New York Assembly member Ron Kim says that Governor Cuomo threatened him over comments he made criticizing Cuomo for his handling of COVID-19 nursing home data, according to The Washington Post.
Democratic Gov. Cuomo has recently been criticized for underreporting data on COVID-19 cases and deaths in New York nursing homes. Kim said the governor called him last Thursday, February 11, and asked him to backtrack on comments he made defending a top Cuomo aide who had admitted the Cuomo administration had been withholding the data out of fear of criticism.
Gov. Cuomo took issue with comments Kim allegedly made to the New York Post in which he suggested the Cuomo administration “were trying to dodge having any incriminating evidence that might put the administration or the [Health Department] in further trouble with the Department of Justice.”
Democratic Assembly member Kim said the governor threatened to “destroy” him on the call. Cuomo also publicly lashed out at Kim in a press conference claiming that the assembly member has “long and hostile relationship” with his office, The Washington Post reports.
Kim claimed he was misquoted and wanted to retract his comments. Then he got a call for the governor.
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“The first words out of his mouth [were], ‘Mr. Kim, are you an honorable man?’ ” Kim said, according to The Washington Post. “I remember him saying, ‘You haven’t seen my wrath. I bit my tongue about you for months, and I will go out tomorrow and destroy you and start telling the world how bad of a member you are, and you will be finished.’”
Advisers to Cuomo claim Kim was lying about the conversation. They say he was asked to “put out a truthful statement.”
But Kim says many New York lawmakers are on his side. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said he believed Kim and accused Cuomo of bullying the lawmaker, amNY reports.
“The bullying is nothing new,” de Blasio said, according to amNY. “I believe Ron Kim, and it’s very, very sad. No public servant, no person who’s telling the truth should be treated that way. The threats, the belittling, the demand that someone change their statement right away — many, many times, I’ve heard that, and I know a lot of people in this state have heard that.”
The mayor said Kim was “a good public servant” and “a person of integrity.”
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