Just what is former Gov. Andrew Cuomo up to these days?
It sure seems like he’s gearing up for another run — but under which political party?
The first clue is his bid at massive COVID revisionism.
In a recent interview, Cuomo claimed he hadn’t forced anyone to close their business or wear a mask, and in fact had no power to do so.
Indeed, to hear Cuomo tell it, people all did it voluntarily.
Please. For those of us who lived through Cuomo’s New York in 2020 and haven’t somehow had our memories erased, the truth was quite different.
In fact, Cuomo’s leadership was uber-authoritarian, not to mention erratic.
He absolutely closed businesses, schools, bars, gyms and houses of worship in certain areas and forced even toddlers into masks (while he himself was rarely seen in one).
His rules, of course, never made any sense and had nothing to do with science.
Remember having to order a “substantial” snack with a drink at the bar with a curfew of 11 p.m.?
Or when he fined New Yorkers $1,000 for failing to social-distance outdoors?
He now wants us to think we did that all on our own.
Praised for his calm and steadiness at the start of the pandemic, the hothead gov we’d known all along soon emerged.
He had open fights with then-Mayor Bill de Blasio. He was belligerent, nonsensical.
He’d insist he was in control, as he famously did when he bloviated, “[DeBlasio] didn’t close schools, and he can’t open them” — but then did nothing to actually open the schools.
His biggest sin: forcing nursing homes to take in COVID-positive patients, while knowing it can spread in such facilities “like fire through dry grass,” as he himself put it.
That likely led to hundreds of avoidable deaths.
Cuomo’s team then concealed the real number of nursing-home deaths, and though he eventually apologized, it was only to fellow Democrats feeling political heat over the lies.
In the years since COVID, plenty of people have tried to rehabilitate their image and cover up their atrocious pandemic failures.
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer says she never banned seeds or gardening, though she did just that.
American Federation of Teachers boss Randi Weingarten now insists she tried to open schools, even though she fought tooth and nail to keep them closed — and even helped write Centers for Disease Control policies to ensure they wouldn’t open.
Yet Cuomo is going further: In November 2022, the ex-gov began appearing on WABC Radio in New York.
This was odd because the station is essentially right-of-center, home to conservatives like Mark Levin and Sid Rosenberg.
That December he was spotted dining with Kellyanne Conway, Donald Trump’s campaign manager in 2016 and close adviser through his 2020 run.
Cuomo spent February of 2023 criticizing the Biden administration on immigration, adding that maybe the “southern states were right.”
By March 2023, Cuomo had a spot guest-hosting on the WABC network.
In April and May, he blasted Alvin Bragg’s case against Donald Trump and bashed fellow Democrats on crime.
In March, he opposed congestion pricing, which he himself signed into law.
In December, a Republican group paid for a poll testing Cuomo’s chances in a primary against Mayor Eric Adams.
And now comes his claims that he never locked anyone down or made anyone mask.
What a shift!
In 2014, he told conservatives to leave New York, because they didn’t belong here.
Of course, he was on top then and didn’t need those icky Republicans.
Now he sees that the path to his next political role will require conservative support, if not the GOP ballot line itself.
Don’t fall for the charade: Cuomo didn’t suddenly become open-minded; this is all a political calculation.
He may be marginally better than some New York Democrats, but he’s still just out for himself — and the same old Cuomo: You can be sure the mean-spirited, dictatorial left-leaning bully will eventually reemerge.
As for Republicans, building the party in Blue York is hard work.
Yet taking a chance on a failed Dem suddenly saying all the right things will only create a roadblock for the right.
Republicans shouldn’t forget what the governor actually did and said back when he didn’t need them.
Twitter: @Karol