About a year after an explosive report from the New York attorney general precipitated his political downfall, former Gov. Andrew Cuomo says he’s back with a PAC, a podcast, and an initiative aimed at gun safety.
“We have a lot to talk about to catch up,” 64-year-old Cuomo says in a video posted Wednesday.
He continues, “After working 24/7 in public service for many years, I’ve recently spent time engaging in something called life. I had a lot to make up for.”
It seems Cuomo has been spending his time out of the public eye with his daughters, his mother, his brother, former CNN host Chris Cuomo, and his friends.
“The past few months gave me a new perspective on politics,” Cuomo says in the video, later adding that he has seen “the good, the bad and the ugly — both extremes: the worst in politics and opportunism, but I’ve also seen the best in government and service.”
However, Cuomo promises he isn’t done fighting yet.
“I’m starting a Political Action Committee to elect the right people to office,” Cuomo says. “We do not need more panderers. We need producers.”
Cuomo claims he is also starting an initiative called The Gun Safe America Project, saying that the federal government does not have the courage or the capacity to make real progress.
“I’m also going to be doing a weekly podcast, to hear what’s on your mind and to discuss ways to help improve the situation,” Cuomo says, following in the footsteps of his also-disgraced younger brother who recently started his own podcast in an effort to earn back relevance.
A podcast would be a return to form of sorts for Cuomo, whose political star-power rose in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic due to his charismatic daily press conferences. But his charisma wasn’t enough to push back against mounting sexual misconduct allegations and other controversies, including how the state tracked virus deaths in nursing homes.
Cuomo insisted then that any personal misconduct was inadvertent, but that he needed to step down as the scandal had become too much of a hindrance on the state.
Six months after leaving the governor’s office, Cuomo began making a path back into public life, speaking to Bloomberg for an extensive interview in which he remained cagey about his next steps, but insisted he was confident that his reputation remained intact enough that a future return to politics might not be out of the question.
In the wake of his resignation, prosecutors declined to move forward with five cases against Cuomo related to the misconduct claims, in many cases, saying the behavior the women described wasn’t prosecutable under the statutes. Authorities stressed their decisions were not reflections on the veracity of Cuomo’s accusers.
