Cuomo Faces Mounting Calls To Resign Or Face Impeachment Trial After Bombshell AG Report
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- Demands continue for Gov. Andrew Cuomo to resign following a bombshell report from the attorney general that he sexually harassed several women.
Will he, or will lawmakers have to move forward with an impeachment trial?
As CBS2's Political Reporter Marcia Kramer reports, the drumbeat of people calling for Cuomo to resign has reached a fevered pitch, but so far the governor appears to be using ear plugs to tune out calls from his former friends and allies who want him to take a hike, resign and save the state from an ugly impeachment process.
"Nobody knows the governor's mind beyond the governor, but there is nothing in Andrew Cuomo's history, his personal comportment, the statements that he's made about this and everything else to suggest that he's ready to back down," said Birdsell. "I think this is going to go at least up to the brink of a formal impeachment process, if not the full impeachment process itself."
WATCH: N.Y. Attorney General James' Press Conference On Report
David Birdsell, provost at Kean University and an expert on New York politics, says he doesn't think at this point Cuomo will resign in the face of a disturbing and devastating report from Attorney General Letitia James that New York's 56th governor sexually harassed 11 women over a period of seven years.
"One possible counter scenario is if he believe he has more of an opportunity to salvage his reputation by leaving now and then building a case outside of office that the threat of prosecution, the threat of impeachment, was inherently unfair and politically motivated," Birdsell said.
WEB EXTRA: Read The Report | Exhibits 1 | Exhibits 2 | Exhibits 3 | Cuomo's Response
Right now, the political winds are not favorable. An overnight poll by Marist College found that 59% of New Yorkers want Cuomo to resign, and if he doesn't, 59% want lawmakers to impeach him.
If the governor took the ear plugs out of his ears, he would hear former allies like New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy and Conn. Gov. Ned Lamont.
"I'm appalled by the treatment these women hat to put up with," Murphy said. "The governor has to resign... he's got to go, please."
"If somebody in my administration had done that, been accused of that, accused of that 11 times, they wouldn't be in my administration anymore," Lamont said.
Then there's frenemy Mayor Bill de Blasio, who'd love Cuomo's job, mocking the governor's defense, showing picture after picture of himself hugging people from all ways of life, saying being affectionate is just his way.
WATCH: N.Y. Gov. Andrew Cuomo's Press Conference In Response
"He has the audacity to say oh, you know, I like to hug people. I mean, this is just out of touch with reality. But it's also profoundly disrespectful. How about saying I did something wrong, I have to atone for my sins," de Blasio said.
There was no response from the governor's office to calls for his resignation, just another insistence he did nothing wrong. Tuesday, he was defiant about staying on.
"My job isn't about me, my job is about you. What matters to me, at the end of the day, is getting the most done I can for you, and that is what I do every day, and I will not be distracted from that job," Cuomo said.
"He sexually harassed me. I am not confused, it is not confusing. I am living in reality, and it's sad to see that he's not," accuser Charlotte Bennett told CBS News' Norah O'Donnell in an exclusive interview.
The people who know Andrew Cuomo best - as a man who plays political chess 20 moves ahead - say it may take him several days to contemplate various scenarios before he makes his next move.
There are also questions about the possibility of criminal charges. The Manhattan, Nassau and Westchester county district attorneys have requested the attorney general's files on Cuomo to see if any of the incidents happened in their jurisdictions. The Albany DA is also investigating.
