New York Assemblyman Ron Kim, a Democrat who represents part of Queens, has been one of Governor Andrew Cuomo’s greatest critics since the pandemic began.
In particular, Kim criticized the Health Department’s order from the Cuomo administration to nursing homes to admit COVID-positive patients discharged from hospitals and the government’s lack of transparency about data related to deaths in nursing homes.
In recent weeks, the New York attorney general released a report showing that the state had underestimated the number of deaths in COVID nursing homes by about 50%, Cuomo’s senior advisor, Melissa DeRosa, admitted in a conference call with some New York Democrats that the government “froze” for fear of a DOJ investigation when the legislature requested data on the nursing home, and a bipartisan group of lawmakers called for Cuomo to be stripped of the emergency powers he has held since the start of the pandemic.
Kim said Cuomo called him in person and threatened to “destroy him” if he did not alter his earlier comments about what DeRosa had said in last week’s conference call. This week, a spokesman for the governor said Kim was “lying” about these charges, and Cuomo accused Kim of accepting “unethical, if not illegal” political donations.
Columnist Anthony Fisher spoke to Congressman Kim by phone on Friday about feeling “terrified” by the sounds of Cuomo screaming, why the nursing home catastrophe hit him so personally and why he thinks his own investigation Cuomo government was “complete bullshit.”
This interview was edited in its length, context and clarity.
With just over a month of pandemic in April 2020, you posted a video talking about the increase in deaths in nursing homes in Queens – which was the epicenter of US COVID at the time.
What made you address this issue so early?
It was a very frantic and desperate email from a constituent. I spoke to her on the phone, and the next morning, I met her at the nursing home to find out what was going on. I sent an email and called the director of the nursing home, but he didn’t respond.
So I took a softer approach and told him that we want to leave some PPE for you. He left and I started talking to him. He told me that more than a hundred people died and had not been reported. He did not know how to deal with this, and the Department of Health had done nothing to support him.
And that’s when I realized, “Holy shit. Something’s going on and we need to move on. More people can die.”
That’s when I really started to investigate what was going on. And during that time, some articles came out that publicized the situation and people continued to pile up texts, emails, Facebook [messages and tweets] telling me about other loved ones and citing similar situations.
The Cuomo government’s Department of Health investigated and cleared itself of any wrongdoing regarding deaths in nursing homes last summer.
What was your reaction to that report?
Oh, it was complete bullshit. Everyone knew that. How do you self-assess McKinsey? It’s ridiculous, it was the beginning of a cover-up.
That was when we started demanding an independent commission because these guys were not acting in good faith. I introduced the bipartisan commission with the Republicans in the Senate, because we needed a completely independent commission to thoroughly investigate what was going on – with full subpoena power.
The governor said the other day that if members of the legislature wanted the records so badly, they could have just subpoena him. Republicans certainly wanted to do that. Why didn’t it happen?
THE [Democratic] speaker and majority leader have these powers. And Governor Cuomo knows that he has a lot of influence in the leadership. It’s a distraction. And I think that, at this point, we know that those words are empty and we are moving towards an impeachment process, because I think that most members got tired.
After the DOH report was published, Cuomo rarely addressed the nursing home catastrophe. But when you did, he suggested that even asking questions about deaths in nursing homes made you the tool of a coordinated smear campaign on the right.
As a progressive Democrat, how did you feel being accused of being an instrument of defamation from the right?
Those are just distracting comments. He is very good at reducing any criticism to right spots or just people being incompetent and not understanding the information.
I think we’re all catching up with some of those tactics, and he knows he’s running out of time quickly, and we’re going to find out the truth very soon.
It is a pity that it has to be so. I hope he realizes that, with every second he wastes, we are actually putting more lives at risk in these facilities, because people still die every day in nursing homes because of his policies.
How accused you from driving a “continuing the racket“to raise campaign funds from beauty salon owners who opposed the beauty salon renovation project. What is your answer to that?
