Andrew Cuomo: From leader to liability

Just a few months ago, Andrew Cuomo’s assured handling of the Covid crisis saw him touted as a serious candidate for the highest office. Now, though, accusations of sexual harassment and the concealment of nursing home deaths leave the New York governor fighting for his political career. Sean O’Grady considers where it all went wrong

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It is perfectly possible that by now the White House would have been engulfed in allegations of sexual misconduct and inappropriate behaviour by a president – President Andrew Cuomo, the alternative history 46th president of the United States.

It seems a past political age now, but only a few months ago the current, and still for the time being, governor of the state of New York was touted as the great hope of the Democrats. His response to the Covid crisis put Donald Trump to shame, as it was intended to. “We’re not going to put a dollar figure in human life,” was Cuomo’s promise.

His sombre, sprightly talking gravelly streetwise press conferences were watched with a mixture of admiration and hope, in America and around the world. Like Anthony Fauci, here was a man levelling with the public, not trying to pretend the coronavirus was a Chinese hoax.