CNN’s Jake Tapper has one big question for Andrew Cuomo’s incoming replacement, Kathy Hochul, and he didn’t mince words in his phrasing — he wants to know how she plans to break up New York’s “legacy of sleaze.”
On Sunday morning’s “State of the Union,” Tapper took a moment to rehash the numerous scandals that have plagued Hochul’s predecessors.
“For those who don’t know your story and your history, you won a House seat after a Republican congressman resigned during a sex scandal,” Tapper began listing. “You lost that House seat to a congressman who was later indicted. You’ll now be governor after Eliot Spitzer, a Democrat, resigned over a prostitution scandal. Democrat David Patterson pulled out of his race after he was accused of intervening in an aide’s domestic abuse case. Now, of course, Democrat Andrew Cuomo has resigned.”
He continued: “So first question, what the hell’s going on in New York?”
Tapper asked Hochul directly, “Can you promise New Yorkers that you will end this legacy of sleaze?”
Hochul didn’t immediately address the part about New York as a whole, but was confident in how her administration will be different.
“It won’t be difficult for me,” she said. “Everyone who has known my career over 27 years of elected office knows that I have very high ethical standards, and I will go in there and literally say ‘It’s a whole new day.’”
You can watch the exchange in the video above.
Hochul is set to take office on Aug. 24, after which former Gov. Cuomo’s two-week notice ends.
On Aug. 10, Cuomo resigned effective Aug. 24 amid allegations and one week after state Attorney General Letitia James announced her office found he had sexually harassed 11 women and fostered a hostile, toxic workplace. According to Cuomo, his resignation was “the right thing for the state.”
