Disgraced ex-New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo diminished his successor’s part in the state’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic during a congressional grilling in June, saying now-Gov. Kathy Hochul spent most of the time in her hometown of Buffalo.
“What role did Governor Hochul play in your response to the pandemic?” a staff member for the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic asked Cuomo during a transcribed interview that probed the Democrat administration’s decision to house 9,000 recovering COVID patients in nursing homes.
“In what way?” the 66-year-old responded.
“Did she play a role in the state’s response to the coronavirus?” the staffer asked again.
“She was an adviser,” Cuomo said tersely.
“Often? You’re beating around the answer,” the staff member followed up.
“That was my intention,” Cuomo shot back. “She was not in the briefings, and I don’t think she was involved on the working group. She wasn’t involved in the working group.”
“Was the now-governor in Albany?” asked Rep. Nick Langworthy (R-NY).
“She was in Congressman Langworthy’s district, usually. I don’t know what they were doing,” Cuomo said, half-jokingly. “And I don’t know if it was coincidental, but that’s where she was. She was in Buffalo, mostly.”
“I think your response speaks volumes about the Lieutenant-Governor Hochul,” Langworthy responded.
“Remember David Patterson’s line?” Cuomo quipped. “David Patterson was the lieutenant-governor before he became governor. He said the lieutenant-governor has one job. You call up the governor in the morning. If he answers the phone, you go back to sleep.”
Cuomo also did not mention Hochul in his 300-page pandemic memoir, for which the former governor said he was paid roughly $900,000 after “taxes, contributions and expenses.”
Hochul was elevated to the governor’s office in August 2021 following Cuomo’s resignation due to sexual harassment allegations. She won re-election in November 2022.
A Hochul spokesperson referred The Post to a pair of comments the now-governor made around the time of her elevation.
“I think it’s very clear that the governor and I have not been close, physically or otherwise, in terms of much time,” she told a news conference on Aug. 11, 2021. “I’ve been traveling the state and do not spend much time in his presence or in the presence of many in the state capital.”
Four days later, Hochul told CNN: “The people who know me know that I’ve not been close to the governor. I’ve not been in the rooms where any of these actions occurred and my role as lieutenant governor for seven years has really been to spend as little time in Albany as possible except when I’m presiding over the [state] Senate.”
