Andrew Cuomo, the former Governor of New York and current Democratic candidate for New York City mayor, is aiming to elevate his local campaign to a national level, despite being embroiled in a series of ongoing and past controversies.
According to POLITICO, Cuomo has expressed his intention to oppose President Donald Trump's proposed cuts to Medicaid, not just within his potential mayoral jurisdiction, but nationwide. He criticized Trump's decision to slash Medicaid funding, suggesting that this move could potentially cost the Republicans their majority in the House of Representatives.
"Hes cutting Medicaid. Medicaid is not a blue-city, blue-state situation," Cuomo told POLITICO. "That is in every state. That is a lot of red Congressional districts. And he could lose the House on cutting Medicaid if you organized it and got it moving."
Trump's "One Big Beautiful Bill Act," which has been passed by the House, is projected to cut approximately $600 billion from Medicaid, as estimated by the Congressional Budget Office. As reported by the Daily Caller, the bill prohibits benefits to illegal immigrants, individuals enrolled more than once, those who choose not to work, and those already receiving benefits elsewhere, according to Indiana Republican Representative Erin Houchin.
Cuomo has pledged to become a "spokesperson, advocate, organizer" for Medicaid, stating to POLITICO that he "would spend eight years in Washington go to that U.S. Conference of Mayors, go to the National Governors Association."
However, Cuomo's political career is currently under a cloud, with the Department of Justice (DOJ) investigating allegations that he lied under oath in Congress about his administration's response to the COVID-19 pandemic. House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer referred a criminal investigation against Cuomo to the DOJ in late April.
White House spokesman Kush Desai criticized Cuomo's previous handling of healthcare, telling the DCNF, "The last time Andrew Cuomo had a say in health care, thousands of New Yorks most vulnerable perished in nursing homes due to Cuomos blatant incompetence and disregard for science." Desai added, "Cuomo is not the white knight that Democrats are looking for to stop Republicans commonsense effort to protect Medicaid by taking illegal immigrants off the program."
During the pandemic, Cuomo was accused of manipulating numbers and statistics to portray New York's handling of the virus in a better light. While the figures used by his office suggested that New York had one of the lowest nursing home death rates, unedited data indicated that the state had one of the highest nursing home and hospital fatality rates.
Cuomo's tenure as governor ended in 2021 following a report by New York Attorney General Letitia James that concluded he had sexually harassed and subsequently silenced numerous women. At the time, 85 state assembly members had publicly supported his impeachment.
Cuomo's mayoral campaign has also faced significant setbacks recently, including a $675,000 fine from the New York City Campaign Finance Board for improper collusion with a super PAC.
In May, his campaign attorney sent a cease-and-desist letter to a union for distributing a mailer outlining reasons not to vote for him.
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