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- [00:16]
A
Hello and welcome to Max Politics. This is Ben Max from Gotham Gazette. Thanks so much for tuning in. It is a very tumultuous time in New York politics and we have a great show for you again this week. Since we last spoke, Andrew Cuomo announced that he will be resigning effective two weeks time, two weeks from yesterday. So that would be the 24th of August, Tuesday, August 24th, somewhere around noon time, if he was being exact. Although we've asked for the governor's resignation letter or any such paperwork, and I have not received anything back from the governor's office at this time. So we'll see if that is forthcoming. I imagine it will be at some time, but the governor announced his plans to resign amid a great deal of scandal, including the scathing report from the state attorney general's office led by two outside investigators that were hired to look at claims of sexual harassment and assault against the governor. And they corroborated many of those claims and issued a report detailing the governor's sexual harassment, groping and an overall toxic workplace environment in the Cuomo administration, including some retaliation against the governor, first public accuser, Lindsey Boylan. And so the governor has since announced his resignation, and that means that Lieutenant Governor Kathy Hochul will become the governor, assuming things go as they've been laid out by Governor Cuomo in less than two weeks now. And Lieutenant Governor Hochul gave her first public remarks today since that announcement by Governor Cuomo at a press conference. She spoke briefly, then took about 10 questions from members of the media. She didn't say too, too much, but she promised to say a lot more when she becomes governor. But what she did say today was quite interesting. Kathy Hochul making some very clear distinctions from the administration of Governor Andrew Cuomo, which she's been a part of as his lieutenant governor. They run on a joint ticket in the general election. She's now here finishing towards the end of her second term as lieutenant governor. Governor Cuomo had a different lieutenant Governor, Bob Duffy, during his first term, as he's now in his third term. But Kathy Hochul made some very clear remarks today that her style is to listen first and then take decisive action, promising to be a listener to New Yorkers and identifying solutions as she looks to become the 57th governor of New York and the first woman to hold the position. She promised to fight for New Yorkers every day. She said that she will have a lot more to say once she actually is governor. But she pledged a smooth transition, which she said that the governor also said he would provide. She will be meeting with Cabinet officials, she said. She said it was a little too soon to discuss personnel, but that once she talks to those Cabinet officials and reviews more, she will be putting together her administration. She said that she's ready. She said she's prepared. She said she didn't ask for this, but now she is ready to assume that mantle. Hochul talked about all the big Democratic Party officials that she has spoken with, including some of the state's leaders like Senate Majority Leader Andre Stewart Cousins and Assembly Speaker Carl Hastie, among others. And she said she had missed a call from President Joe Biden while she was on the call plane today. So Hochul pledged to be not only meeting with Cabinet officials of the Cuomo administration, but pledged that there will be turnover. She said she will not be keeping anyone around who has had ethical issues. So we'll see what that exactly means. And she acknowledged what everybody knows, which is that she and Governor Cuomo have not been close. The governor has kept her at a distance both physically and in terms of the policy making, budget making in his administration. And she said quite a bit more. I'll be joined by Rebecca Katz, who's been on the show before. Listeners will remember her. She was a top strategist for Cynthia Nixon's 2018 gubernatorial campaign that challenged Andrew Cuomo in the primary. Rebecca has a lot of perspective on Governor Cuomo, obviously most of it, if not all critical, but from that campaign and more. She also spent some time in the Bill de Blasio mayoral administration after helping get him elected in 2013. So she will have a lot of interesting insights on New York politics. And we'll also talk with Rebecca later in the show about the looming 2022 gubernatorial election in New York. It seems very likely that Kathy Hochul will be the governor at that point and running for a full term as governor. And then we'll see who else winds up being in the Democratic field. The Republican field has already been forming with Representative Lee Zeldin looking like the early favorite to come out there. But with Andrew Cuomo set to resign, who knows how that might scramble things there? Let's bring on our next guest. Back to the program, Rebecca Katz, the founding partner at New Deal Strategies, a consultancy who spent time in the early days of the de Blasio administration after helping get Mayor Bill de Blasio elected way back in 2013. And she was a chief strategist on Cynthia Nixon's 2018 gubernatorial campaign against Andrew Cuomo in the primary that year and more. Rebecca, thanks for coming back on the show.
- [05:52]
B
Hey, Ben. Glad to be here. What a great week it's been.
