So far, President Biden has only made a brief comment on the crises that have gripped Governor Andrew M. Cuomo, and he seems to be hoping he won’t be dragged further into it.
But as a longtime friend of the New York governor, Mr. Biden is one of the few people in the nation who has the potential to prevent a protracted stalemate between an increasingly isolated Mr. Cuomo and the rest of the Democratic Party. This has weighed on Mr. Biden’s efforts to stay firmly on the sidelines as the governor faces a plethora of calls for resignation.
Mr. Cuomo faces a number of allegations and investigations into sexual harassment, a toxic workplace, manipulation of the death toll in New York nursing homes, and perceived loyalty tests by the governor’s vaccine tsar.
Mr. Biden and Mr. Cuomo didn’t speak, said people close to the two men. When asked on Sunday evening whether Mr Cuomo should resign, Mr Biden simply said, “I think the investigation is ongoing and we should see what it brings us.”
The governor and his allies have urged people to wait for the results of the investigation to buy time in hopes of stabilizing Mr Cuomo’s support. And Mr. Biden seems inclined to give him that time – at least for now.
But a long period of internal party sparring about Mr Cuomo’s future could be problematic for Mr Biden. It threatens to detract from his early initiatives, including mass vaccination efforts and his party’s need to sell to the public through the nearly $ 2 trillion stimulus package Mr Biden put into law last week.
The New York Times and Washington Post reported over the weekend that Larry Schwartz, the governor’s vaccine czar and longtime lieutenant, tried to assess the loyalty of county executives to Mr. Cuomo when making phone calls about vaccine distribution – which caught the attention of the county Whites attracted home on Monday.
Jen Psaki, White House press secretary, said the reports were “worrying” and that Mr. Schwartz’s calls were “inappropriate reported conduct”.
The calls prompted an executive to file a preliminary complaint with the Public Integrity Office of the Attorney General’s Office. Mr Schwartz denied discussing vaccines in a political context.
Ms. Psaki insisted that the system run “checks” to prevent the vaccine from being distributed based on his preference.
On Tuesday, the White House will hold its weekly coronavirus call to the National Governors Association, which Mr. Cuomo normally heads as the group’s chairman. Ms. Psaki said she expected Mr. Cuomo to join the call, adding, “We’ll leave that up to him.”
New York Senators, Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand, called on Mr. Cuomo last Friday to resign along with most of the state’s Democratic Congress delegations. One factor in the timing of members of Congress, who made their announcements in quick succession, was a desire not to overshadow Mr Biden’s signing of the pandemic relief package, according to those involved in the discussions.
Mr. Cuomo was surprised at what Ms. Gillibrand and Mr. Schumer said; He had believed earlier that day that they would not join the calls against him, someone familiar with his thinking.
Even so, the governor flatly refused to consider resigning while questioning the motives of the women who accused him of sexual harassment and invoking “cancel culture,” a popular Republican topic of conversation when he met on Friday deepened.
“There is a job to be done and the New Yorkers have elected the governor to do it,” Richard Azzopardi, a senior adviser to Mr. Cuomo, said Monday. “He remains focused on vaccine distribution and a state budget due in two weeks, and we are grateful for the help the White House has provided on both fronts.”
During the presidential campaign, Mr Biden successfully avoided getting involved in controversies that were not directly related to him. But the bullying behavior that Mr Cuomo has been accused of is contrary to the standard that Mr Biden has set for his own White House.
There are two inquiries into the sexual harassment allegations against Mr Cuomo, one by the Attorney General and one by the State Assembly.
Mr Biden and Mr Cuomo went different ways when charged with improper conduct. When Mr Biden was charged with sexual assault in 2020 by a woman who had worked in his Senate office decades earlier, he denied her allegation but did not deny her motives. Mr Cuomo has questioned the motives of some of his accusers.
A senior administration official said Mr Biden’s desire to stay away was partly due to his personal relationship with Mr Cuomo and partly due to pragmatism.
Should he at some point be drawn into the matter, Mr Biden’s options range from encouraging Mr Cuomo to step down to asking not to run for office again in 2022, as the governor has indicated he still intends to do.
