BRETT: Ah, Governor Cuomo. Governor Cuomo could best be summed up as an example of what Rush always said about media-made status. Now, over the weekend over on CBS’ Face the Nation, Margaret Brennan asked mayor of New York Bill de Blasio, Comrade Bill de Blasio, “Do you believe that he” Andrew Cuomo “and his administration deliberately tried to cover-up the scale of the nursing deaths?”
DE BLASIO: I don’t have a doubt in my mind. Uh, everything was about his public image. Everything was about his political future. It was not about what people needed — and, by the way, it was about campaign contributions.
BRETT: The New York Times, “The Rise and Fall of Andrew Cuomo — The quote from the reporter is, “Mr. Cuomo, our politics reporter writes, finds himself sliding from hero-level worship to pariah-like status with a kind of astonishing speed that only the friendless suffer.” Wow. This is a huge fall from the top of the media tower. Well, Rush spoke about this and shared with all of us what he learned about the media.
RUSH: This is the overriding philosophy that I also evolved — the media cannot destroy you if they’re not the ones who make you. But if the media makes you, in other words, let’s say you have a TV show and it’s actually number 10 in the market but the media loves you and they write about it all the time, and they talk about it all the time, and they promote it, and they make everybody think it’s number one. The day comes when they don’t like you, they can take you out.
Because you never have been what they say you are. If they build you up and it’s unreal and untrue, they can take you out. And that is an overriding philosophy that I, whenever I’m asked by anybody in this business or in an ancillary way, do not go the PR route, do not try to have buzz and PR define your success. Make it real. Make your success real and dependent on real people making you a success, not some media buzz, because that is fleeting. They can take that away from you and you’re a nobody. But they can’t take away from you what they haven’t built.
BRETT: The enduring reason why Rush was so successful for all the years he was is he was true to himself and true to his vision. The media didn’t make him. Remember from last May, Cuomo asked all these people to come and help — and many did — on a voluntary basis, only to find out that they’d be subjected to state taxes if they worked in New York for 14 days?
Remember that scandal with Andrew Cuomo? He says, “Listen, if you’re a doctor, if you’re a nurse, if you’re an orderly, if you’re any of these people, you’ve gotta come to New York and you’ve gotta come and try to save our people. But, by the way, you will be subjected to New York state taxes if you work in New York for more than 14 days.”
I don’t remember that being something that happened when Pataki was governor and Giuliani was mayor in the wake of 9/11. I just don’t remember that being the priority. “Well, if you’re gonna come and volunteer and help out, then we’re gonna have to make you pay the taxes.”
Even the state government asked thousands of people to come to New York from out of state to fight the coronavirus, they have to pay state taxes in New York even on income they might make from their home states that they paid while in New York. Cuomo said that he needed help from Washington in order to cover budget deficits from covid-19, let alone subsidize state income tax for essential workers that flocked to New York’s aid.
Well, here was Rush giving you the latest and the best analysis on Andrew Cuomo, an arrogant, ignorant failure.
RUSH: A quick question. Are you a health care worker? Are you a nurse? Are you an EMT? Are you anybody who does anything in health care? Did you volunteer, for example, to go to New York during the peak period? Did you volunteer as a health care worker to go to New York to help out? Did you do more than was asked of you? Did you go above and beyond?
Did you knowingly put yourself at greater risk than any of your fellow citizens by volunteering to go to New York during the peak reporting period of covid-19 cases? If you did, if you don’t live in New York, if you went to New York from some other place, and if you stayed there for 14 days, guess what? New York’s governor is going to make you pay New York state income tax for your volunteer efforts. And people wonder why I left. People wonder why I moved out of there in 1997.
Health care workers that came to New York to help fight the coronavirus pandemic at its epicenter will have to pay state taxes according to one of the goofiest and most screwed-up governors. You know, it’s classic. You take a look at people the Drive-By Media heralds and makes big stars out of, and they’re the biggest doofuses around. And the blue state idiocy is epitomized by Andrew Cuomo.
Good grief what this guy has done. Folks, try this headline here: “NYC Starts Historic Overnight subway shutdowns for virus-linked disinfecting.” So Andrew Cuomo goes to a subway car, many of which have been taken care over by blue state homeless who are infecting people left and right, and he goes up there and he starts spraying disinfectant on a subway car. And he starts talking about, why, this is revolutionary, why, we’ve never done this before.
