Ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo vowed he will stand up to “bully” President Trump if he’s elected New York City mayor — but critics sniped back that the Democrat knows all about bullying.
Cuomo, during a speech at First Corinthian Baptist church in Harlem, said he sparred with Trump during the COVID-19 crisis.
“We almost created issues to fight about,” Cuomo said at the end of Palm Sunday service. “It became so commonplace. But we fought about vaccines. We fought about federal resources. We fought about ships, we fought about everything,”
“And you know what I learned about Mr. Trump? He is a bully,” he said. “And you know what you do with a bully? You stand up to a bully. When they put their finger in your chest, you step forward. You don’t step back … We’re going to stand up to the bully.”
During his first-term as president, Trump called Cuomo a “bully thug.”
Cuomo was in Harlem to discuss his 500,000 units over 10 years housing plan, two-thirds of which will be affordable to people with low- and moderate-incomes. He said that would incentivize faith based-groups to use their surplus property for housing.
Critics were more caught up on the “bully” jab.
“Hello pot, meet kettle,” said upstate state Sen. George Borrello, who represents the Buffalo-Rochester region and dealt with Cuomo both as Chautauqua county executive and as a state legislator.
“Cuomo was the biggest bully in Albany for years,” Borrello said.
State Republican Party chairman Ed Cox scoffed at Cuomo’s claims.
“Talk about a bully. Cuomo is the original thug in NY politics,” he said.
Queens state Assemblyman Ron Kim in 2021 claimed a spitting-mad Cuomo threatened to “destroy” him if he didn’t help contain the damage over the Cuomo administration’s alleged cover-up of nursing home resident COVID-19 deaths.
Kim — whose uncle died of the coronavirus in a nursing home — said Cuomo told him in a heated phone interview, “You have not seen my wrath.”
The assemblyman declined to revisit the alleged threat on Sunday.
A rep for city comptroller and mayoral candidate Brad Lander said Cuomo and Trump are two peas in a pod.
“New Yorkers know that Andrew Cuomo and Donald Trump are longtime friends who share a history of corruption, daddy issues, and sexual harassment allegations,” said Lander spokesperson Dora Pekec.
Cuomo resigned as governor under the threat of impeachment in 2021 over sexual harassment claims, which he denies.
He is now the Democratic-front runner for mayor, according to numerous polls.
But one long-time confidante of Donald Trump who also knows Cuomo well said the accusations of bullying show that both men are tough — a positive trait.
“One thing you can say for certain: Donald Trump and Andrew Cuomo are both very tough guys and in American politics only the tough survive,” said political consultant Roger Stone.