- [05:56]
A
Oh, my gosh. Just. I thought August, you know, we really. We deserved a quieter August, but we're not getting it. You have a lot of perspective on Andrew Cuomo. As I said at the top of the show today, just about all of it. Probably critical. Well, I'll get. I'll get your answer on whether it's all critical or there's anything you want to sort of give him credit for here. But who is Andrew Cuomo? When did you sort of first get a sense of your opinion of him? And how did that happen? Do you remember when. When that first, you know, happened, that you got to know him a little bit and. And assessed him?
- [06:39]
B
It's funny, I, you know, you know, the Cuomo name, it's basically at, what, like, 100% recognition in new York State? I'm trying to figure out when I actually got to know, like, what he stood for. It was, you know, he was just always kind of in the background, I guess. And then it was. It was maybe not until 2014's run with Zephyr Teachout, who started saying what she stood for versus what he stood for, that I first really kind of got engaged. Well, actually, no, that's not true at all. In the mayor's race. Let me go back even further. When I was working for Bill de Blasio, Cuomo kind of loomed large. And in those very early days, he was not terrible to Bill de Blasio. It's hard to remember that now, but he wasn't terrible to Bill de Blasio.
- [07:30]
A
And then.
- [07:31]
B
Right. It was when we started to want to have universal pre K and to tax the rich to do so, that he really became aggressively against de Blasio, I felt. And then when de Blasio actually won that fight, and I know it's hard to remember now, that when in the early days, not only, like, de Blasio was popular and winning fights against the governor, that was when it just, like, I think, put him into a rage. And then everything de Blasio tried to do from that perspective, like Cuomo tried to undo, I remember even trying to get $15 as minimum wage, and their first response was against it and how it was terrible. And then. And then, of course, they were for it later. But it was Zephyr's race in 2014 that I thought the contrasts were really laid out there pretty well between progressive and selfish, I should say.
- [08:27]
A
And when people who aren't in New York politics ask you okay, who is Andrew Cuomo? What is this guy all about? From Your experience from 2013 onward, what's your answer to that question? What is, what does it boil down to for you?
- [08:49]
B
I mean, for the most part, people who ask about Andrew Cuomo outside of New York were asking post Covid and thought he was amazing. They saw him as this character, this larger than life character on tv, and there was a lot of excitement there. But Andrew Cuomo had been dealing with scandals for many, many years. And so obviously what brought him down was the brave women who came forward and the stories of harassment and misconduct that they told. But really, he's been dealing. You know, his top aide, Joe Prococco, went to prison for corruption. You know, he's had, he's disbanded commissions. He's spent, you know, a billion dollars in Buffalo. Like, the list goes on and on. So it's usually when people say something like, isn't he great? My response is usually, come, pull up a seat. Let's, let's have a conversation.
- [09:44]
A
And what's at the root of all this, do you think? I mean, you know, there's, there's a lot of commentary on this right now, obviously, as he's resigning as governor or saying he'll resign, and we're still waiting for full confirmation on that. I, at least, I at least am asking for paperwork and want to see that in writing.
- [09:59]
B
I think you should ask for paperwork. I mean, we saw on Sunday, you know, national news that his top aide resigned and then we see her with him two days later, very much there, and they say they're leaving in two weeks. So I think you are right to ask for the paperwork and to wonder why it's going to take at least 14 days for him to leave all the other governors that have resigned in disgrace. And New York does have a playbook for governors resigning in disgrace. Sad to say they have all left right away. So it doesn't make any sense that he would need two weeks. But sorry, what was your question?
- [10:38]
A
Well, that gets at it. I mean, even the period taking this period of two weeks, Elliot Spitzer, who last resigned, took four days or something, five days. But what's at the root of all the Cuomo corruption, the toxic workplace, the sort of feuds, there's almost nobody in New York politics that he gets along with well, for a sustained period of time. What is at the root of that, from your assessment?
- [11:14]
B
I mean, it's Andrew Cuomo and his quest for power. Everyone is afraid of him. I mean, even with the Cynthia Nixon campaign The hardest thing for us was to get staffers who were willing to be part of our campaign who knew something about politics. Remember that? He was so vindictive that he would. Everyone was afraid of him. So he's been holding that power very tightly for many years. That's why it might be so hard for the average New York voter to understand how much scandal has been going around with him, because people have been afraid to speak up. And people sometimes ask about Cynthia. They always ask like, well, why is she running? When the question should have been, why is she the only one who will run against him? Right. Because everybody else was scared, and she's the only one who had nothing to lose.
- [12:14]
A
So, yeah, take us back there. That's part of the reason I wanted to talk with you today, obviously, is I have a little ptsd.
- [12:20]
B
I don't know how far back I can go, but, yes.
