“He has empowered more women in leadership roles than any other administration in New York state.” “Andrew has led the most progressive agenda in the country on issues of women’s equality and social justice,” said Cuomo Cole, who is the middle of five Cuomo siblings and is married to fashion designer Kenneth Cole. Yet his 60-year-old sister, Maria, who like her brother is the mother of three daughters, defended Andrew’s record on women’s issues. Cuomo Bridge - a structure named to honor a governor not known for overseeing large infrastructure projects. In a Sunday statement, the legislative leader referenced the sexual harassment allegations, the nursing home controversy, as well as accounts of a toxic workplace environment and the fresh controversy over an alleged coverup of a potentially serious structural flaw on the Gov. The governor has remained defiant amid mounting calls for his resignation, including from members of his own party such as State Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins, the highest-ranking Democrat to call on him to step down. To the extent anyone felt that way, I am truly sorry about that." He said some comments “may have been insensitive or too personal” and “made others feel in ways I never intended. “I acknowledge some of the things I have said have been misinterpreted as an unwanted flirtation,” Cuomo said in a statement last week. The other allegations include sexually suggestive questioning by Cuomo, unwanted touching and the governor making unsolicited advances of a sexual nature.Ĭuomo has defended his actions as inadvertent behavior that he claimed he now understands was inappropriate. Five women thus far have accused Andrew Cuomo of inappropriate behavior of a sexual nature that made them feel uncomfortable or demeaned, including a former aide who alleged he kissed her without her consent in his Manhattan office three years ago. Political insiders dubbed them “52” and “56,” shorthand in the manner of another political dynasty, the Bushes, presidents 41 and 43. Mario and Andrew, 63, are the only father-son governors in more than two centuries of New York state political history. She and Mario were married for 60 years before his death in 2015 at 82. Not many people have the skills he has,” said his mother, 89, who has been at the center of family and political life - an inextricable duality for the Cuomos - for seven decades. Cuomo divorced Kerry Kennedy in 2005 and split from longtime girlfriend Sandra Lee, a television food show host, in 2019. The governor got the pet as a puppy in 2018 at the suggestion of his three daughters to combat the loneliness of being an empty-nester. While Mario would jog alone around Lincoln Park in old sweatpants and a Yankees baseball cap, Andrew has been seen walking from the mansion up along Lark Street with his dog, Captain, a Northern Inuit breed. There are numerous stories of Mario knocking his oldest son to the pavement until his knees were bloodied during one-on-one basketball games to toughen up Andrew for the bloodsport of politics. The son has never managed to escape his father’s shadow. “It’s not easy being Mario Cuomo’s son,” William O’Shoughnessy, a longtime Cuomo family friend, told me once as he tried to encapsulate the deep, dark and complicated symbiosis of their relationship. The father, too, was a loner who spent countless solitary hours late at night in a second-story study at the Executive Mansion, writing in his diary and ruminating on the works of philosophers Teillhard de Chardin, Thomas Aquinas and Sir Thomas More. Cuomo, bear certain similar traits - both notoriously thin-skinned and capable of holding a grudge. In that way and others, Andrew and his father, the late Gov. Many Albany reporters have felt his wrath - myself included - in expletive-laced telephone tirades over coverage he did not like. That loner status and the resulting isolation are on stark display as he hits his political nadir few allies have rushed to his defense. "But that’s politics, to a large extent."Īmid Albany political circles, Andrew Cuomo is perceived as a bully, an intimidator who rules by tactics that have left him with few friends in the capital city. “I wouldn’t say it’s been traumatic on us, but it’s been disappointing to see that he wouldn’t receive the support of some elected officials who know his abilities so well," she said. They offered words of support for their embattled loved one - but remained guarded when asked about the allegations against him.Ĭuomo Cole said the political maelstrom that has engulfed her brother has taken a toll on the entire Cuomo family, Albany’s most famous political dynasty.
The governor’s mother and sister spoke exclusively to the Times Union by phone Monday morning from his mother’s Manhattan apartment, where his sister was visiting.
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