ALBANY — State Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins, despite standing with Gov. Andrew Cuomo earlier this week, was prodded to reiterate her call for his resignation Friday when the governor accused her of playing politics.
Stewart-Cousins (D-Westchester) stood next to Cuomo and thanked him repeatedly on Wednesday at a vaccine-related event in her district, which drew sharp criticism of the top Democrat as she had previously led the charge in calling for him to step down amid multiple allegations of sexual harassment, including from several former staffers.
But just two days later, on Friday, Cuomo slammed her call for him to step down as “political.”
“You appeared with the Senate Majority Leader for the first time this week since she called for your resignation … how that has impacted your working relationship and how you interact with other officials who also call for you to step down?” asked Kate Lisa, a statehouse reporter for the Johnson News Corp, via Zoom, as members of the press have been barred from attending Cuomo’s latest briefings in person.
“Yeah, it hasn’t. You know, people take political positions every day,” the governor said.
“We often have different political positions, I understand that. But we separate political positions, and our official duty. Right?”
The Cuomo administration has similarly accused probes launched by state Attorney General Letitia James — also a Democrat — as “political,” with a top aide accusing James of using the investigations as a platform to seek higher office.
Democratic state Comptroller Tom DiNapoli has also been slammed by the administration for playing politics, after coming out in support of the AG’s probe into Cuomo’s controversial, million-dollar book deal.
Both affirmed that they were simply doing the jobs they were elected to do.
When asked to respond Friday, a furious Stewart-Cousins seethed: “This is not about politics and to suggest otherwise is offensive.”
“The Governor should resign,” she doubled down in a statement to The Post.
The Senate Majority Leader is not the only politician, or prominent New York official, to join the governor in recent weeks since reports broke that he is being investigated by the state Attorney General’s office and state Assembly following allegations of sexual harassment, charges that his administration intentionally withheld and obscured data pertaining to COVID-19 deaths among nursing homes patients and allegations he used state resources and staff to work on his latest book, “American Crisis.”
On Thursday, Long Island politicians state Sen. Todd Kaminsky (D-Nassau) and Assemblywoman Judy Griffin (D-Rockville Centre) joined Cuomo at an Earth Day ribbon cutting. Both have called for him to step down from office.
Other leaders who have appeared with the governor include longtime president of the New York chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Hazel Dukes, former Assemblyman and chairman of the Manhattan Democrats Keith Wright as well as powerful former Rep. Charles Rangel.
