Cuomo, facing scandals, has not met with top NY Senate Dem weeks before budget deadline

Cuomo remains defiant amid growing calls to resign

Rep. John Katko, R-NY weighs in on NY Governor Cuomo’s sexual harassment allegations and calls to resign on ‘FOX Report’

New York State Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins said Tuesday that she has not met with Gov. Andrew Cuomo to discuss the state’s budget, and that lawmakers are working hard on it without him as their April 1 deadline draws near.

Stewart-Cousins is one of many state officials who have called for Cuomo to resign amid multiple scandals.

“I haven’t actually met with the governor,” the Democratic leader told reporters according to the New York Post, adding that “he hasn’t actually asked me to meet with him.”

Fox News asked Cuomo’s office if the governor plans to meet with Stewart-Cousins to discuss the budget but they did not immediately respond.

Stewart-Cousins said members of the state Assembly and Senate have been hard at work to finish the budget under the April 1 deadline, whether they have help from the governor or not. Democrats currently enjoy a large majority in both the Assembly and Senate to override any potential veto.

The senator also addressed her call for Cuomo’s resignation, saying she had spoken to him about it directly.

“I had told the governor before I said what I said why I was saying it,” she revealed, reiterating her position. “I’ve made my opinions clear — I think the governor should resign.”

As more and more Democrats and Republicans have joined the ranks of those opposing Cuomo, Stewart-Cousins said she believes there is a majority that would like to see him step down. Still, she would not definitively say whether there were enough votes to impeach Cuomo, saying she had not “canvassed” her fellow lawmakers.

Democrats have turned on Cuomo as his administration has been rocked by controversies. First, lawmakers called him out for supposedly trying to hide the true number of coronavirus deaths in nursing homes following a directive that forbade facilities from turing away residents who had been hospitalized with the virus. Then sexual harasssment allegations came pouring in, most recently from a current staffer who reportedly claimed that governor groped her under her blouse at the governor’s mansion.

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Cuomo has denied wrongdoing regarding the nursing homes, claiming that his directive did not contribute to the thousands of deaths and that he was not hiding statistics. He stated that he told state lawmakers that their request for information was set aside as the admininistration dealt with the federal government — a claim state officials have disputed.

The governor has also denied ever touching anyone inappropriately, although he has apoloigized for making comments that caused discomfort that he believed at the time to be innocent.

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