Joe Biden has said that Andrew Cuomo should resign if the state attorney general’s investigation confirms the sexual harassment allegations against him.
The president made the remarks in an interview with ABC News that is scheduled to air on Wednesday morning. When asked by the anchor George Stephanopoulos if the investigation confirms the claims of the women, should Cuomo resign, Biden said “yes”, adding, “I think he’d probably end up being prosecuted, too.
“It takes a lot of courage to come forward so the presumption is it should be taken seriously,” Biden said. “And it should be investigated, and that’s what’s under way now.”
The New York governor is facing allegations that he sexually harassed or behaved inappropriately toward multiple women, including several former staffers. The former staffers have accused Cuomo of workplace harassment, including demeaning them with pet nicknames or making objectifying remarks about their appearance, subjecting them to unwanted kisses and touches or asking them about their sex lives.
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Cuomo also faces an allegation that he groped a female staff member under her shirt after summoning her to the governor’s mansion in Albany late last year. He has denied touching any women inappropriately.
The three-term governor has rejected calls for his resignation from fellow Democrats, including New York’s two US senators, Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand, and has asked New Yorkers to await the results of an investigation headed by the state’s attorney general, Letitia James.
James last week named a former federal prosecutor, Joon Kim, and the employment discrimination attorney Anne Clark to lead the Cuomo investigation. They have full subpoena power and will document their findings in a public report.
The sexual harassment investigation is in addition to scrutiny that Cuomo is facing from federal prosecutors who are looking into how his administration handled data on Covid-19 outbreaks at nursing homes.
Having said that Cuomo should resign if the investigation shows that the sexual harassment complaints against him are founded, Stephanopoulos asked Biden “but what about right now?”
New York’s senators, the majority leader, Chuck Schumer, and Kirsten Gillibrand, have called for Cuomo to go now, in addition to such calls from several New York members of Congress and state Democats.
Biden said: “That’s a judgment for them to make … here’s my position and it’s been my position since I wrote the Violence Against Woman Act [which passed in 1994], a woman should be presumed to be telling the truth and she should not be scapegoated and become victimized by her coming forward, number one.”
Then the president added: “But there should be an investigation to determine whether what she says is true. That is going on now.”
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