After first speaking the truth, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo was quick to correct his temporary lapse two days later to tow the national Democrat Party line by backing the impeachment of President Donald Trump in 2019. A couple of years later, it’s Cuomo facing impeachment by the New York Assembly.
Cuomo had been used to dictating the state party line, often bullying fellow Democrat legislators while ignoring Republicans, and now finds himself far less likely to survive an impeachment than Trump. As noted in “Abuse of Power: Inside the Three-Year Campaign to Impeach Donald Trump,” the ultimate political outsider that came into office despite a lack of support from the core of Republican insiders, built a coalition. Cuomo, the ultimate political insider, and second-generation governor, all but tried to alienate his party’s base over the years.
The third president to be impeached and the likely second impeached Empire State governor may both be arrogant New Yorkers, born into privilege, with an aggressive governing style that can rub folks the wrong way. Comparisons mostly end there.
The New York Assembly’s Judiciary Committee has been looking into possible impeachment for months, but may likely have the boost it needs to move quickly after the new report from the state attorney general’s office concluding the three-term governor engaged in sexual harassment.
This comes after a year-long victory lap, media adulation, and a primetime speaking slot on the opening night of the 2020 Democratic National Convention, all casting Cuomo as a hero of the COVID-19 response compared to the menacing Trump’s failures.
That bubble burst as Trump’s policies produced expedited vaccines. Cuomo’s policies produced good made-for-TV press conferences and a $5.1 million book deal on the non-substantive side. But on the substantive side the governor only produced large-scale deaths along with misleading lawmakers about those deaths.
Though, the harassment allegations, with a legal finding to back it up, seem to have taken precedent as the focal point of impeachment.
So it is that the impeachment Cuomo faces is on far more substantive grounds than at least the first Trump impeachment.
In 2019, having come up short in the Russia probe, Democrats used tortured logic to cling to Trump’s phone call with the Ukrainian president as an impeachable offense. After failing to make any credible argument the call was bribery or extortion, House Democrats settled on “abuse of power” and “obstruction of Congress”—neither of which are actual statutes.
During a forum on bipartisanship that September in Newark, Cuomo joined former Republican New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, where the New York governor said, “Speaker Pelosi was dealing with pressure from her caucus and when you talk about pressure from the left, there is a highly leftist component to the Democratic Party that she was feeling pressure for.”
On this point, Cuomo was accurate in 2019. As “Abuse of Power” details based on numerous interviews from Capitol Hill, Pelosi was, in fact, reluctant to move on impeachment, but hardliners in her caucus pressured her to the point of a profound leadership collapse. After partisan outrage over his referring to “leftists” pushing impeachment, the governor’s spokesperson went all in for impeaching Trump, with a statement that Pelosi “must proceed with an impeachment investigation as a matter of constitutional duty.”
It was a rare instance of Cuomo being cajoled into saying anything. By 2020, he was in full-fledged Trump-bashing mode as he basked in his glory, was mentioned as a potential Joe Biden running mate and hyped for 2024.
Trump won the Republican presidential nomination in 2016 despite opposition from both the conservative base and the establishment that rarely agree. He came into office with much of his party skeptical. But Trump’s moves on federal judges and deregulation along with counter-reaction to the hair-on-fire opposition from Democrats led to the 45th president having his party’s almost full support. Despite the attitude, and not being a doctrinaire conservative, the consummate businessman realized who he should work with to get things done—and survive enemy arrows.
Cuomo never thought there would be sufficient arrows and didn’t treat his allies all that differently from his opponents. He made the New York state government about him and disrespected those who didn’t come along. Now, it’s catching up to him.
Trump’s enemies set out to impeach him even before his inauguration. A Cuomo impeachment never seemed realistic until 2021. No one thought the numbers were there to remove Trump. But, nearly every Democratic leader in New York politics and major national Democrat has called for Cuomo to resign. A Marist poll said almost 60 percent want him to resign or be impeached. A Cuomo removal seems highly plausible if he doesn’t resign.
By no means did Trump leave the presidency on a good note, having been impeached again. After his party united around him during his presidency, he sort of left office the way he came in—with a divided GOP. And divided over him. But, he still has much of his party base behind him.
Cuomo appears poised to leave office in a disgraced matter with no public support behind him.