American Crisis

by Andrew Cuomo

  I have been in many negotiating sessions on many levels with many private sector and political leaders. In certain ways, the easiest personalities to negotiate with are the most extreme. Effective negotiating requires one to understand the situation from the other person’s point of view. The old expression “check your ego at the door” is profound. If you can check your own and only seek to understand what drives the other person, you can succeed in the encounter. With Trump I had no ego. His attacks don’t bother me, and his praise doesn’t flatter me. The only question was how I could get him to help New York.

  In most dealings between adversaries in government, there is a line that you don’t cross. But with the Trump administration, there is no line. If something is in their political interest, they are capable of doing anything with no ethical or moral boundaries. I had seen it firsthand.

  We had been in a court battle with Trump’s Department of Homeland Security over the Trusted Traveler Program (a.k.a. Global Entry). I have dealt with DHS extensively over the years, and I knew its leaders were blatant political operatives. Since New York had implemented a policy of giving driver’s licenses to undocumented people earlier in the year, DHS had barred New York residents from gaining global entry, unless we would give up our database, which was in effect a list of all undocumented people in the state with home addresses and pictures. We refused. The Trusted Traveler Program had absolutely nothing to do with access to driver’s licenses for undocumented people, and DHS admitted it. I was amazed that Chad Wolf, the acting secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, and his deputy would stoop to such a low level. It was clearly unethical and possibly illegal conduct on their part. I’m not sure if they are ignorant or arrogant or both.

  The Trump administration had previously instituted policies that have been much more damaging to New York than the Trusted Traveler Program, including SALT. They refused to fund Amtrak’s train tunnels cross the Hudson, which were vital not just to New York but to the entire northeast corridor from D.C. to Boston, and withheld the funding to extend New York City’s Second Avenue subway line. They gratuitously denied approval of an air train to LaGuardia Airport and a congestion pricing plan for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA). The suspension of the Trusted Traveler Program was relatively small compared with those issues, but again for me their actions were reprehensible and represented a pattern of unethical and possibly illegal conduct.

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  BACK IN FEBRUARY, I’d called the president and attempted to explain the Trusted Traveler situation to him, but it was complicated, so I asked for a meeting. That trip down to Washington, D.C., was memorable.

  My special counsel, Beth Garvey, and I took off from Albany in the state plane. We had left promptly and had scheduled additional time so we wouldn’t be late. On the way there the pilots told me there was a strong headwind and we were likely going to be late. At this point in my life, there is almost nothing that anyone could say to me that would surprise me.

  The state plane is a flying jalopy, acquired as part of a purchase of federal surplus property. It is a forty-year-old twin-engine prop plane that seats about five people. You get in it and feel as if you are sitting in a tube of toothpaste. I have history with this plane: It was the backup to the governor’s plane when my father came into office in 1983. His regular plane was a G1—a Grumman 1, the approximate size of the current G4s or G5s. It sat about sixteen people and was quite comfortable. In my father’s last election, his opponent made a campaign issue out of the use of the state plane and then sold it upon taking office. But the new governor still had to travel and couldn’t buy a new plane, so the state then purchased several helicopters to replace the G1. The helicopters were fine to operate between New York City and Albany, but are not really functional, as they can’t make it to the western part of the state and can’t fly in any bad weather. So any airplane travel had to be done in the original backup to the G1, the plane I was in today.

  In 1982, I was working for my father as a special assistant to the governor, and I had recruited my friend at the time Tim Russert to join as press secretary. Tim and I had taken this plane to Buffalo, Tim’s hometown, to do an official event. After the event, which was after five o’clock in the evening, Tim wanted to show me some of Buffalo’s special places. A couple of those special places were dining establishments that also served beverages. Afterward we got back on the plane to fly to Albany, and the pilot said that there were some storm clouds en route but that he thought everything would be okay. Some storm clouds turned out to be near-hurricane-force winds. The plane bounced like a basketball going down the court. At one point, Tim and I were launched from our seats and hit the ceiling with full-body force. In fairness, the pilot did say to keep our seatbelts buckled, but we missed that point.

  The bouncing airplane and the beverages from Tim’s select Buffalo spots, combined with several dozen buffalo wings between us, were a toxic brew. By the time we got back to Albany, we were both a shade of green. I remember Tim getting off the plane swearing that he would “never get on that piece of s— again.” That same plane is what I fly in today. I’m sure Tim is looking down and enjoying a hearty laugh.

  The plane should be retired. It has had to make a number of emergency landings, and every legislative leader who has been on it has commented that it needs to be replaced. However, given the political pressures, I don’t want to be in a situation where I’m justifying to the public why we spent millions of dollars on an airplane. It just sounds offensive.

  With the headwinds, the plane was traveling at half speed. I felt I could have driven my car faster.

  It felt as if the flight took a week. Plus, I hate being late because it’s disrespectful. We landed with minutes to spare, and after a maniacal car ride we made it to the White House on time.

