14 Reasons New Yorkers Should Tell Andrew Cuomo “No Means No”

Andrew Cuomo has decided to run for Mayor of New York City, joining the ranks of such illustrious
 figures as Elliot Spitzer and Anthony Weiner in running for municipal office to cleanse themselves of their disgrace. New Yorkers rejected Spitzer and Weiner; here are 14 reasons why they should reject Cuomo, too.

1) In the early weeks of the pandemic, Cuomo forced COVID positive patients back into nursing homes, resulting in the deaths over 12,000 seniors. Cuomo’s administration then deliberately underreported and undercounted COVID-19 nursing home deaths by as much as 50 percent. At what he himself called the “half-time” of the COVID-19 pandemic, Cuomo used taxpayer-funded staff and resources to write a book touting his performance.

Cuomo later called a Democratic assemblymember who criticized his coverup of the COVID-19 nursing home deaths and threatened to “destroy” him.

2) While governor, Cuomo sexually harassed 13 women while in office. Cuomo ordered the State Police transfer a trooper to his protective detail, a position she did not meet the minimum standards for, forcing the State Police to lower the minimum qualifications to comply with his transfer order. Cuomo then sexually harassed the female officer once she joined his detail, running his hand over her stomach, down her back, and kissing her. Before announcing his run for Mayor, Cuomo released an utterly tone-deaf Valentine’s Day video showing him holding a rose and hugging women. It’s clear he has learned nothing.

Cuomo tried to spin his sexual harassment accusations by blaming “cultural shifts,” or as everyone else heard it, being Italian.

Now Cuomo is terrorizing the victims of his sexual assaults by suing them. Cuomo has sued to force the state attorney general to release the investigation’s witness interviews. He even went so far as subpoenaing the gynecological records of one of his victims. Cuomo has also called for the state Supreme Court to investigate the attorney general who investigated him.

3) After defeating his Working Families Party backed primary challenger in 2014, the WFP decided to endorse Cuomo. After hearing the phrasing of their endorsement in which they said to their members Cuomo was “better than a Republican,” Cuomo threatened to publicly say the party’s leader  was “better than a child rapist.”

4) Cuomo only moved back to NYC a year ago. Cuomo literally moved into his daughter’s condo, forcing her into a “several months” long search for a new apartment. His neighbors report only having seen him a few times.

5) In mid-2013, Cuomo established a commission to investigate public corruption, which he immediately touted in a TV ad. Cuomo vowed the commission would be independent. Eight months later, though he abruptly ended the commission as soon as its focus drifted towards groups in his orbit. The New York Times found Cuomo’s office had objected any time the commission’s focus went to groups tied to him or on issues which might make him look bad. Commission investigators even suspected a Cuomo appointee was secretly monitoring their communications.

6) As governor, Cuomo’s office was characterized by a climate of threats and intimidation. A former consultant described Cuomo’s primary governing tool as fear. Cuomo once threatened to destroy the career of a staffer because a call did not get properly transferred. He once banished a state trooper on his protective detail to the Canadian border after finding his adult daughter told him she had started a relationship with the trooper.

Cuomo also repeatedly engaged in “pissing matches” with NYC officials while governor. It’s hard to imagine things will be different when the roles are reversed. Especially a Cuomo, who may have reason to feel vindictive towards those in Albany.

7) In 2017, while he was governor, the New York subway went through its Summer of Hell with 70,000 delays a month. The New York subway is managed by the state-run Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), which blew $106 million on decorative lighting for a bridge between Brooklyn and Queens during the infamous summer.

Instead of spending money to fix the subway in 2016, Cuomo ordered the MTA to spend $30 million ordering yellow and blue tiles for the subway instead of using already purchased brand new white tiles. After all, what could be more important than the color of the tiles people see as their train speeds through underground tunnels? It certainly wasn’t the decrepit signaling system, decades-old trains, or the crumbling stations. The “Summer of Hell” began just months later.  

8) Under Cuomo, New York spent $8 million on 500 plus “I Love NY” signs to place alongside state highways, despite already knowing the signs were illegal and posed a dangerous distraction to drivers. The state chose to risk millions in federal transportation funding anyway. The state eventually had to remove about 400 of the signs throughout the state.

9) Also on his watch, homelessness surged in NYC by 35% from March 2011 to December 2013. Could it possibly be related to the $65 million Cuomo cut in rental assistance funding or the $27 million in lost federal funding that resulted? The lost funding forced the city to eliminate the program and New York found itself with 16,000 more homeless.

10) When his father ran for mayor in 1977 against a candidate long rumored to be gay, Cuomo allegedly put up signs in Queens saying “Vote for Cuomo, not the Homo.”

11) Because 17 agonizing minutes is way too long for an announcement video. They’re supposed to be a trailer for your campaign, not a one-man Netflix special.

12) Cuomo has already spent close to 15 years in elected office, as noted when he filed for a $50,000 per year retirement pension from New York state.

13) No one should ever again have to see a $400 sweater with “Cuomosexual” stitched on it again.

14) Andrew Cuomo: “Look, whether a person died in a hospital or died in a nursing home, the people died. . . . Who cares?”

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