Who knew that you could disinfect a subway car? Do you disinfect your toilet at home, Governor? Did you grow up not knowing how that happened? Did your mom disinfect a toilet or did a maid come in and do it? Do you have any idea how cleanliness happens? The guy was shocked and stunned you could disinfect a subway car.
So now he’s getting heralded as being a great governor for disinfecting the New York City subway after not disinfecting it. It was one of the greatest condensations of close proximity of people. It was a breeding ground for the virus. And this ace kept it open. He said they had to keep it open for all the essential jobs and services. People need the subway to get to work.
Well, that and his nursing home debacle is why New York leads the country in infections and deaths, and yet this guy is heralded as the next Democrat savior, the next Democrat nominee. It’s absurd. It’s obscene. “New York City’s subway system — the nation’s largest — went silent in the early morning hours Wednesday as the normally round-the-clock system shut down for train disinfecting.
“Service was curtailed in late March, but is now being stopped entirely from 1 a.m. to 5 a.m. each day.” Get this. “It’s the first time in 115 years service hasn’t been 24/7 except in times of emergency, and Governor Andrew Cuomo says there’s no way to know when service will return to normal.” Of course not. He’s only the governor. He doesn’t know jack.
I mean, this is just flat-out amazing. And then we haven’t even talked about how this guy put infected people in nursing homes. It’s like putting them into the crypt. It defies explanation. Nursing homes are the single greatest — outside of the New York subway — greatest concentration of noted cases and deaths.
And not just in New York. It’s happened in other blue states where blue state governors have decided the people they didn’t want, let’s pack ’em off to the nursing homes. So Cuomo, he put infected people in nursing homes. That led to thousands of deaths. The Democrats in the media have been literally fawning all over Cuomo. He was just named…
Do you know this, Mr. Snerdley? I know this is gonna ace you out. He was just named the most eligible man in New York. That’s right. That’s right. I know. And, see, the thing is these blue state failures — these arrogant, conceded, liberal elites who have caused this country more trouble than you can possibly imagine — are built up, heralded, and converted into heroes.
They get nothing but great publicity and great coverage in the media, and they pose actual dangers. Anyway, here is Governor Cuomo explaining why he can’t extend tax-free status to health care workers from all over the fruited plain who volunteered to go to New York to help out during the peak of the coronavirus pandemic in the city.
CUOMO: We have a $13 billion deficit, so there’s a lot of good things I would like to do — uh, and if we get federal funding, we can do — but it would be irresponsible for me to sit here looking at a $13 billion deficit and say, “Uh, I’m gonna spend more money on, uhhh,” when I can’t even pay the essential services.
RUSH: The question he got from an unidentified so-called reporter (impression), “Have you considered waving the state tax on emergency workers who volunteered to come here from out of state?” “No, no, no. Ah, no way. We have a $13 billion deficit.” Who, by the way, gave us that? Who is it that’s been presiding over all of these unfunded pension liabilities?
Who is it that has been running that state in the most incompetent way? A $13 billion — and then he says, “There’s a lot of good things I’d like to do. Yes, I’d love to make sure that those volunteers don’t have to pay state taxes — and if we get federal funding, we can do it. Yeah, if somebody comes along and gives me some money, then we can do it. “But if mean Mr. Orange Man doesn’t give me any money, then these volunteers are gonna get bupkis. (Raspberry!)” Man, oh, man.
BRETT: Unbelievable. The question is, now that Biden passed the massive relief bill and Cuomo will get his money, still gonna make the out-of-staters pay their income taxes? These are the questions that are out there on the table, folks.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
BRETT: You just heard the insanity coming out of the state of New York. The fact of the matter is that back in the heyday, in the heights — the depths, however you want to measure it — of the covid crisis in New York state, here comes Andrew Cuomo disinfecting the subway cars.
He shutting it down, complaining about the $13 billion deficit that he’s got, and justifying the taxation of out-of-state volunteers who are coming in to try to save New Yorkers’ lives. And if that’s not enough for you, we go back in time to think about all the damage that Andrew has done.
