Gov. Andrew Cuomo called the loss of Amazon’s second headquarters the “greatest tragedy” he’s experienced in his political career.
On Friday morning, while New York City mayor Bill de Blasio was in an interview with WNYC trying yet again to play it cool, Cuomo called in to WAMC and spent 20 minutes castigating New York Senate Democrats for their role in killing the Amazon HQ2 deal.
According to the Gotham Gazette’s Ben Max, de Blasio called Amazon’s departure a “lost opportunity,” but said he’d be in favor of legislation banning any future tax-incentive competitions like the one Amazon ran. The mayor concluded that there was no “larger message” to be taken away from the situation. This largely tracks with de Blasio’s recent attempts to gaslight the public into believing he never shilled for Amazon.
Cuomo, meanwhile, is cranky as hell about the whole situation, so he used his time on WAMC to point the finger at local progressive legislators. Specifically, Cuomo called out the Senate Democrats who decided to name Queens-based state Sen. Mike Gianaris to the Public Authorities Control Board. The “Queens boy,” doing the absolute least he could to prevent a full-on feud, said while he personally wouldn’t hold Amazon’s decision against Senate Democrats moving forward, “it spells trouble between them and the people of New York.”
The governor also suggested the reason for Gianaris’ opposition was rooted in a fear that he would face a primary challenge from the left. Cuomo mentioned the fact that he had the power to veto Gianaris’ appointment but offered no explanation as to why he chose not to. (The Senate Democrats released a statement after his appearance pointing out this very fact.) Cuomo also stayed way the hell away from a question about Rep. Alexanderia Ocasio-Cortez’s influence, saying only that she had “no governmental role” in the decision-making process; in fairness, so did de Blasio.
Cuomo finished by telling the radio station the loss of HQ2 was the “greatest tragedy” he’s witnessed in his time as governor, which is an amazing statement even if you’re lenient and cross out the multiple terrorist attacks and hate crimes and natural disasters and just limit the statement to government-related fuck-ups: the decrepit state of the MTA, the state’s failing its homeless and mentally ill residents, the decaying infrastructure found in public housing, or the blatant corporate corruption of certain Cuomo-adjacent public officials. Then again, I’m not sure what else anyone was expecting from a man willing to go by the name of Amazon Cuomo.