Politics

‘The Answer Is Not to Abandon Our Streets’

Good morning. It’s Friday. We’ll look at the strategies that President Biden outlined to help New York City fight gun violence. We’ll also look at the continuing fallout from the resignation of former Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

Credit…Alex Brandon/Associated Press

As President Biden might say, he and Mayor Eric Adams are simpatico.

“Mayor Adams, you and I agree: The answer is not to abandon our streets,” said the president during a discussion of gun violence at New York Police Department headquarters. Nor is the answer to defund the police, Biden added: “It’s to give you the tools, the training, the funding to be partners, to be protectors.”

Biden described a shared vision with Adams that aims to increase federal investment in policing while both responding to violent crime and guarding against excessive policing.

The mayor — who said, “There is a reason they call me the Biden of Brooklyn” — said it was reassuring to have a president who understands the city’s problems. New York remains a city on edge, as the president acknowledged when he mentioned two officers killed last month while answering a 911 call about a domestic disturbance. He called them “the who and what law enforcement ought to be.”

Biden promised that the Justice Department would focus on so-called ghost guns, weapons that are assembled from kits but are not covered by federal gun laws. “If you commit a crime with a ghost gun, not only are state and local prosecutors going to come after you,” Biden said, “but expect federal charges and federal prosecution as well.”

He said the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives had formed task forces across the country to crack down on guns transported across state lines, although some have criticized the administration for not securing a confirmed leader to head the agency. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, who also attended the session, said that 90 percent of the guns used in crimes in New York City are illegally trafficked.

[Biden Vows to N.Y. Officials That He Won’t ‘Abandon Our Streets’]

For the president and other national Democrats, the trip had larger political implications. My colleagues Katie Glueck and Zolan Kanno-Youngs write that Biden is navigating challenging crosscurrents. His political base is counting on him to deliver on long-promised police accountability measures. But Republicans are making a concerted effort to define Democrats as soft on crime.

Biden’s struggling approval ratings have not helped. But New York Democrats, including Adams and Gov. Kathy Hochul, welcomed him warmly.

For Adams, it was a high-profile opportunity to press for federal assistance in combating gun violence in the aftermath of shootings that have alarmed many New Yorkers. Many national Democrats say that Adams, a former police captain, has a paradigm that will appeal to voters concerned about both crime and police misconduct.

On Thursday, Biden said the federal government would give Adams what he wants. “We’re about funding and providing the additional services you need beyond someone with a gun strapped to their hip,” Mr. Biden said, adding that there was $200 million for community violence intervention programs in his budget proposal. He also noted that he had called on Congress to increase federal grants to police departments by $300 million and encouraged localities to use stimulus funds to hire more officers and pay them overtime.


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The continuing fallout from Andrew Cuomo’s resignation

Credit…Jason Kempin/Getty Images for Turner

Going for the jugular was a practiced move in former Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s long career in Albany. But in the year since he was first accused of sexual harassment, the tactic has proved counterproductive for him — he resigned in August after saying that his initial instinct had been “to fight through this controversy.” And the careers of people around him have suffered.

The fallout continued on Wednesday when Jeff Zucker (above) resigned as president of CNN. His departure came after an internal investigation into the network’s former anchor, Chris Cuomo — who was fired in December over his role in advising his brother. Chris Cuomo’s lawyers, fighting for millions of dollars in severance pay for him, mentioned Zucker’s undisclosed romantic relationship with another CNN executive, long rumored in television news circles.

“They’re known to take no prisoners. This is how they fight, and I think the feeling is, ‘If I’m going down, you’re going down,’” said Debra Katz, a lawyer representing Charlotte Bennett, one of the women who accused the former governor of sexual harassment.

Andrew Cuomo had a reputation for governing by fear in his decade in power — and for pressing the Cuomos’ case forcefully when his father was governor in the 1980s and 1990s. And both he and Chris Cuomo have worked to resurrect their reputations since they left their jobs. The former governor has sought out former allies, raising speculation that he was considering returning to public life. The New York Post reported that he was seen on Tuesday having dinner with Mayor Eric Adams, who once called for his resignation.