It’s just another typical Cuomo distraction. We’ve seen this several times, it’s part of your tactics. But I’m doing my job and people are still impacted [by COVID]. And instead of talking about the truth, he wants to talk about manicure salons.
In a tweet on Thursday, you wrote that Cuomo had “pushed for COVID general legal immunity for nursing homes unprepared on the budget”. You asked, “Who took Governor Cuomo?”
Are you accusing the governor of a quid pro quo?
There is a saying that says, “All you need to do is follow the money.”
There were a number of articles that showed the link between health lobbyists who donated about $ 1.3 million to the Cuomo campaign and [Cuomo’s push for added immunity for nursing home executives]. The evidence is there.
The question is who let them into the governor’s office, and why did they put that toxic law in the budget discreetly at the last minute, without notifying any members? Those are the tough questions he has to face.
And instead of facing that challenge, [the Cuomo administration] chose to continue to work with commercial interest and delete the data for six months. Someone has to pay for that decision. My role is to continue to promote, investigate and do my job as chair of the aging committee.
What do you think the governor can do to correct this? Should he resign? Should he face other sanctions?
I think only Cuomo can answer that question for himself, right now.
My colleagues are adopting several different ways to protect the integrity of our Senate and the Assembly. And I hope that leadership in the Assembly and the Senate will take us to the right place.
People continue to forget that 15,000 died [in New York nursing homes].
I feel like people don’t understand that number of deaths. It is almost as if we have helped to dehumanize those lives by constantly increasing the number for six months. It is a shocking and dramatic number of people who have died.
If we really understood, we wouldn’t be able to go ahead and have lunch and dinner without feeling stomach pain every day because we had a state that allowed so many deaths.
You said that Governor Cuomo called and threatened you. It must be unnerving for the governor to yell at you while you are around with your family, especially after you complain about your own party’s opponent.
How did that call end? Just decreased? Or did you push Cuomo?
No, I was terrified. I didn’t push it back. I wanted to leave as soon as possible. I just wanted to acknowledge whatever he was saying and leave as soon as possible. No man in my life has ever spoken to me like that. I just said to myself, “Don’t say anything stupid. Don’t take the bait.”
What made you want to go public with this? Because that would obviously attract Cuomo’s wrath.
I think if it had just been normal useless screaming, I think that was okay, and I could probably just scream back and end the day.
But the moment he instructed me – more or less – to write a statement that sounded different from what I heard [Cuomo advisor Melissa DeRosa] saying [on a conference call with Democrats], I realized that he crossed an unethical and maybe illegal line and I needed to protect myself.
I wasn’t sure at the time whether to go public, but after listening to Monday’s press conference, where he continued to double and tried to involve the legislature in the cover-up basically because we knew about the DOJ investigation, I realized what he pattern is, that is tying so many people in their cover-up and their lies, and implicating them.
I sent a memo on Monday night, with my colleagues, pushing for the revocation of Cuomo’s emergency powers and also for possible impeachment.
[Editor’s note: Cuomo’s senior adviser Rich Azzopardi said Kim is “lying” about the details of this call as “part of a years-long pattern of lies by Mr. Kim against this administration.” Gov. Cuomo on Monday argued for the need to retain emergency powers, saying they “have nothing to do with nursing homes.” On Wednesday the governor flatly-denied Kim’s accusations and said the assemblyman engaged in “unethical if not illegal” behavior in accepting nail salon owners’ campaign donations.]
We wanted to wake up our colleagues. This is a corrupt and potentially illegal obstruction of justice. We need to wake up and we cannot join this executive. We have to do our job. It was a very intense memo. And I got a lot of angry calls about the memo, but I felt like [my colleagues] needed to wake up.
As soon as the memo came out, I knew that everything had to move forward and we had to implement everything possible to hold it accountable. And part of that is ensuring that the public knows that they are an aggressor. He tries to abuse people with his powers, to do his job.