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De Blasio slams Cuomo saying 'he should never hold office again'

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Updated  August 12, 2021 12:47pm EDT
Bill de Blasio
FOX 5 NY

De Blasio slams Cuomo, admin

Mayor Bill de Blasio ripped into Gov. Andrew Cuomo saying Albany was not normal during his administration.

NEW YORK - Mayor Bill de Blasio wasn't letting Gov. Andrew Cuomo go quietly, saying Thursday he should never run for office again following the governor's resignation announcement earlier in the week.

De Blasio slammed Cuomo during a briefing on the extreme heat enveloping the city.

"In the end, history will judge him harshly because he amassed power in a way that lead to bullying, intimidation, and threats," said de Blasio. "It was almost Shakesperean. So much power lead to his downfall. No one should have that much power."

"It's absolutely meaningful to me that every effort to dominate everything else in his path undermine whatever good may have been his plans. It's a cautionary tale to everyone. There's supposed to be checks and balances. You're not supposed to have one person in power and it got the better of him."

Cuomo leaves office in less than two weeks as an impeach investigation in the state legislature continues and questions are being raised about other alleged misdeeds by his administration beyond the sexual harassment report that found accusations by 11 women to be true.

Why is Cuomo waiting 14 days?

Many of Governor Andrew Cuomo's critics are wondering why he is taking 14 days to leave office, rather than resigning immediately.

"We still have huge questions on the nursing homes, the cover-up, on whether vaccines were given as a political favor, supplies were provided to allies and withheld from those the governor did not favor. There are huge, huge questions here. There has to be further accountability," said de Blasio.

Along with Cuomo, the mayor said other members of the governor's administration should be investigated.

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"If our seniors, some of our seniors lost their lives, because of choices the governor's team made that has to be understood. If there was a conscious cover-up, that has to be understood. If some people were given testing but that's for the investigators and legislators to determine," said de Blasio.

The mayor went on to say that Cuomo should never run for office again and that he looked forward to working with Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul.

Kathy Hochul lays out plans for when she becomes governor

Kathy Hochul made her first appearance Wednesday as the soon-to-be governor of New York, and the current Lieutenant Governor's message was she is ready to clean house and move the state forward.

"We've just seen the beginning of the proof of the damage he did. He should never hold office again. Impeachment or no impeachment," said de Blasio.

He added that he looked forward to "normalcy" in Albany.

"What we were experiencing in Albany is not normal. It's not normal. It shouldn't be that way. The idea should be that a governor picks up the phone to a county executive or to a mayor and says ‘how do we work together? What do you need? How can we can help?’ Or if a mayor has an idea or local official has an idea and offers it to the governor, let me look into that. Let me see how can we work together on that. Never. that was never the reality."