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Four years ago, no one, not even Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, disputed that he liked to hug his staff, or that he would sometimes use terms of endearment, such as “honey,” when addressing the women among them, a habit he acknowledged was outdated.
When a member of his security detail said he had touched her in a sexualized manner, he claimed to have no memory of it and denied any sexual intent, but added, “If she said I did it, I believe her.”
And when the weight of roughly a dozen sexual harassment complaints helped force his resignation, he acknowledged the women “who I truly offended.”
“For that, I deeply, deeply apologize,” he said in his resignation speech.
Mr. Cuomo, now the front-runner in the Democratic primary for mayor of New York City, no longer seems to be as sorry.
As Mr. Cuomo charted a path toward resurrecting his political career, he began challenging the accusations more aggressively. He suggested in interviews and in speeches that he was a victim of “cancel culture,” and said that if he were guilty of anything, it was being “old-fashioned and out of touch” with today’s norms.
He filed an ethics complaint and a lawsuit against the state attorney general, whose investigators had found that he “sexually harassed a number of current and former New York State employees” and “created a hostile work environment for women.”
