Things are not looking so great for
the governor of New York, because
an Assemblyman from New York is
alleging that Governor Andrew Cuomo
threatened to quote destroy him if
he didn't show the governor support
after it was discovered that Cuomo
had concealed the real numbers of
coronavirus deaths in nursing
homes, as much as 50%, by the way.
And so, Assemblyman Ron Kim, who's
had some policy disagreements with
Cuomo in the past, says that he got
this phone call and received some
threats from Cuomo as a result.
Let's take a listen to what
he's alleging.
>> I was one of six lawmakers in
that private meeting for two hours
with Secretary DeRosa when she
accidentally told us the truth,
that there was a cover up and
fear that the information being
weaponized against Governor Cuomo,
that moment I had to tell the truth
and I had to let the public know
what happened.
Governor Cuomo call me the next day
at 8pm while I was about to bathe
my kids, I was with my wife.
And for 10 minutes, he berated me,
he yelled at me, he told me that
my career will be over.
He's been biting his tongue for
months against me, and
I had tonight, not tomorrow,
tonight, to issue a new statement.
Essentially asking me to lie and
asked me, like I heard and I saw
crime that day, and he's asking
me that I did not see that crime.
This is what he said,
are you a lawyer?
That's the first question he asked.
And I said, I'm not,
then you must have not understood
what my secretary told you.
She didn't say any of that.
She said you've got to work
on the federal government first and
then the state.
That's what she said.
Go back to your staff and
the speaker's staff,
draft the statement and
issue that tonight.
Not tomorrow, do it tonight >> So,
he goes on to say that Cuomo said,
we're in this business together and
we don't cross certain lines.
And he said, I hadn't seen his
wrath and that he can destroy me,
he also said this,
no man has ever spoken to me like
that in my entire life.
At some point he tried to humiliate
me asking, are you a lawyer?
I didn't think so,
you're not a lawyer.
It almost felt like in retrospect,
he was trying to bait me and
anger me and
say something inappropriate.
I'm glad I didn't.
And so what he was referencing
in the beginning of that video
was meeting with law makers from
the state of New York.
And that's where to
DeRosa Secretary working for
Governor Cuomo, basically admitted
that there was some worry of
a federal investigation which is
why they were concealing
the coronavirus death numbers
coming from nursing homes.
And they intentionally put out
numbers that under counted
deaths by as much as 50%.
So, I mean and his wife by the way,
Kim's wife overheard parts
of the conversation and
also spoke to reporters to confirm
what she had heard.
So Cuomo's not looking real good,
and honestly Cenk I'm not really
that surprised, considering
the fact that for anyone paying any
attention to Cuomo's actions in the
beginning of the pandemic, you can
tell that he has no problem doing
things that are insanely cruel,
like cutting funding to Medicaid.
He knew about the severity of this
pandemic and still chose to
pursue cutting funds to Medicaid.
So when he was getting all of these
complimentary reports and everyone
was talking about how great he was.
I just feel like reporters
were comparing Cuomo to Trump,
who clearly had no interest in
dealing with coronavirus and
taking it seriously,
Trump will make anyone look good.
But if you just looked
at Cuomo's actions objectively,
he wasn't that great either.
>> Yeah, well alright, so there
is actually a little bit of a funny
part ending to this story that I'm
going to get to at the end, but
first the serious stuff.
And onto your point about
the Medicaid cuts,
it's part of the problem
with national media or mainstream
media throughout the country.
If Cuomo's lying,
they will cover that,
cause that is not substantive.
It is a situation where,
okay, we can clearly say that they
had the wrong numbers.
But cutting Medicaid is a policy
issue, and
there we have to be neutral.
I don't know, in the middle of
a pandemic, whether you have
healthcare or you don't, I can't
tell which one is the right thing.
I'm a reporter, I can't tell.
If I said it, it would be biased.
And plus there's a massive centrist
bias.
So they love
establishment democrats like Cuomo.
So in the middle of a pandemic,
him cutting Medicaid is actually
worse than any of these actions,
but it'll get almost no criticism
from the press cause they'll think,
I can't say that.
He misstated numbers, great,
we can run with that.
