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Morning Spew

Andrew Cuomo Nails First Big Post-Resignation TV Appearance, Only Says ‘Fingers in the Vagina’ Once

Plus more stories that have nothing to do with the former governor to start your Monday.

9:41 AM EDT on October 30, 2023

Trash

(Hell Gate)

Andrew Cuomo and his former top enforcer (no, not the one who was convicted of taking bribes, the one who just wrote a book about the excesses of the #MeToo movement) went on Bill Maher's show on Friday night to soft-launch their comeback into polite society. 

How did it go? Well, according to this clip that HBO published of Cuomo's interview, within 60 seconds of Maher asking the former governor about whether he thinks President Joe Biden should run for a second term, Cuomo proclaims that we are governed by "fear-driven politics" and then says the phrase "fingers in the vagina."

"This cancel culture, it's a loaded gun, and they can use it against anyone anytime even for their self-interest. But I think what Biden's calculus was, he was accused of Tara Reade—fingers in the vagina. Sorry, mom," Cuomo said, as the crowd laughed nervously. "Other women came out, 'He smelled my hair,' et cetera. He wanted quickly to distance himself from this. Which is ironic, because the same attorney who represented the Tara Reade case, is the main attorney who drove this case against me. And he could have said, you know what, I went through this, let's take a deep breath, and actually get the facts before we ask the governor to resign."

If you heard someone say this at a party, you'd have slowly started walking backwards at the word "ironic," using your peripheral vision to locate someone else you know to rope into a different conversation, one that doesn't involve press-hungry corporate attorneys who wronged you in a past life. But this is one of the most ruthless politicians of his generation, whose ruthlessness was mostly aimed at keeping himself in power, talking about "fear-driven politics," and in the very same breath, resurfacing graphic allegations of sexual assault against the president—who just happened to be the most powerful Democrat urging Cuomo to resign in the summer of 2021. 

Cuomo goes on to say that he would "probably" be running against Biden if he were still governor (in other words, if he hadn't been disgraced by the credible reports of sexual harassment and the investigation into nursing home deaths during the pandemic and his book deal that had government employees on the state payroll working to publish a book that no one read that netted him millions of dollars).

"I think the Democratic party has to engage with real people and real voters on a different level," Cuomo said. "I think they're too much in Washington, too much Trump is no good and Trump is a bum. You can't run on banking that the other guy is gonna lose. You have to have an affirmative strategy to win."

Democrats aren't talking about real issues and real people. Wow this is some cutting-edge political shit. Someone get this guy a podcast!

Okay, you've thought enough about Andrew Cuomo today, here are some other stories to read:

And finally, Bike Kill Bike Killed. "Sandstorm" is great for jousting.

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