  Joining us at the White House meeting with President Trump about the Trusted Traveler Program were the acting Department of Homeland Security secretary, his deputy, the chief of staff, the counsel to the president, and some other people I didn’t recognize. I explained how the Trusted Traveler Program was totally disconnected from the issue of turning over the undocumented driver list. The president listened and understood. The Homeland Security secretary was incapable of explaining any plausible rationale to connect the two issues. The president said at one point that he understood that DHS wanted leverage over me and was using the Trusted Traveler Program to do just that.

  For the president, making a deal and using leverage are his basic modes of operation. He had ostensibly written a book, The Art of the Deal, that celebrated the practice. But in government, you are supposed to make decisions based on an issue’s individual merits.

  If I wanted the Trusted Traveler Program, I would have to give them the undocumented driver list. This was not leverage; it was extortion. The fact that I had the conversation in the Oval Office in front of top staff and lawyers and for no one to be appalled by it was breathtaking to me.

  In my mind, this was the fallout of Trump being let off the hook by the Republican Senate in the impeachment trial. His administration thought they could now act with impunity. And it was all I needed to know about the people I was dealing with. There was no way that I would give them the undocumented driver list; it would be a feeding frenzy for ICE. And this would not be the last they heard of the matter. This was reprehensible, unethical behavior at best, and I would not let them get away with it.

  Months later, on the afternoon of July 23, my phone rang. It was Alexander Cochran, my Washington representative, who had worked with me since HUD, who together with Sarah Paden, a top talent who is as sharp as a tack, manages federal affairs for New York State. “You’re never going to believe this,” Alexander said. “The Department of Homeland Security just issued a statement saying they are allowing New York back into the Trusted Traveler Program.”

  We had been fighting with the Depa
rtment of Homeland Security over the program for months, and then that day, out of nowhere, they issued a statement making the incredible claim that they’d just learned that New York was not the only state that shielded undocumented driver records from the federal government, and therefore the punitive action against us couldn’t be justified? The statement was absurd. This was a major issue in the country. Everyone knew how many states had those laws. We had discussed it many times—even on television.

  I was happy that the program was reinstated, but the entire thing didn’t feel right. Something was up. Then, that night, a New York Times story broke: The U.S. attorney’s office filed a motion late in the day to officially drop the case. They admitted in the filings that DHS officials not only made numerous false statements to justify the department’s banning of New Yorkers from the Trusted Traveler Program but did so knowingly. The office went even further, apologizing to the state of New York for having had to unlawfully undergo the ordeal.

  DHS lied and they got caught.

  The next morning, I held a press conference and laid out my case against DHS. It was extortion and abuse of power by the federal agency. I called for a congressional investigation and said that New York State would pursue civil damages from the Department of Homeland Security. What they did to New York in this instance was emblematic of the rampant abuses the citizens of this country have endured. It had to be stopped.

  Congressmember Bennie Thompson, head of the DHS oversight committee and a real professional, sent a letter saying that he would do an investigation. It will be revealing. I had had a meeting in the Oval Office on the matter. They all knew what DHS was doing. DHS acting secretary Chad Wolf and his deputy, Ken Cuccinelli, were only the hatchet men. They were handed the ax. I hope justice will finally be done.

  I could tell the DHS scandal made them nervous. First, having a U.S. attorney’s office refuse to represent the federal government because a federal agency was lying is very serious. I had never seen it before. Second, the prospect of a congressional investigation with subpoena power is also worrisome. One subpoena to Chad Wolf and Ken Cuccinelli and I am sure they would list a number of people who knew about the issue and who were part of the fraud and abuse. Shortly after my press conference on the DHS, I received a call from people in the White House who said they were willing to reopen discussion on the Second Avenue subway project. The Second Avenue subway project is the extension of the subway from 96th Street to 125th Street. It has always been a joint federal and state project. In the normal course of business, it would have been funded by the federal government years ago. But with this administration, where everything is political and personal, they have refused to fund it because New York is a Democratic state. I had been pushing them literally for years to fund the project, as well as others. They never say no, but then it never happens either. I keep expecting a different outcome. In any event, I believe their purported reopening of the Second Avenue subway discussion was intended to slow me down from pursuing the DHS scandal. That’s not going to happen.

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  IN LATE MARCH, the number of cases in New York was spiking but remained low in the rest of the country. Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida complained that New Yorkers were bringing the virus to Florida. Florida is a key electoral state for President Trump, and Governor DeSantis was very much a Trump supporter. In fact, to secure a political advantage, President Trump had just changed his residency from New York to Florida. After DeSantis’s statements, the president’s aides started to talk about limiting New Yorkers’ ability to travel. At first, we didn’t take them seriously, but with a Trump White House you have to be constantly on guard because they were capable of anything. There was also a White House–driven theme emerging that COVID was a Democratic state problem, not a Republican state problem. Governor DeSantis’s remark was another manifestation of this theme, and it was conceivable that targeting New York would be advancing this political narrative.