“Biden has a long friendship with Cuomo, and I think he and [Nancy] Pelosi and others clearly hope that this investigative process will resolve the situation on its own and they are giving him so much leash, but how tenable that will be over time is very questionable, ”said David Axelrod, former senior advisor to President Barack Obama.
While it would be an extraordinary move for Mr Biden to step in, there is a precedent for a Democratic president to get into a chaotic situation involving a New York governor of his own party. In 2009, Mr. Obama sent the then administration a message through intermediaries. David Paterson that he did not want him to run for another term the following year.
Mr. Paterson, embroiled in constant controversy, had become an undesirable distraction for the Obama administration; He soon announced that he would no longer run and paved the way for Mr. Cuomo for 2010.
There was one significant difference, however, between Mr Paterson and Mr Cuomo: Mr Paterson’s polling numbers were dismal, with a 21 percent approval rating in June 2009, threatening Democratic influence over a seat that a Republican, George Pataki, held three terms to 2006.
Mr Cuomo has much stronger support from his electorate. A new poll at Siena College on Monday found that only 35 percent of New York voters want an immediate resignation from Mr Cuomo (and only 25 percent of Democrats), although the poll was largely conducted before the wave of congressional demands for his exit .
Understand the scandals that challenge Governor Cuomo’s leadership
The three-time governor faces two crises at the same time:
Still, support for Mr Cuomo has waned significantly with the highs of his coronavirus press conferences in the spring of 2020 – when he hit 71 percent approval – and even from February when his approval of all voters was 56 percent in a Siena College poll .
His current approval rate of 43 percent is lower than his disapproval rate of 45 percent. However, his support is still high among the Democrats: 59 percent and 61 percent among the black voters.
A majority of state legislators – and more than 40 percent of Albany’s democratic legislators – have already called for Mr. Cuomo’s resignation. The State Assembly has launched an impeachment investigation, and alongside Mr. Biden, the politician with the greatest control over the fate of Mr. Cuomo is the assembly spokesman, Carl E. Heastie, who will decide if and when to proceed.
Charging and removing a governor is a serious endeavor, and Mr Cuomo can hope that it is too big a leap even for those who have signed a letter demanding his resignation.
“He cites the legislature’s bluff on an impeachment vote and recognizes that casting an impeachment vote is a tough vote for many,” said Bakari Sellers, a former South Carolina House member responsible for the impeachment of the then government voted. Mark Sanford in 2009. (Mr. Sanford was eventually censored.)
“The state is about to flush with Covid cash,” Sellers said. “Better days for voters. Wait until you become everyone’s favorite bank. “
Some members of Congress and their aides were deterred by a statement made in defense of Mr. Cuomo by former senior delegation Representative Nita Lowey of Westchester, according to a person familiar with the matter. Members felt that Ms. Lowey was being inappropriately “instrumentalized” as a shield for Mr. Cuomo, the person said, adding that while speaking out last Friday was not the triggering event for other members, it had made an impression .
A member of the Cuomo family had contacted Ms. Lowey, another person familiar with the events, prior to testifying.
“That’s ridiculous,” said Ms. Lowey. “I don’t get used to things like that.” She said she had known the Cuomos for decades as they were neighbors in Queens.
Mr Biden and Mr Cuomo have been relatively close politically in recent years. When Mr Biden was considering a late candidacy for president in 2015, they met in New York. Although Mr. Cuomo officially supported Hillary Clinton at the time, he did not discourage Mr. Biden from running at the White House.
In 2018, when Mr. Cuomo was presented with a major challenge of her own by Cynthia Nixon, the actress and activist, Mr. Biden offered full support to Mr. Cuomo at the New York Democratic Party Congress.
Mr Biden’s preference for Mr Cuomo does not necessarily extend to the staff level. The governor’s sharp-edged political operation has hit many people along the way over the years.
Mr Biden tapped Mr Cuomo for a prime-time speech on the first night of the Democratic Convention last year, at the height of the governor’s popularity. In the opinion of those involved in the process, the organizers of congresses were given little opportunity to revise the address recorded, in which Mr Biden was only mentioned by name towards the end. They said the Cuomo team was one of the toughest companies to work with when planning the entire four day event.
Mr. Cuomo’s political operation also submitted a production bill that far surpassed other similar congressional videos; Congress officials refused to pay the full amount.
