That brings us to former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who resigned in 2021 after a report documented his alleged sexual harassment of 11 women, yet he leads the polls after entering the race in March. Cuomo also undercounted deaths in nursing homes at the height of the covid pandemic and his administration made the galling decision to let the facilities readmit patients who had tested positive for the virus. He then used state resources to write a book about the pandemic, for which a publisher paid him $5 million.
Cuomo has been trying to whitewash the harassment allegations as being about younger women having “different mores and sensitivities,” and in a recent New York Times interview, he said that he actually regretted resigning. (In the same interview, Cuomo also said he hadn’t lived in the city for more than 30 years, he pays $8,000 a month in rent now that he does live here, and orders a “bacon, cheese, and egg” on an English muffin, not a bagel, “to keep my girlish figure.” The order of those breakfast sandwich toppings should be disqualifying on its own.
Polls show Cuomo beating Mamdani in the final round of ranked choice voting by a margin of 8 to 12 points. Many of the groups endorsing Mamdani and Lander are simultaneously telling voters not to rank Cuomo at all—not even in last place—because a rank counts as a vote. There’s even a campaign called DREAM, or “Don’t Rank Evil Andrew for Mayor.”
That’s where things stood before the primary debate on Wednesday, where nine candidates took the stage and took turns bashing Cuomo. One candidate, state senator and Working Families Party endorsee Jessica Ramos, told reporters after the debate that she wished she “lived in a city where voters cared about women getting harassed.” Yet on Friday, Ramos endorsed Cuomo and appeared with him at an event. She told the New York Times that it was an acknowledgement that she couldn’t win, but would stay in the race. She added in a statement, “With Trump threatening to bulldoze New York and take us backward, we need someone in City Hall who knows how to hold the line and deliver under pressure.”
It’s a shocking heel turn from Ramos, who told the New York Post in April that Cuomo’s “mental acuity is in decline” and that New Yorkers could not afford a “Joe Biden moment” at City Hall. Several progressive groups are rescinding their endorsements of her and have now added former Assembly Member Michael Blake to their slates. Blake hit Cuomo during the debate over the sexual harassment allegations.
Cuomo, too, has announced he’s running in November as an independent, no matter the outcome of the primary. And the Working Families Party has its own ballot line, meaning Mamdani could run on it, so this race won’t be over until November.
So much more barf this week………..
Trump-related barf:
- FDA commissioner Marty Makary called the CDC’s vaccine panel a “kangaroo court.” [STAT News]
- Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested a record number of immigrants in a single day, 2,200, with hundreds detained at their check-in appointments for people deemed not to be threats to public safety. [NBC News]
- Trump is reportedly whining that Amy Coney Barrett, who voted to overturn Roe v. Wade and give presidents criminal immunity, isn’t conservative enough. [CNN]
- National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard is considering ways to revamp Trump’s intelligence briefing to get him to actually pay attention, such as making it into a produced video like he’d see on Fox News. [NBC News]
- What Trump does pay attention to is his cell phone! Our big dumb president reportedly still uses his non-government phone and will pick up even when a random number calls. He does this despite warnings that China and Russia could be listening. [The Atlantic]
- Happy Pride: “Hegseth Orders Navy to Strip Name of Gay Rights Icon Harvey Milk from Ship” [Military.com]
- A 22-year-old former Trump campaign staffer is reportedly leading the country’s terrorism prevention hub. [ProPublica]
- Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) said she regrets voting to pass the GOP reconciliation bill over a provision that prevents states from regulating the use of artificial intelligence—a provision she did not know existed because she hadn’t read the whole bill. [NOTUS]
Non-Trump barf:
- Only now does Biden State Department flak Matthew Miller say Israel committed war crimes. [SkyNews]
- This tweet but real life: “Just got back from the centrist rally. Amazing turnout. Thousands of people holding hands and chanting ‘Better things aren’t possible.’” [Politico/Salon]
- Former Biden White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre is hawking a book in which she claims Democrats abandoned the president and she, in turn, is now a registered independent. [CNN/Axios]
- New York Lieutenant Governor Antonio Delgado is primarying his boss, Kathy Hochul, amid a messy feud. Delgado had correct opinions, like calling on Mayor Adams to resign and for Joe Biden to drop out of the 2024 race, but they opposed Hochul’s positions. [New York Times/CBS]
- The University of Michigan is using undercover investigators to surveil students in pro-Palestinian groups both on and off campus.
- Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.) hired a guy who was too racist even for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s failed presidential campaign. The campaign fired Nate Hochman for making a video containing neo-Nazi imagery. [The Guardian]
This has been your weekly Barf Bag, thanks for reading!
