President Joe Biden stood by New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, both Democrats, on Sunday amid calls that Cuomo should resign amid a nursing home scandal and allegations of workplace misconduct.
“Do you think Governor Andrew Cuomo should resign?” a reporter asked Biden on the White House lawn.
“I think the investigation is underway and we should see what it brings us,” Biden responded.
Cuomo is accused of kissing an aide at work, asking female aides about their sex lives, and of reaching under a woman’s blouse and having “aggressively groped” her. Biden has also been accused of sexually assaulting a former aide when he was a U.S. Senator.
In 2018, during Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearing, Biden said that when a woman comes forward with allegations that those allegations should be believed.
“For a woman to come forward in the glaring lights of focus, nationally, you’ve got to start off with the presumption that at least the essence of what she’s talking about is real, whether or not she forgets facts, whether or not it’s been made worse or better over time,” Biden said. “But nobody fails to understand that this is like jumping into a cauldron.”
The Associated Press seemingly sought to do damage control for the Democrat Party over the issue in a report late last week, claiming that Republicans were trying to weaponize the allegations.
“The escalating political crisis has spawned an impeachment inquiry in an overwhelmingly Democratic state, and threatens to cast a cloud over President Joe Biden’s early days in office,” The Associated Press wrote. “Republicans have seized on the scandal to try to distract from Biden’s success tackling the coronavirus pandemic and challenge his party’s well-established advantage with female voters.”
Reminder: The @AP actually published this sentence about the Cuomo scandals. pic.twitter.com/ZzM5BDsOvV
— Cameron Cawthorne (@Cam_Cawthorne) March 14, 2021
White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki refused to state on Friday whether Biden thought that Cuomo should resign.
“The President believes that every woman who’s come forward — there have now been six, I believe, who have come forward — deserves to have her voice heard, should be treated with respect, and should be able to tell her story,” Psaki said. “There also is an independent investigation that is ongoing, of course, in the state, with subpoena power overseen by the attorney general, and he certainly supports that moving forward. We, of course, have watched the news of a number of lawmakers call for that, but I don’t have any additional announcements from here.”
Vice President Kamala Harris also ignored a question from a reporter last week on whether she thought that Cuomo should step down. Harris previously said that she “believe[d]” the women who made allegations against Biden. Harris also said that she “believe[d]” Kavanaugh-accuser Christine Blasey Ford, saying that it took an “extraordinary amount of courage” for Ford to come forward with her allegations.
This article has been expanded after publication to include additional information and quotes.