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REPUBLICA PRESS
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The Rise and Fall of Andrew Cuomo

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Last spring, when the coronavirus outbreak was surging in New York, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s daily briefings became appointment television for many, as he authoritatively ticked through the latest statistics on infections, hospital beds and deaths.

Behind the scenes, Mr. Cuomo was often obsessed with another set of numbers: his ratings. He would sometimes quiz aides as soon as he ended a broadcast about which networks carried him live and exactly when they cut away — data they were expected to have at their fingertips.

For an image-obsessed politician who has long devoured almost everything written about him, it was an intoxicating amount of attention as Mr. Cuomo transformed almost overnight into a national leader of the Democratic Party and a foil for President Donald J. Trump. “To the 59 million viewers who shared in these daily briefings,” Mr. Cuomo said on his 111th and final daily update, “thank you.”

groping, sexual harassment and inappropriate behavior made by six women; an independent investigation into those accusations; an impeachment inquiry by state legislators; a federal investigation into his handling of nursing homes during the pandemic; and collapsing support from leaders in his own party.

Yet for all of that, Mr. Cuomo is now furiously plotting a path to salvage his job, his legacy and even a potential fourth-term re-election run in 2022, according to Democrats familiar with his thinking. In defiant remarks on Friday, Mr. Cuomo accused Democratic leaders of “playing politics” by calling for him to resign and demanded they wait for the “facts” as he impugned the motives of the women who have come forward.

“A lot of people allege a lot of things for a lot of reasons,” Mr. Cuomo said, denying he ever sexually harassed anyone.

​Be it his self-regard, his disdain for fellow Democrats or his imperious demeanor, Mr. Cuomo alienated allies and enemies alike on his way up in politics, and now finds himself sliding from hero-level worship to pariah-like status with the kind of astonishing speed that only the friendless suffer. It is a downfall foretold in a decade-long reign of ruthlessness and governance by brute force, according to interviews with more than two dozen lawmakers, elected officials, current and past Cuomo administration officials, political activists and strategists in the state.

top government aides have been tweeting about his polling numbers and Mr. Cuomo believes the impression he made in those virus briefings will outlast any short-term damage, according to people familiar with his thinking. “New Yorkers know me,” as Mr. Cuomo said on Friday.

And if there is a modern playbook for surviving scandal, it begins with one clear rule: Don’t quit.

Mr. Trump ignored calls to step down as the Republican nominee in 2016 after a tape emerged of him bragging about grabbing women’s private parts. Former Gov. Mark Sanford of South Carolina, a Republican, finished his term after lying about his adulterous “Appalachian Trail” trip. And Gov. Ralph Northam of Virginia, a Democrat, survived widespread resignation calls over a photo that appeared to show him in blackface.

Mr. Cuomo’s advisers have been reaching out to labor and business leaders. And he has been maneuvering to consolidate and burnish support in the Black community, especially after the Legislature’s two top Democrats, both of whom are Black, have taken steps to push him out. His appearance last week flanked by Black clergy leaders, ostensibly to promote vaccine efforts in New York City, struck many as an especially brazen example of constituency politics.

And he is demanding that the attorney general’s investigation proceed, clinging to a possible 2022 run as a bargaining chip to avert resignation or impeachment. His endgame is unclear. More than anything, Andrew Cuomo is now trying to buy himself time.

a giant foam mountain to memorialize the state’s declining virus caseload, and proudly posed before it. He commissioned a self-referential poster, complete with a picture of Mr. Cuomo in a muscle car and images of his advisers (“Magnificent Melissa” for his top aide, Melissa DeRosa). And he cast aside caution to write a self-congratulatory book of “leadership lessons” that published mid-pandemic, winning himself a reported seven-figure advance.

“There’s been no one around the governor to save him from himself,” said Mitchell Moss, a professor of urban policy at New York University whom Mr. Cuomo appointed to a transit advisory council in 2017. “He may intimidate even the people who should be giving advice.”

Mr. Cuomo has always kept his own counsel and his inner circle has shrunk over the years as waves of advisers have tired of his unrelenting and mercurial demands. Among those still providing advice, beyond his senior government staff, are Steven M. Cohen and William Mulrow, two former top officials in the governor’s office; Jefrey Pollock, his pollster; Charlie King, a longtime ally; and Jay Jacobs, the state Democratic Party chairman.

His loyalists felt his wrath especially during the last year when he would lash out if other politicians, especially Mr. de Blasio, received credit for virus-battling successes or initiatives.

an office culture that could be toxic, particularly for young women.

Ever since Mr. Cuomo broke onto the political scene he has carved a reputation as a brash hard-charger. As executive director for his father’s transition team, after the 1982 victory in the governor’s race, the younger Mr. Cuomo kicked his feet up on a desk during an interview with The New York Times, lit a cigarette and declared, “I’ve become very popular lately.”

he was losing. Ms. Kennedy asked to separate soon after, according to Mr. Cuomo’s biographer, representing the low point of Mr. Cuomo’s personal and professional life.

doing the investigating; now he is the one being investigated.

famously raged that he was a “steamroller,” threatening to crush a state legislator. This year, Mr. Cuomo’s run of negative press intensified after he berated Assemblyman Ron Kim, a Democrat, who said the governor had threatened to “destroy” him. The conversation felt so familiar to those who have worked with Mr. Cuomo that his office’s denial was largely dismissed.

“They’re cut from the same cloth,” Senator James Tedisco, the Republican that Mr. Spitzer cursed at, said of Mr. Spitzer and Mr. Cuomo. “They’ll do just about anything they can to get their way and try to destroy you.”

This week, Mr. Tedisco said, “Andrew Cuomo is the steamroller that has run out of gas.”

But for more than a decade, Mr. Cuomo divided and conquered Albany in singular fashion, intimidating rivals, dominating the terms of debate and helping enable Republican control of the State Senate, for a period, through a renegade faction of Democrats, known as the Independent Democratic Conference.

“my Black skin and a woman.”.

The next year, a group of progressive challengers, including Ms. Biaggi, ousted a half-dozen I.D.C. senators. With Democrats in full control after 2018, Mr. Cuomo could no longer situate himself at the political midpoint of every deal.

The landscape in Albany has quickly shifted. Nearly half the State Senate is new since 2018. And there is now a supermajority of 43 Democrats among whom Mr. Cuomo counts virtually no durable allies, according to multiple legislators. In a move that many on the left saw as poetic justice for his role in keeping her out of power, Ms. Stewart-Cousins was among the first prominent Democrats to call for Mr. Cuomo’s resignation.

The Democrats who led the charge for Mr. Cuomo to resign are more politically progressive than he is. The three-term governor has improbably tried to portray himself as an outsider by dismissively saying of his fellow party officials on Friday, “I’m not part of the political club.”

23 women in that chamber pushed back this past week on calls for his immediate resignation, asking for Attorney General Letitia James to complete her investigation first.

Mr. Cuomo is said to see Ms. James as his most formidable potential primary challenger should he survive and run again next year. For now, the biggest destabilizing force for Mr. Cuomo is the uncertainty of what new allegations each day will bring. His treatment of others, over so many years, makes it impossible to predict what lies ahead.

Jesse McKinley contributed reporting.

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