Members of Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s staff have stopped going to work as the New York Democrat faces increasing demands to resign amid multiple scandals.
The New York Post reported Saturday that sources within the governor’s office told the outlet that the New York state capitol building is virtually empty.
“I hear that most people aren’t even coming into work, and the offices at the Capitol are empty,” said a person described by the outlet as a “well-placed insider in touch with staffers in recent days.”
“He’ll fight and fight and fight, but the staffers I’ve talked to are ready for him to hang up the gloves. Everyone feels like there is an inevitable conclusion — I mean at some point will Biden call on him to step down? They [staffers] just want this torture to stop,” the person added.
The Post noted that staffers are rebelling even further than previously following Cuomo’s repeated refusals to resign and his claims that “cancel culture” have led to his downfall.
“I feel a level of rage toward this fake tough guy,” an ex-aide told the outlet. “The guy thinks he’s the toughest, the hardest working, he’s the smartest. The truth is, he’s anything but. He’s the weakest, he’s the dumbest, and he’s the most shallow of them all. He is genuinely a very small man who pretends to be big.”
The ex-aide told the outlet that staffers are choosing to work remotely or at vaccine sites instead of coming into the office, worried Cuomo’s scandals will ruin their careers.
“There’s a deep sense within the governor’s staff that he is guilty of everything, and that is weighing on people,” the ex-aide told the Post. “He had that conversation with Charlotte Bennett. Everyone knows that. Everyone believes that full stop and there’s not a single person who believes she’s telling a word that’s off.”
Bennett was the second of now seven women who have come forward to claim Cuomo sexually harassed them. As The Daily Wire previously reported, Bennett claimed Cuomo “had asked her questions about her sex life, whether her relationships were monogamous, and whether she ever had sex with older men.” She said she believed he was “grooming” her to have sex with him.
The previously quoted former aide also told the Post that staffers still in the office making calls on the governor’s behalf are met with anger.
“The nature of the calls in Cuomo world have changed. The leverage has completely shifted. It always felt like, when Cuomo’s people call, you must figure out how you are going to try to meet the demand in some form or fashion,” the former aide said. “Now, they call, and there’s almost an eagerness to say ‘F–k you’ without hesitation … and the staff has to say they get it.”
As the outlet reported, at least five aides have resigned in the past two weeks.
While the media focuses on the sexual harassment allegations, Cuomo also faces questions over his handling of the coronavirus pandemic in New York, specifically, his mandate that nursing homes accept COVID-positive patients regardless of their ability to isolate and care for them. Some 14,000 patients died in nursing homes following Cuomo’s policy.
(Daily Wire).