Dem lawmakers and GOP mayoral candidate Curtis Sliwa deliver resignation demand to Cuomo’s NYC office
Gov. Cuomo faced ratcheted-up calls to resign Wednesday morning, with Democratic state lawmakers, New York City Public Advocate Jumaane Williams and Republican mayoral nominee Curtis Sliwa showing up at his Manhattan office to demand he step down immediately.
The Democrats — including several who could preside over Cuomo’s impeachment if it comes to that — said the governor should step aside because a damning state attorney general’s report corroborating sexual harassment allegations against him has rendered him unable to effectively perform his duties.
They are especially concerned that billions of dollars in rent relief earmarked for pandemic-battered tenants — relief that’s already faced bureaucratic delays — won’t reach them because Cuomo is now consumed with damage control on a day-to-day basis.
“F-----g resign,” Williams snarled into a microphone to cheers. “Please don’t put us through this anymore. Haven’t you done enough to the people of New York State? Haven’t you harmed and hurt enough people? Do not do this any longer. Please. Resign. Get out.”
If Cuomo does not step down, the state Assembly could accelerate efforts to bring impeachment proceedings against him. Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie, a longtime ally of Cuomo’s, said Tuesday evening that it was “abundantly clear ... that the governor has lost the confidence of the Assembly Democratic majority and that he can no longer remain in office.”
“Once we receive all relevant documents and evidence from the attorney general, we will move expeditiously and look to conclude our impeachment investigation as quickly as possible,” Heastie added.
Speaking outside Cuomo’s office on Wednesday, Assemblywoman Yuh-Line Niou said she’s ready to return to Albany to move on impeachment and has drafted language for articles of impeachment that’s “ready to go.”
Niou (D-Manhattan) praised Heastie for his words the day before, but when asked if she was concerned at all over the fact that Heastie hadn’t yet called lawmakers back to Albany, she nodded in the affirmative.
“I would really like to see ... articles [of] impeachment in front of us that we can read, that we are then given a time and date to come back as a Legislature,” she said. “Every single day that we are not impeaching, that’s another day that his staff — the people who are working around him, the women who have been harmed already — are going to continue to be harmed.”
Earlier in the morning, Sliwa homed in on Cuomo’s response to Attorney General Letitia James’ scathing report and decried what he called Cuomo’s “pervy ways.” The day before, Cuomo attempted to explain away the findings by saying his kissing and hugging are culturally based and something he learned from his family, the now-deceased Gov. Mario Cuomo and his mother, Matilda Cuomo.
“His response was abominable,” Sliwa said outside Cuomo’s office. “He said directly, explicitly that this was inherited behavior, part of his DNA as an Italian-American — touchy, kissing, feely — all of those things attributed to him he said were cultural in nature and was learned behavior from his father, Mario, and his mother, Matilda.”
“He has sinned against Italian-American peoples by suggesting that all of us hug, kiss, squeeze, perv, grope,” Sliwa continued. “That is specious. He, above all people, should apologize to Italian-Americans.”
Sliwa’s broadside comes in response to the prerecorded response Cuomo issued Tuesday to the AG’s report. The video Cuomo released contains photos of him kissing, hugging and squeezing politicos over the years.
After speaking to reporters outside the Midtown office for about 20 minutes, Sliwa, the founder of the Guardian Angels, then marched into the building to deliver his written resignation demand.
A security guard instructed him that he would have to call the governor’s office upstairs to have someone pick it up. So Sliwa walked to the front desk to make his call with a gaggle of reporters and photographers in tow.
“I have to mail it to Albany?” he said into the lobby phone. “Do you realize how many tax dollars we pay for the governor to have an office in New York City?”
After whoever Sliwa was speaking with hung up, he quipped that, “They introduced me to Mr. Click.”
Sliwa then slowly sauntered to the other side of the lobby, crouched down, and placed his letter on the lobby floor.
“It is no secret that your ego is bigger than New York State itself,” the letter said. “You must resign immediately.”
