Cuomo Confronted By COVID Ghosts During NYC Mayor Race

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Is the ascent of Zohran Mamdani inevitable, or can Andrew Cuomo mount any kind of challenge? Or will his COVID actions now come back to haunt him?

With the exit of Eric Adams from the race on Sunday, the race shrunk to three candidates – Mamdani, Cuomo, and Curtis Sliwa. But now, the now-lame duck mayor is now considering making an endorsement – but he doesn’t know who he would endorse to try and stop Mamdani.

In an interview, Adams called the committed Socialist “an extremist” whose policies would ruin New York, and said forcefully that the 33-year-old assemblyman “must be defeated in November.”

To that end, the mayor told me he has “put out feelers” to the two other remaining candidates, former Gov. Andrew Cuomo and GOP nominee Curtis Sliwa, about a possible endorsement.

“We need to focus on one of them,” Adams said by phone Monday.

“Over the next few days, I’m going to take the next step.”

At this point, an Adams endorsement might not be worth the paper it is printed on. He’s not exactly the most popular person in the Big Apple, so his endorsement isn’t worth that much. The reality is that only Andrew Cuomo has an outside chance of being able to beat Zohran Mamdani. (Insert vomiting noise here.) This is not because Cuomo is a good candidate – he just happens to be the only one left with an understanding of how New York government works, and isn’t an avowed socialist and a not-so-closeted communist. The problem now becomes Cuomo’s baggage – and New York Republicans have now decided to remind everyone of just how much COVID baggage Andrew Cuomo has in his closet.

New York House Republicans are urging President Trump’s top health officials, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Dr. Mehmet Oz, to determine whether ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo violated federal safety guidance by sending COVID-infected elderly patients released from hospitals into nursing homes during the worst of the pandemic.

The appeal centers on the then-Cuomo administration’s controversial March 25, 2020, directive prodding nursing homes to accept treated COVID patients discharged from hospitals.

“More than 15,000 New York nursing home residents died of COVID during the early part of the pandemic. We just passed the grim five-year anniversary of New York’s infamous March 25, 2020, directive, which forced ill-prepared nursing homes to accept 9,056 COVID-19 patients over a six-week period,” said the letter drafted by Congressman Mike Lawler.

“We are seeking a written determination from your agencies as to whether the New York State Department of Health’s March 25th directive was in compliance with CMS [Centers for Medicare and Medicaid] and CDC [Centers for Disease Control] guidance,” said the Sept. 29 letter sent to Kennedy, secretary of Health and Human Services, CMS Administrator Oz and Acting CDC Director Jim O’Neill.

The letter was co-signed by GOP Reps. Elise Stefanik, Claudia Tenney, Andrew Garbarino and Nick LaLota.

This letter is hitting the media at the same time that Cuomo is apologizing to the Jewish community (which just gave him an endorsement after Adams dropped out) for his actions during COVID, just before the start of Yom Kippur.

In the video, Cuomo said he made decisions to protect the health and safety of New Yorkers during the once-in-a-century pandemic that killed about 80,000 residents.

“However, I recognize some of those decisions caused pain in the Jewish community because we did not always fully consider the sensitivities and traditions that are so deeply important,” Cuomo explained in the clip — which campaign sources said was distributed to rabbis in Orthodox Jewish communities, and first reported by Jacob Kornbluh of the Jewish Forward.

“We could have done better and for that I’m truly sorry,” Cuomo said.

“My decision doesn’t change the impact. I sincerely ask for your understanding.”

That kind of apology would have been better five years ago (Cuomo was much less apologetic when he was on the hot seat back then), and it remains to be seen if “better late than never” will work to mitigate Cuomo’s baggage. But notice that Cuomo is only apologizing to the Orthodox Jewish community in New York City. His apology to those who lost loved ones to COVID due to that nursing home order is nowhere to be seen. Now, I realize those potential voters are dead (but when has that ever mattered to Democrats?), but their families may still be New York City voters. Shouldn’t they be getting a full-throated apology straight from Andrew Cuomo as well?

While I fully appreciate the desire of the New York GOP Congressional delegation to make Cuomo own up to his COVID sins, what is the end goal here? Raking him over the proverbial coals is satisfying, but the political reality is that the next mayor of New York City could be Zohran Mamdani. That makes Andrew Cuomo the only candidate standing in the way of keeping the nepo baby snake oil salesman communist out of that office. Watching an ad like this from Cuomo is just plain weird, and the gives off the vibe that he is trying WAY too hard to “be cool.”

But watching an ad like this from Zohran Mamdani is extraordinarily creepy.

Unfortunately, Curtis Sliwa is not going to be the next mayor. The choices are Cuomo or Mamdani. While I wish Cuomo had been held fully accountable for his actions during COVID, he wasn’t. And now he’s the only candidate with a chance of holding out against Mamdani. New York City Republicans (as few as there are) are going to have to decide if they can hold their heaving stomachs and vote for Cuomo, or risk electing Mamdani by voting for Sliwa.

Featured image: original Victory Girls art by Darleen Click

The post Cuomo Confronted By COVID Ghosts During NYC Mayor Race appeared first on Victory Girls Blog.



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