New York Governor Andrew Cuomo defiantly declined calls for his resignation as more women have done so come forward with allegations of sexual harassment against him, saying “there’s no way” he will resign on Sunday. But shortly after his press conference, New York State Senate Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins, a Democrat, said he should “resign.”
“Every day there is a different story pulling out of government affairs,” Stewart-Cousins said in a statement Sunday afternoon. “We have allegations of sexual harassment, a toxic work environment, the loss of credibility surrounding the COVID-19 nursing home data and questions about the construction of a major infrastructure project. “We must rule without daily distractions. For the good of the state, Governor Cuomo must resign.”
Assembly chairman Carl Heastie, also a Democrat, stopped saying outright that Cuomo should step down, but said in a statement that Cuomo should “seriously consider” whether he can run the state. “I too share Senate Leader Stewart-Cousins’s sentiment regarding the governor’s ability to continue to run this state,” said Heastie.
Cuomo insisted earlier Sunday that he remains focused on the state’s response to COVID-19 and the vaccination efforts, saying he would not be “distracted” by the allegations.
“I was elected by citizens, not politicians,” Cuomo told reporters on Sunday. “I’m not going to resign because of allegations. The premise of resigning because of allegations is actually anti-democratic.”
Cuomo spent the weekend reaching out to state leaders and lawmakers to tell them he will not be stepping down, two people familiar with the talks told CBS News. In telephone conversations, the governor reiterates what he has said publicly: be patient and allow an investigation under the supervision of New York Attorney General Letitia James to continue.
In these conversations, Cuomo is asking for a fair trial, saying that others who have faced similar allegations have been given the opportunity to investigate before possible accountability, according to one of the people who confessed. is with the outreach.
Another person told CBS News that Cuomo has support statewide: “But you never know how deep or wide.”
It wasn’t clear who exactly the governor was talking to or how many phone calls he was making, but the list also includes Stewart-Cousins and other lawmakers, the two people said.
Two more women came forward on Saturday with accusations that Cuomo acted inappropriately, making it five women who have accused him. While Cuomo said last week He was “embarrassed” and apologized for “all the pain I had caused”, taking a more defiant tone on Sunday. He has said an alleged incident involving a woman, Lindsey Boylan, “did not happen,” and said Sunday’s allegations of a former assistant, Karen Hinton, are “not true.”
One of Cuomo’s prosecutors, Charlotte Bennett, described him as a “textbook abuser” in an exclusive interview with “CBS Evening News” anchor Norah O’Donnell. Bennett claims that on June 5 – during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in hard-hit New York – Cuomo asked if she was ever intimate with an older man and said he was comfortable dating women. who were decades younger than him.
Text messages sent by Bennett to a friend and reviewed by CBS News commemorated her meeting with Cuomo immediately after the alleged conversation. In the reports, Bennett told a friend that Cuomo “talked about age differences in relationships.”
Her friend, who verified the messages, asked, “Wait what” and “Did he do something?”
“No,” replied Bennett. “But it was the most explicit it could be.”
When asked by CBS News on Sunday if he had been notified Bennett’s complaint at the time, Cuomo said he was not. He again insisted that he would wait for the results of an investigation by Attorney General Letitia James.
“This is not about me or allegations about me – the attorney general can handle that. This is about doing the people’s business,” said Cuomo. “The next six months will determine the future trajectory of New York State.”
On Sunday, the editorial staff of the Albany Times Union, a newspaper that endorsed Cuomo’s three campaigns for governor, said on Sunday that he must resign.
But the paper focused on the other scandal the governor was dealing with: the deaths of thousands of state residents in nursing homes during the pandemic and his government’s alleged attempts to cover the full extent of the problem.
“New York cannot weather this public health crisis if New Yorkers do not know whether the governor and health officials are being honest with them overnight,” the editorial wrote.
“Today was a hard blow,” said a state official, granting anonymity to speak candidly about the governor’s political status amid concerns about possible retaliation. “It’s not over until it’s over, but this was a bad 24 hours for him.”
Cuomo said he was focused on approving the state budget. The New York State Constitution requires the budget to be approved by April 1, and Cuomo submitted his budget in mid-January. According to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, New York will receive $ 12.5 billion in stimulus money in the recently adopted federal aid packagealthough Cuomo had sought $ 15 billion.
“This doesn’t mean it will be an easy budget, but now it will be a possible budget,” said Cuomo.
Cuomo also announced on Sunday that, with the exception of New York City, New York State restaurants can now open at 75% capacity.
Norah O’Donnell, Michael Kaplan, Julie Morse, Adam Verdugo and Caitlin Yilek contributed to this report.