What is it Andrew Cuomo does not understand – he needs to resign immediately

It is difficult to know what is going through the head of Andrew Cuomo right now. And similarly that of Joe Biden.

The 63-year-old year three-term governor of New York was this week found by an investigation carried out by his own prosecutors, to have sexually harassed at least 11 women, and in doing so “violated federal and state law”.

Not only that. The report found that Cuomo, whose father also served three terms as governor of the nation’s fourth largest state, had retaliated against at least one woman who made her complaint public, and oversaw a system of fear and intimidation.

The findings revealed “a deeply disturbing, yet clear, picture”, said New York Attorney General Letitia James. Notably, the 175-page report found all of the accusers interviewed over the course of a six-month probe to be “credible”, whereas the governor’s denials were not.

At this point, one might have expected Cuomo to announce he was standing down. Even if he disagreed with the inquiry’s findings, out of respect to the investigation he commissioned and to the the women he was found to have assaulted, one might have expected he realised he could no longer be governor.

Even based on the bare dirty politics of it – with every member of New York’s Democratic delegation calling for him to go – he might have assumed his future was no longer tenable.

But none of it. Instead, what the people of New York received, and what the women he had been found to have harassed received, was a recorded video message, in which he not only failed to announce he was standing down, but that he rejected the inquiry’s findings.

“I never touched anyone inappropriately or made inappropriate sexual advances,” Cuomo said. “I am 63 years old. I’ve lived my entire adult life in public view. That is just not who I am.”

He claimed that he touched and hugged everyone as a hands-on politician, speaking against a photo-montage showing him interacting with various people.

He added that his personal lawyer, Rita Glavin, had prepared a point-by-point rebuttal to the findings of the inquiry, whose investigators interviewed him for 11 hours.

“The facts are much different than what has been portrayed,” he said. “Read the facts and decide for yourself.”

He also claimed that he had learned from one experience – a now-notorious incident after it was published on the front page of the New York Times – in which he held a woman’s face, as she grimaced.

“I now understand that there are generational or cultural perspectives that frankly I hadn’t fully appreciated, and I have learned from this,” he said.

This is rot. Each and every one of us has to negotiate generational or cultural changes as we go through our working lives. If someone wishing to represent 20 million people cannot see that, then he should never have got the job.

More pointedly, when was it ever correct to sexually harass or abuse people? Never.

The fact that many high-profile people, in the arts, the media and politics got away with it such behaviour for so long, was one of the most disturbing elements of the #MeToo revelations that rocked the country in 2017, and saw many people – among them Democratic senator Al Franken – quit those jobs or be fired.

Almost equally depressing as Cuomo’s words, has been the response of the president of the United States.

Joe Biden has himself over the years faced claims and accusations over his literally too hands-on style of politics. For a while, it appeared his presidential bid might be derailed when one former employee, Tara Reade, claimed he had sexually assaulted her in a building on Capitol Hill in 1993.

Various media organisations looked into the claims, and were unable to find supportive evidence. Biden “unequivocally” denied the accusation.

Earlier this year, when Biden was asked about Cuomo, he said he should stand down if the inquiry found he had harassed the women. Yet, this week, he rather meekly responded to a reporter: “I think he should resign.”

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Nobody ought to be to be satisfied with this, and especially not the Democrats. Biden does not hold constitutional power over Cuomo, but he he is the most senior Democrat in the nation. He ought to be making clear there is no room for Cuomo, not in the governor’s mansion in Albany, or in the Democratic Party itself.

It it quite a from fall from grace for Cuomo, who in the earlier part of last year was winning plaudits for the way he was responding to the Covid crisis, to the extent some were wondering aloud if he, rather than Biden, ought to be facing off against Trump in November. He was very much planning to run for a fourth term, given New York sets no term limits.

Yet what is the alternative for a party that seeks to be on the side of justice? To take a page from Trump’s playbook when accused by more than a dozen woman of sexual assault, to deny and just carry on? A new poll on Friday found a majority of New Yorkers believed he should stand down.

It may be that the law catches up with Cuomo before his conscience.

On Friday, it was reported that one of the accusers, a woman who alleged he had groped her while in the governor’s mansion, had filed a criminal complaint with the Albany County sheriff’s department. It is also possible Cuomo could be impeached by state legislators.

But before all this plays out, Biden needs to act.

He needs to pick up the phone and tell Andrew Cuomo he needs to stand down. Immediately.