Former Gov. David Paterson says his scandal-scarred successor, Andrew Cuomo, is not to be trusted — and that he should know.
Paterson claimed Sunday that Cuomo stabbed him in the back by personally calling then-gubernatorial candidate Eliot Spitzer in 2006 to advise him not to support Paterson for lieutenant governor.
“Apparently Andrew didn’t like that he had heard that Gov. Spitzer was going to pick me to be his lieutenant governor,” recounted Paterson during an interview with host John Catsimatidis on WABC 770’s “The Cats Roundtable.”
“So he calls up Spitzer’s office, then he tells … Spitzer, that I was erratic, disloyal, and that things would come out about me that would make him wish he had never chosen me to be his running mate,” Paterson said.
Spitzer told Cuomo to shove it, Paterson said.
“The next morning, Andrew calls me, and he says, ‘What’s going on?’ Like I did something,” Paterson said. “I said, ‘I don’t know, Andrew. Why don’t you tell me?’
“He said, ‘David, don’t listen to them. I didn’t say that stuff. They are trying to divide us.’ I said, ‘Andrew, what is it that we have to divide? We’re not married. We don’t own a business together. What are you talking about?’
“After that conversation, I’d have to say there was some distance between us. I was always pretty leery of anything he said to me,” Paterson said.
Paterson ended up becoming lieutenant governor under Spitzer — then serving as governor from 2008 to 2010 after Spitzer’s resignation over a hooker scandal.
Cuomo took over as governor in 2011 and was serving his third term before a sex-harassment debacle forced him to announce his resignation last week.
Paterson, the state’s first and to-date only black governor, has been on a tear against Cuomo since the latter announced his resignation.
On Thursday, Paterson told WNYC that he found Cuomo’s 14-day notice before officially resigning “suspicious.”
“I just think the governor has just not resolved in his mind what’s actually going on yet, and his self-awareness just does not seem to be particularly helpful to him at this particular time,” Paterson told the radio station.
Cuomo spokesman Rich Azzopardi, responding to Paterson’s claims Sunday involving Spitzer, told The Post, “The very idea that Gov. Cuomo was advising Spitzer on anything is comical.
“Everyone knows former Gov. Paterson makes his own truth to fit the moment, and I guess none of these hard feelings were a factor when the current governor made him state Democratic Party chair,” the rep said, referring to Paterson’s time at the helm of the party between 2014 and 2015.