- [12:22]
A
Okay, well, whatever you can conjure and share the theory of the case that your team presented in the 2018 primary, what did it boil down to? Because as you say, there were these questions about, you know, okay, people knew Cynthia Nixon had been an advocate, or some people did. Even those that knew still sometimes had this question of, okay, but why is she running? Could she really be governor? And as you said, she had the. As we both said, she's had the background in advocacy, but also people with political careers and futures were very unwilling to risk those to take on this powerful governor who instilled a lot of fear. But what was the theory of the case that you all presented?
- [13:12]
B
I mean, there were. Well, the first. The main thing that we ran was the reason Cynthia ran for governor was a little thing called a campaign for fiscal equity, and that was New York. No, New York being told that they have to fully fund our public schools. And Andrew Cuomo refusing. And Cynthia Nixon got her started as an activist, as a public school mom, and she wanted to fully fund our schools. Not just New York City, but Rochester, Buffalo, all around the state. Our schools were vastly underfunded. So that was the first that, like, how can we not fully fund our schools? But then there was so much more. And a big part of our of running was talking about the subway. You remember the summer tell when the subways were just overcrowded, breaking down, just a mess. Who controls the subway? The state. Andrew Cummer spent a lot of time trying to blame Bill de Blasio, and I think a lot of people fell for that. But at the end of the day, the MTA was run by the state. It was Cuomo's MTA and the subways were falling apart. So that was a huge part of our campaign. I mean, there were just. And just the fact that it's New York State, this should be the, you know, one of the bluest states in the whole country. And whether it came to voting rights, whether it came to just, you know, criminal justice, we were just so far behind and finished.
- [14:39]
A
Right. And so there was a long agenda of sort of progressive and even some more, you know, sort of. Even some more mainstream Democratic policies, ideals, funding. You also made the case on a sort of temperament and personality basis, didn't you?
- [15:00]
B
Oh, yes.
- [15:01]
A
I mean, leadership.
- [15:03]
B
We were talking about sexual harassment. I mean, he had. He was promoting people within his administration who were, you know, with interns and rampant sexual harassment. There was so much corruption. There was also another book deal from the first term that we were talking about. I mean, so much of what we discussed was about how he used his power and then how he would do anything to keep it. And one of the biggest problems we found was that he wasn't really covered in the New York City media market in any kind of tough way. You know, like, some of the reason Cynthia Nixon did better upstate is because a lot of those places don't have a larger than life mayor. And that what was happening in the state really dominated the news. What Andrew Cuomo was doing in New York City, that's just not the case. So here we were trying to lay out a case against Andrew Cuomo. And. And for some people, it was just. It was like hearing it for the first time. And they just didn't. They just didn't understand what we were saying. And they did. And from someone who Cynthia was.
- [16:13]
A
Yeah, go ahead.
- [16:15]
B
Yeah, well, Cynthia, just as a messenger, because she was the only one, he couldn't mess with her career. Right. Everybody else, any state senator, any city councilman, whoever it was, who would run against him, he would mess with their career. Cynthia was the only one who could take him on and who wasn't worried that he would destroy her. And the problem was for, you know, as she made the case, people kept saying, why you? And she kept saying, there's nobody else. You know, so. And I think that she. She was met with a lot of skepticism. She was met with a lot of sexism. And I mean, even reporter reporters would grill her in ways that they wouldn't even ask Cuomo question. They wanted her to mess up. But Cynthia was a real student of government. She took the responsibility seriously and she studied, and he let us have she did very well. It was just a question of.
- [17:14]
A
Right. And so this is obviously not to relitigate the 2018 primary, but it's more to sort of recall recently or relearned recently with more detail and corroboration and investigation of those, but also the larger picture of the administration culture that's have been discussed in New York politics for a long time. And that's part of the reason I wanted to talk to you about the 2018 campaign. But going even further back than that, as you mentioned, when Bill de Blasio sort of infamously went off on Andrew Cuomo in 2015, in June of 20, yep. There was this moment, right. Of maybe the floodgates are opening among people who felt similarly but were afraid to say it, but nothing.