So now, secondly,
the bullying issue.
We covered this I think in a story
about another politician who I also
don't like last week, and
I defended them in a sense.
And here I'm going to make
a similar point, it's not that
they're afraid of Cuomo,
it's that people that
are outraged by the bullying
behind the scenes of politicians.
I guess the main culprit is the
media, it's not the the viewers,
it's not the readers,
cause they never hear about it,
cause the media covers it up.
But that stuff happens 24/7
in politics, non stop.
When I was briefly really running
for office I had local candidates
come to me all the time talking
about how Democratic
leaders in California
would bully them regularly.
You're not allowed to say this.
You're never allowed to
criticize us.
If you do, even if you win, you'll
never be able to introduce a bill,
we'll ruin your career.
This stuff happens nonstop in
politics and yes,
in democratic politics.
But if you tell the press no way,
no way, no that's our beloved,
California, well in that case
it's not the governor.
But New York Governor,
it's this person, it's that person,
and God help you if you're
an outsider or a progressive, cause
they'll never believe you, they'll
always believe the bully instead.
So now things are beginning to
change, the good news is
beginning to change.
So that's why you're seeing some
of these stories.
And it's because of progressive
people like Assemblyman Kim going,
I'm just going to tell people,
like you keep telling me you're
going to ruin my life.
Have it added hos let's see how
it turns out.
I'm telling people I
don't think you can.
And I want to add one more thing to
that Ana.
How do they ruin people's lives?
There's two principal ways, one,
that's it, we don't care about your
constituents.
We don't care that it's
also my voters.
You're never allowed to introduce
a bill again, okay.
Leadership will freeze you out,
you'll lose committee
seats et cetera.
But that's actually the milder
version of it.
And you're seeing the more
significant version right now.
It's in all the stories,
he'll bury you with their
friends and the press.
So in the stories now,
are starting to pop up attacks
against Assemblyman Kim.
Did you know he did this and
this in 2015.
Wait, why are we talking
about something Kim did in 2015?
Because Cuomo's people leaked
a hatchet attack against Kim and
you ran it, cause that's how they
bury their opponents.
The press helps them bully
outsiders and progressives.
>> So we have a poll on this
because state lawmakers
are currently working to possibly
strip Cuomo of some of his
executive power,
expanded executive power related to
the coronavirus pandemic.
And so the question is,
should New York states democrats
strip Andrew Cuomo of his
emergency pandemic powers?
You can choose one of
two options very easy, yes or no.
If you want to participate in this
poll, just go to tyt.com slash
polls slash Cuomo.
And by the way, Cuomo is up for
reelection next year.
Relevant information.
>> Yeah, no question.
Look, oftentimes our audience
surprises us, and so maybe there's
a lot of democrats out there who
still say no, Cuomo did an okay job
and he should have that power.
So I'm curious what you guys think.
But let me end on the funny note
and there's no diss on Assemblyman
Kim, who I obviously just
complimented here for his courage.
But at the end of the CNN report,
they quote Kim as saying,
that night was very, very troubling
because we couldn't sleep, and
she's telling me, his wife, is
telling me, what did you do to us?
Stop what you're doing, please.
She feared for my future and
for my life.
I'm not sure I would have said
that quote about my wife
in a situation like this.
I know what he's trying to say,
which is that we
felt significantly threatened.
But stay strong Kim family,
and the reality is as long as you
expose them in a big enough way.
They won't be able to do anything
to you, because they're usually
hit you by using the press without
anybody seeing it.
And by the way to the audience,
if you see any nonsense stories
about Assemblyman Kim,
popping up all over the place now.
You know that that reporter is
corrupt cause they're working with
Cuomo and taking leaks, and
they know that he's attacking and
trying to bury Kim as we speak,
as Cuomo actually threatened to do.
And disregard those stories,
you want to talk about him at
another time, fine,
but it's a distraction now.
Or as vengeance against him for
exposing Cuomo that is
unconscionable, every reporter
should tell Cuomo's office,
under no circumstances will they
accept a nonsense leak like that.
And you shouldn't read it and
should throw it
in the trash where it belongs.