Gov. Andrew Cuomo said he won’t return $64,000 in campaign donations his prior campaigns received from President Trump after Democratic primary rival Cynthia Nixon tried to make an issue of the financial connection.
“No, not at all. I’m going to be deeply critical of him and keep the contributions,” Cuomo said following a Brooklyn event.
Cuomo had received the contributions between 2001 and 2009. He first ran for governor in 2002 and was state attorney general in 2009.
Nixon is trying to raise money for her own insurgent campaign by citing Trump’s donations to Cuomo.
“Andrew Cuomo will take donations from anyone. Everyone from the Koch Brothers to fossil fuel companies have contributed, so we weren’t surprised to find out that Donald Trump has donated $64,000 to Cuomo,” Nixon said in a fundraising pitch to supporters.
Trump, of course, was a real estate businessman and reality TV celebrity before getting elected president. He was a bipartisan donor — giving to both Democrats and Republicans.
Nixon sent a fundraising pitch with a goal of raising her own $64,000 by midnight Thursday.
Cuomo, who is seeking a third term, has been sharply critical of Trump on issues ranging from tax reform to immigration to the environment.
On Thursday, he even released an “open letter” to SUNY board chairman Carl McCall and CUNY board chairman Bill Thompson, both of whom are black, urging them to promote racial diversity after the Trump administration rescinded guidelines on using race in college admissions.
Diversity isn’t a problem at New York’s public universities — 76 percent of CUNY students are minorities as well as nearly 45 percent of SUNY students, according to Cuomo’s own letter.
Cuomo’s links to Trump actually go back to the 1980s. Trump retained the law firm that Andrew Cuomo worked for, Weiss, Blutrich, Falcone & Miller, when his father, Mario Cuomo, was governor.
Not surprisingly the Cuomo campaign was not amused with Nixon tying the governor to Trump.
“This is nothing more than a cheap distraction from a campaign gasping for air. No governor has fought harder against Donald Trump than Gov. Cuomo. In fact, Trump considered running against the governor in 2014. Gov. Cuomo is 100 percent focused on continuing to lead the fight against the Trump Administration and win the U.S. House and State Senate so we can keep families together, protect New Yorkers from Trump’s disastrous tax plan, safeguard our state’s environment and defend New Yorkers’ civil rights — and no press release is going to change that,” said Cuomo campaign spokeswoman Abby Fashouer.