  I have found that when two discrete situations coalesce, it can present a third, different, and worse problem. This was about to occur on March 27, when Governor Gina Raimondo of Rhode Island, a Democrat, said that she was wary of New York’s high infection rate. That weekend, there were reports of Rhode Island police and National Guard troops pulling over cars with New York license plates. I feared that if a Democratic governor of a nearby state established a blockade against New Yorkers, Trump would seize upon the opportunity to expand on the blockade. This was all the stuff of nightmares.

  When they were young, Michaela and Cara watched the movie I Am Legend, which caused Michaela to have nightmares for weeks. I remember having to explain to her how it was just a movie and it could never happen in real life. Now the movie was coming back to me. In it Will Smith is a doctor who is working on a cure for cancer when a virus is released that turns people into zombies. When the federal government realizes the virus is in Manhattan, they blow up the bridges and crossings leading to the island to isolate the virus—leaving the population trapped.

  Now I could see Trump blockading New York State. If the Rhode Island governor could station police at the border, why couldn’t Trump station Customs and Border Protection officers at the New York borders? Department of Homeland Security would jump at the chance to be able to stop every vehicle entering or leaving the state. They could check citizenship and have a field day for deportation. Trump could use it to highlight his claim that COVID was a function of Democratic states and big Democratic cities, and he could say he was protecting the good Republican states from being infected. He would be a hero in Florida.

  I was surprised that Rhode Island would take such a measure without at least talking to me. I called Governor Raimondo and expressed my displeasure and concern with her actions. A quarantine was one thing. Other states have done it. A blockade is something else. I made the point that many people from Rhode Island traveled into New York for business and pleasure. We would later impose a quarantine on Rhode Island, but if we were to set up blockades, it would be detrimental to both states.

  Within minutes our worst fears came true. The news reported that while boarding Air Force One, President Trump said he was considering a blockade for all of New York—referencing his conversation with Governor DeSantis. It was a dramatic, obscene threat; there haven’t been blockades in this country since the Civil War. And the psychological damage and resulting stigma that such a move would cause New York would be devastating.

  I had spoken to President Trump earlier in the day about additional aid for the state, in the form of temporary hospital beds. He never mentioned anything about a blockade. But that meant little.

  The truth is, it would have wreaked havoc in the financial markets as well. Wall Street is the financial center of the world. To blockade New York is to effectively close Wall Street and the markets. I knew that was the only thing that would stop Trump. Any political benefit he would get in Florida would be overwhelmed by the political cost he would pay for causing the markets to plummet. But he had to hear the message.

  I called Rich Azzopardi, my communications guru, and told him to set up whatever television interviews he could get as soon as possible. About fifteen minutes later I was live on CNN being interviewed by Ana Cabrera. She asked me first about Rhode Island, and I said, “I think what they did was wrong. I think it was reactionary. I think it was illegal but we will work it out amicably, I’m sure…If they don’t roll back that policy, I’m going to sue Rhode Island because it is clearly unconstitutional.” Ana then asked me about “Trump’s newly floated New York lockdown,” and I said if it happened, the stock market would “drop like a stone…It would be chaos and mayhem and that would drop this economy in a way, I think, that it wouldn’t recover for months if not years.”

  The sensationalism of Trump’s proposal was not lost on the press, and my remarks generated a firestorm. About thirty minutes after my CNN appearance, Melissa wa
lked into my office and told me that she had heard from Rhode Island that they would reverse the executive order. That night the president reversed course on the idea of a New York blockade via tweet.

  MARCH 29 | 7,195 NEW CASES | 8,503 HOSPITALIZED | 237 DEATHS

  “Everyone is afraid.”

  THERE WAS A FRESH RUMOR about a new possible COVID drug nearly every week. And there were constant conversations about the race to a vaccine. People were so desperate to find a cure they seized on any ray of hope. The president encouraged drug companies to work diligently, but he didn’t really have to. The billions of dollars that a company that develops the cure to COVID-19 will make are likely incentive enough.

  The Trump administration was suggesting that we would have a vaccine by the end of the year. This would be perfect timing for the Trump administration, because it would offer optimism through Election Day. Yet they had scarce facts. Even if development of a vaccine were expedited and testing facilitated, there were still the issues of mass production and the country’s capacity to afford and implement hundreds of millions of vaccines.

  In the midst of this, hydroxychloroquine dropped from the sky and into President Trump’s mouth. The president took every opportunity he could to explain to Americans that hydroxychloroquine was a very effective cure for this disease. He said he spoke to doctors and patients who had been treated and everyone agreed it was the “miracle drug.” The president’s media mouthpieces immediately amplified the chant. Watching Fox News on TV, one would be convinced that hydroxychloroquine could immediately cure COVID, even the common cold, and increase weight loss, testosterone, and hair growth. Hydroxychloroquine was the silver bullet.