Publisher ceases promotion of Cuomo’s Covid book amid nursing home inquiry

The publisher of American Crisis, Andrew Cuomo’s book about the coronavirus pandemic, will cease promotional efforts as the governor struggles under a New York crisis of his own making.

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Cuomo has been accused of sexual harassment by multiple women, of workplace bullying by multiple former aides, and of conspiring to cover-up Covid-19 deaths in nursing homes as the pandemic hit his state last year.

The New York Times reported Crown’s decision regarding Cuomo’s book, a spokesperson telling the paper there were “no plans” for a reprint, citing “the ongoing investigation into [New York state] reporting of Covid-related fatalities in nursing homes”.

Cuomo did not immediately comment. He has defended his handling of the nursing homes issue and apologised for behaviour described by women who claim harassment. But he has refused to resign, despite calls from top state Democrats. On Monday, Republicans in the state assembly began an attempt to impeach him.

American Crisis was published in October. In its review, the Guardian pointed to how it came to be written.

“Early in the pandemic,” Lloyd Green wrote, “Andrew Cuomo’s daily briefings emerged as must-see television, counter-programming to the campaign commercials that masqueraded as presidential press conferences [by Donald Trump]. The New York governor was forthright and reassuring, even as the body count mounted.”

But Green also wrote that Cuomo “confronts criticism of his order directing that older Covid patients be sent to nursing homes rather than hospitals, which may have contributed to New York’s high death toll. Although he pushes back, such claims are not going away.”

It has emerged that in summer 2020, when Cuomo signed to write his book, the state under-reported deaths in nursing homes by as much as half, 9,250 deaths of residents being written out of the record. Federal prosecutors are reportedly looking into the matter.

In American Crisis, Cuomo defends his handling of the issue.

“Republicans needed an offence to distract from the narrative of their botched federal response,” he writes. “So they decided to attack Democratic governors and blame them for nursing home deaths.”

He also writes: “New York was No46 out of 50 [states] in the nation when it came to percentage of deaths in nursing homes.”

That ranking would have been worse for New York if it had not changed its numbers.

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Cuomo’s book was subtitled Leadership Lessons from the Covid-19 Pandemic. As Green noted for the Guardian, it contributed to “buzz of a prospective appointment in [the] Biden-Harris administration, as attorney general” and was “best viewed as a job application”.

The book was a bestseller – but sales have recently plummeted.

As vaccines spread and cases fall but authorities fear a “fourth wave” of Covid from new variants, Cuomo’s various crises have returned him to the national headlines.

In a statement on Sunday, the state senate majority leader, Andrea Stewart-Cousins, said: “We need to govern without daily distraction. For the good of the state, Governor Cuomo must resign.”

The sexual harassment claims are being investigated under Letitia James, the New York attorney general.

On Monday, she appointed two lawyers.