Are Andrew Cuomo and Gavin Newsom about to lose their power?
The fall of either Cuomo or Newsom would mark the first major political loss that Democrats have taken as a result of the pandemic. But would Republicans gain? While watching Democrats squirm gives the GOP a good feeling, the most likely successors in a blue-on-blue fight are other progressives.
Cuomo’s steep fall is as abrupt as it gets. He was flying high just a few months ago: he published a best-seller touting his leadership during COVID-19, and his daily televised press conferences netted him huge audiences and an Emmy award. Friendly media organs floated his name as attorney general in the Biden administration. When Vice President Kamala Harris held up his nomination for that post, Cuomo even called New York state attorney general Letitia James to intercede for him.
But as Cuomo chatted with James, she was preparing a report blaming him for the deaths of over 15,000 nursing home residents and a subsequent attempt to cover it up. Cuomo’s order forcing nursing homes to accept any patient released from a hospital contributed to the wildfire of fatalities that swept through nursing homes, consuming 40 percent of their residents.
As bad as that was, as Nixon learned so many years ago, it is the cover-up that gets you into hot water. A furious Cuomo read in the paper that Assemblyman Ron Kim, a South Korean–born Democrat, had criticized his nursing home polices. As Kim was bathing his children, the governor called him, giving him a ten-minute lashing and threatening to “destroy” him if he didn’t retract his words.
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