Oh, no, this isn’t anything new.
This is not like brand-new covid. This is not abusing staff, allegations of sexual harassment, impropriety. It’s not just that. It’s a structural failing. It is a structural failing. It is a track record of true failure. When people talk about Andrew Cuomo’s crimes, they seem to forget that he was a major factor in causing the subpoena prime mortgage crisis while I was Bill Clinton’s HUD secretary.
Cuomo was big on the Community Redevelopment Act which was about putting people in houses whether they could afford them or not. In fact, Cuomo doubled the number of houses that were made available under the Community Redevelopment Act. It was a huge, huge scam. Nowhere did anybody ever ask who was really gonna end up paying for it. Rush talked about it back in 2008. Listen to this.
RUSH: In case you missed this, last night on 60 Minutes, Senator McCain said that he would name Andrew Cuomo, the New York state attorney general, son of Mario the Pious, to the Securities and Exchange Commission. Now, Andrew Cuomo ran HUD under President Clinton. McCain said, “I’ve admired Andrew Cuomo. I think he’s somebody who could restore some credibility, lend some bipartisanship to the effort.”
Cuomo didn’t comment. From The Village Voice in August of this year, August 5th, the headline: “How the Youngest Housing and Urban Development Secretary in History Gave Birth to the Mortgage Crisis — In 2000, Cuomo required a quantum leap in the number of affordable, low-to-moderate-income loans that the two mortgage banks – known collectively as Government Sponsored Enterprises — would have to buy. The GSEs don’t actually sell mortgages to borrowers.
“They buy them from banks and mortgage companies, allowing lenders to replenish their capital and make more loans. They also purchase mortgage-backed securities, which are pools of mortgages regularly acquired by the GSEs from investment firms. … Cuomo’s predecessor, Henry Cisneros, did that for the first time in December 1995, taking a cautious approach and moving the GSEs toward a requirement that 42% of their mortgages serve low- and moderate-income families.
Cuomo raised that number to 50% and dramatically hiked GSE mandates to buy mortgages in underserved neighborhoods and for the ‘very-low-income.’ Part of the pitch was racial, with Cuomo contending that Fannie and Freddie weren’t granting mortgages to minorities at the same rate as the private market.
“William Apgar, Cuomo’s top aide, told The Washington Post: ‘We believe that there are a lot of loans to black Americans that could be safely purchased by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac if these companies were more flexible.” Well, guess how they got the flexibility? Hello, Janet Reno. Hello, Bill Clinton. Hello, Jamie Gorelick.
“While many saw this demand for increasingly ‘flexible’ loan terms and standards as a positive step for low-income and minority families, others warned that they could have potentially dangerous consequences. Franklin Raines warned that Cuomo’s rules were moving Fannie into risky territory.” Well, he went there, he went there and found a way to score huge.
BRETT: He went there and he found a way to score huge — and he did — and he was part of the impetus that led you to the mortgage meltdown back in 2008. It’s an incredible thing! It’s an unbelievable reality. You notice the same names keep popping up and cropping up time after time after time after time in Washington, D.C.
At the center of government, it’s the same names, right?
Clintons, Cuomos, Bidens.
They just keep popping up again and again and again. And they’re never held to account for the incompetency that you see playing out. But it’s even worse now because now we know this development coming out in these last hours. The New York state vaccine czar has apparently been calling county officials in the state of New York to gauge their loyalty to Cuomo amid the sexual harassment investigation.
So he’s the boss of the vaccine in New York state; he’s calling local county officials and saying, “Do you still like…? Uh, do you still like Cuomo? Are you still okay with Cuomo?” What are they supposed to say? Nah, we got a real problem. “One Democrat county executive was so unsettled by the outreach from Larry Schwartz, the head of the rollout, that the executive on Friday filed notice of an impending ethics complaint with the Public Integrity Unit of the attorney general’s office in New York state.
“The executive feared the county’s vaccine supply would suffer if Schwartz was not pleased with the executive response to his questions in support of the governor.” What is this, The Godfather? This is. This feels like The Godfather. Are you kidding me? I’m not, and that’s unfortunate. Rush had Andy Cuomo nailed from the jump. He was right then, and he’s right today.