- [18:00]
B
What do you remember Bill de Blasio In June of 2015, right after the budget session was done and, you know, legislature was out after a year of dealing with, I think, mayoral control and just the crazy, maniacal Andrew Cuomo, Bill de Blasio had had it. He sat down with Errol Lewis and he had a complete venting session of how ridiculous it was. But instead of building any kind of power, the fatal flaw for de Blasio was he left town, he said what he had to say, and then he went on vacation. And, you know, Andrew Cuomo got the whole summer and many years after to marshal his resources against de Blasio and to really make de Blasio pay for that. I think de Blasio used the word vendetta in the interview. And then Cuomo did a whole thing about how Bill de Blasio was anti Italian, if you remember. I mean, it was just, it just. And the thing was there, the whole tension of the relationship, you know, was like, made for the tabloids and, you know, with a little boxing gloves with their faces on the COVID of the, you know, the tabloids. But the problem was it wasn't really Andrew versus Bill Show. It was an Andrew, like, beating up Bill Show. He's like, he wanted to exert power wherever he could, and it was just. And then it just left a bad taste in everyone's. Like, it was just too much. And he. And the thing is, before, like, there were, there was always somebody before de Blasio. De Blasio just came the best, biggest target that Cuomo could find. But he was always, he hated everybody. And it's not just, it's his staff. You know, Bill de Blasio doesn't really care what's written about him, whereas Andrew Cuomo not only cares about everything, but reads every single word written about him. You know, it's like. And if a reporter says something bad about Cuomo, they will get 10 calls from his office yelling at them. And if they say something bad about de Blasio, they might not get one. You know, it's just a completely different governing style.
- [20:08]
A
And so some of what occurs to me, and I'm wondering where you see this falling is. You know, we've sort of had this arc where there's intermittent stories about it, but it's sort of this pretty well known fact that the governor sort of rules, you know, rules with an iron fist, has corruption scandals, has, you know, terrible relationships with so many officials, and it's one after the another with the feuds. But there seems to be this combination of sort of someone like de Blasio and there's been others too, sort of engages in a. Engages in this, but then doesn't really figure out how to do the political organizing to have any real shot at winning, or there's so many who are just too timid to take on the most powerful politician in the state. Is there anything I'm missing here? I mean, you know, what's your assessment of how this all happened?
- [21:13]
B
I think it just. People see what happens when you go after him. You know, they always say, like, if you want to kill the king, you best not miss. Like, the problem is that it's hard to kill him, like, to go after him. And when the Working Families Party went after him, what they did, what did he do? He went and he made another party called the wep, the Women's Equality Party, to confuse people. You know what I mean? He did everything. He made all the unions leave the wsp. Like, he went after that, and it just. It's. It's. Look what he did to de Blasio. You know, like, it's. No one wants to be that person, right. With no power. So. And the crazy thing about all this, it took like a 25 year old, you know, executive assistant of his to actually speak truth to power, you know, and she was braver than almost any legislator in Albany in terms of how she looked after him.
- [22:09]
A
And that's Charlotte Bennett, who came after, and along with Lindsey Boylan, of course, and then others. Yeah, we just have a couple.
- [22:18]
B
Yeah. Sorry. It just. He wielded his power, and the people, the unelected people around him wielded that power with just as much force.
- [22:29]
A
But this is New York, right? And I mean, this is New York with so many ambitious Politicians, smart strategist like yourself.
- [22:37]
B
This. This New York tough. I mean, it's. It's ridiculous. Like, there's nothing. Andrew Cuomo is exactly who he was a year ago. Like, he didn't change everybody else. You know what I mean? It wasn't. He hasn't changed this year. He's exactly the same person. And if these brave women didn't step forward, he would be. Still be doing all these terrible things and would probably, like, win reelection by a lot for his fourth term. It just, we had to, you know, people had to wake up and open their eyes a little.
- [23:11]
A
We only have a minute left. But speaking of that election that's looming, let's just say for argument's sake that Governor Andrew Cuomo resigns as expected and does not run for governor again next year. Who do you expect to run?
- [23:27]
B
I don't know. I hope it's someone who cares about New York City, because I feel like New York City has gotten the raw end of the deal for many years now. I hope it's. You know, I think we can have a progressive in New York State. We have so many amazing state leaders. It would just be really something to have New York live up to its potential. So I don't. I don't know who's in and who's out, but I'm hopeful after all these years of Cuomo, we get a fresh start and we bring good government back to the people again.
- [24:00]
A
And what do you think about the possibility of Bill de Blasio running for governor?
- [24:04]
B
I'm going to take a no comment on that. I think if Bill de Blasio runs for governor, that might be Andrew Cuomo's only way back.
- [24:19]
A
Wow. Okay. Well, that is a thought to end on. Rebecca Katz is a founding partner of New Deal Strategies, and we appreciate you coming back to share some historical thoughts and some new thoughts. And thanks again for joining me.
- [24:34]
B
Thanks, Ben. Always a pleasure. Wheel, wheel, wheel. Whale.
- [25:05]
A
Whale.