My colleagues Luis Ferré-Sadurní and Michael Gold write that by bringing up Zucker’s romantic relationship in discussions with CNN, Chris Cuomo and his lawyers drew criticism that they were using the same combative approach that Andrew Cuomo often used in Albany.

“If this is a domino effect that begins with Andrew Cuomo going down from the governor’s office, and then Chris Cuomo being fired from CNN, and then Jeff Zucker losing his job at CNN, that is a remarkable chain of events,” Brian Stelter, the network’s media correspondent, said on the air Wednesday, adding that Chris Cuomo was “not going out quietly” and was perhaps “trying to burn the place down.”

A spokesman for Chris Cuomo declined to comment.

Zucker’s relationship with Allison Gollust, whom he has described as his closest professional colleague, had long been rumored in television news circles.

Gollust is CNN’s executive vice president and chief marketing officer, although my colleagues John Koblin and Michael M. Grynbaum write that her titles only hint at her influence. At CNN, colleagues said that she and Zucker ran the network more or less as a unit. They have worked together for more than 20 years, starting at NBC, where she was a senior publicist for the “Today” show and he was a wunderkind executive producer.

The Downfall of Andrew Cuomo


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The path to resignation. After drawing national praise for his leadership in the early days of the pandemic, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo was confronted with several scandals that eventually led to his resignation on Aug. 10, 2021. Here is what to know about his political demise:

Sexual harassment accusations. Multiple women accused Mr. Cuomo of harassment, including groping and lewd remarks. An independent inquiry by the New York State attorney general corroborated the accounts. The investigation also found that he retaliated against at least one woman who made her complaints public.

Nursing home controversy. The Cuomo administration came under fire for undercounting the number of nursing-home deaths caused by Covid-19 in the first half of 2020. The official tally might have undercounted the true toll by as much as 50 percent.

Book deal. The attorney general’s report found that Mr. Cuomo used state workers to produce his pandemic memoir, breaking a promise to the Joint Commission on Public Ethics not to use state resources for its completion. The board subsequently voted to revoke its authorization for the book.

Chris Cuomo’s involvement. Chris Cuomo, a CNN anchor and Andrew Cuomo’s brother, was suspended indefinitely by the network on Nov. 30, after the New York State attorney general released new evidence about his far-reaching efforts to assist his sibling that were in breach of journalistic standards. He was fired on Dec. 4.

“They were joined at the hip,” the former “Today” anchor Katie Couric wrote about Zucker and Gollust in her 2021 memoir, “Going There.”


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METROPOLITAN diary

Gotta get it over

Dear Diary:

I had been driving small moving trucks for years. When one of the long-haul drivers at the place I worked quit, my boss decided I should take his place driving a huge tractor-trailer.

My first trip was uneventful. On my second trip, I had two shipments to deliver: a household move to New Jersey and a small office to 25th Street in Manhattan.

Coming into the city, I went across the George Washington Bridge and then down Broadway. When I got to the address on 25th Street, I found a crowded loading dock. Pulling in wouldn’t have been a problem for a veteran driver, but I was a rookie.

After waiting several minutes for another truck to pull out, I managed to back in on my very first try. Unfortunately, it was a two-truck dock and I was a bit over the centerline.

“You gotta get it over,” the dockmaster said.

“It’s probably going to take me longer to get it over than it will to get the stuff off the truck,” I pleaded.

“Not my problem, pal,” he said. “Lots of other trucks. You gotta get it over.”

So, back and forth I went, trying to move the truck a couple of inches. The driver of a small truck who was waiting to get in helped me by blocking traffic.

When I finally got over the centerline, I met the driver of the small truck at the dock.

“You just get out of truck driving school?” he asked.

“No,” I said. “This is truck driving school.”

— Jack Clark

Illustrated by Agnes Lee. Read more Metropolitan Diary here.


Glad we could get together here. See you Monday. — J.B.

P.S. Here’s today’s Mini Crossword and Spelling Bee. You can find all our puzzles here.

Melissa Guerrero, Sadiba Hasan, Olivia Parker and Ed Shanahan contributed to New York Today. You can reach the team at [email protected].

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