New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo knows this challenge is different than any other he has dealt with in nearly 40 years in and around state and federal governments.
ALBANY - Toward the end of New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo's daily coronavirus briefing Tuesday at the state Capitol, he veered into how the growing crisis is affecting him personally.
One of his three daughters, all in their 20s, was self-quarantined because of the novel coronavirus. His 88-year-old mother and former New York first lady, Matilda, is holed up in her Manhattan apartment. Cuomo himself is living in the cavernous governor's mansion a block from the state Capitol."And then this concept of maybe I can't get next to her because of this virus. There is a distance between me and my daughter because of this virus.
He has served as New York's commander in chief by wielding all the power of the state's massive government, and at the same time he has taken on the role as its comforter in chief by preaching calm in the face of crisis. "In his DNA is the notion that government matters," said Benjamin Lawsky, a former aide when Cuomo was attorney general from 2007 through 2010 and then when Cuomo took office as governor in 2011.
Howard Glaser, who worked under Cuomo at HUD and was his first director of state operations in Albany, recalled Cuomo's visits to floods in Grand Forks, North Dakota, in 1997; and in subsequent years to Hurricane Georges in the Dominican Republic and Hurricane Mitch, which destroyed over half a million homes in Central America.
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