they were neighbors in Queens.
Mr. Biden and Cuomo have been relatively close over the past few years. In 2015, when Mr. Biden considered a later presidential election, they met in New York; although mr. Cuomo at the time formally supported Hillary Clinton, he said. Pray not discouraged from a White House career.
In 2018, when Mr. Cuomo faced a primary challenge from Cynthia Nixon, the actress and activist, Mr. Bid a full endorsement of mr. Cuomo presented at the New York Democratic Party convention.
Biden’s penchant for Cuomo does not necessarily extend to the staff level. The governor’s political operation with a sharp elbow has put many people in his way over the years.
Mr. Bid it mr. Cuomo tapped for a first speech on the first night of the Democratic convention last year at the height of the governor’s popularity. According to the people involved in the process, the pre-recorded speech, which Mr. Biden only mentioned by name at the end, addressed to the organizers of the event. they said the Cuomo team is one of the most difficult to work with in planning the four-day event.
Mr. Cuomo’s political operation also introduced a production bill that surpasses other similar videos; convention officials did not want to pay the full amount.