ALBANY, N.Y. — Facing unprecedented political isolation, a defiant New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo insisted on Friday that he would not step down in the wake of sexual harassment allegations and condemned the expansive coalition of Democrats calling for his resignation as “reckless and dangerous.”
By day’s end, the three-term Democratic governor had lost the support of almost his state’s entire congressional delegation. None of the defections hurt more than those of New York’s two U.S. senators, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand.
“Due to the multiple, credible sexual harassment and misconduct allegations, it is clear that Governor Cuomo has lost the confidence of his governing partners and the people of New York,” the Democratic senators wrote in a joint statement. “Governor Cuomo should resign.”
Hours before the statement, Cuomo, a leading critic of former President Donald Trump’s coronavirus pandemic response, evoked the Republican in defending himself against “cancel culture.”
“I’m not going to resign,” Cuomo said during an afternoon phone call with reporters. “I did not do what has been alleged. Period.”
He added: “People know the difference between playing politics, bowing to cancel culture and the truth.”
The embattled governor’s comments came on the day his party in New York and beyond turned sharply against him following allegations of harassment as well as sweeping criticism of Cuomo for keeping secret how many nursing home residents died of COVID-19 for months.
Cuomo’s growing list of detractors now covers virtually every region in the state and the political power centers of New York City and Washington. A majority of Democrats in the state legislature and all but a handful of the state’s 29-member congressional delegation have called on him to step down.
The escalating political crisis jeopardizes Cuomo’s 2022 reelection in an overwhelmingly Democratic state, and threatens to cast a cloud over President Joe Biden’s early days in office. Republicans across the country have seized on the scandal to try to distract from Biden’s success with the pandemic and challenge his party’s well-established advantage with female voters.
The senators’ statement, which
cited the pandemic as a reason for
needing “sure and steady leadership,” came shortly after Schumer stood alongside Biden in a Rose Garden ceremony celebrating the passage of the Democrat-backed $1.9 trillion pandemic relief bill.
