.NYGovCuomo appears on our May cover. His response to this deadly crisis has helped guide the nation. In an exclusive interview, he discusses what comes next
a 2015 biography of Cuomo. “One is charming and comes out in a time of crisis — he was brilliant during Superstorm Sandy, racing around the city late at night, checking each hot spot and earning the acclaim of people on either side of the aisle — but this is also a governor known for being brutal with underlings and ruthless with his rivals.
Rebecca Katz, a political consultant who worked closely with New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, a longtime punching bag of Cuomo’s, and who later served as a top strategist for the actress Cynthia Nixon when she challenged Cuomo in the 2018 primary, has never been a fan of the governor. Still, Katz acknowledges, “Cuomo benefits from understanding how communication works in a way that frankly no other elected official does right now. Trump understands why it’s important to be on TV.
Whatever his political future, Cuomo has become a trusted voice in a world of uncertainty. His homely PowerPoint slides are routinely memed. The slow, booming cadence of his sentences, once grating, could probably be marketed as a meditation app if we end up surviving this thing. Somehow, he’s connecting with millions of people at this time of extraordinary crisis and unimaginable loss.
No. No. There never — No, Mark. I did the briefings the way I would always do the briefings. I understand your question. But I have done nothing different than I have always done. Forget the whole national perspective. Well, look, there’s no doubt that government is only as effective as people allow it to be, unless you criminalize behavior. This is a democracy, and people have free will. And they’ll hear what the government says. And if they agree, they’ll follow it. If they don’t agree, they don’t follow it. What could counterbalance it? Criminalization could counterbalance it []. If you do it, you’re going to go to jail. But short of that, they make their own decision.
No, every action, Mark, that I took, I was criticized for being hypercautious and premature. I decided to close the schools. It was very controversial at the time. And people criticized me. I did the containment zone in Westchester, which had a bad name. Containment was supposed to mean containment of the virus. It was interpreted to mean containment of people. They thought that they were being imprisoned in the geographic area.
More people have health insurance in this state than almost any state in the United States. We’re at 95 percent covered. We had too many hospital beds in the health system. We still do. The health system has transitioned to more of a holistic system that focuses on wellness, community-based care, as opposed to hospital beds that are only intensive care. That’s where the health system is going. Now, to close a hospital is very hard.
Let me do it the other way. There is nothing that I learned from him that wasn’t useful [pauses]. No challenge is too great. Believe in the inherent goodness of people. Believe government done well is an art form. Believe government is the mobilizing vehicle for our better angels. Find support in family. I have my daughter here working with me the way I worked with my father. Speak honestly. Tell people the truth. They will respond to the truth, and logic, even if they don’t like it.
Yes. All I’m saying is, my father did not do that. He’s not comfortable with that. That’s not the way he communicated. You started by saying poetry-prose — he was a great speaker. Yes. The best. But not in what you’re talking about. Another thing about this tragedy that’s been very surreal is that, with disasters like a plane crash or an earthquake, you see faces and names. But here, because of medical privacy issues and because of the scale, so many of the people dying are somewhat invisible. It’s very haunting. How have you been processing this level of death? Have you reached out to families of those who have died?
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