Opinion: Strange bedfellows

It seemed like an innocent exchange of texts.

“Hi. I can help Eric figure out how to get his agenda advanced in Albany,” recently deposed Gov. Andrew Cuomo wrote to me in early 2022, just about two months after New York City Mayor Eric Adams took the oath of office.

At the time, Adams was riding high. Some called him “the future of the Democratic Party” and then-President Joe Biden took a shine to the blue-collar mayor from New York, who in many ways was like “Good Old Joe from Scranton.” “I’m the Joe Biden of Brooklyn,” Adams boasted in his signature reductive style.

All seemed like roses and wine for the Democrats locally and nationally. It had been a long year since the Trump administration had been unceremoniously dumped from Washington, D.C, sparking a violent insurrection at the U.S. Capitol that ultimately failed to upend our precious democracy.

Biden had a very productive first year, with a cooperative majority in Congress helping push through large pieces of legislation like the Inflation Reduction Act and the CHIPS and Science Act among other ambitious initiatives.

But all had not gone well for Cuomo in the sizzling summer of 2021, when the heat from state Attorney General Letitia James’ investigation into his alleged inappropriate behavior with women sent him packing from the Executive Mansion, amid threats of impeachment from the state Legislature. Cuomo was now like a fish out of water, thrust into the wilderness of private citizenship for the first time since 2006.

When Adams won the Democratic mayoral primary in June 2021, the governor was in his last days in office, hanging on by a thread. He reached out to me to set up a meeting with the popular candidate. Adams, always game to meet with important people who want to see him, was counseled by his aides to avoid the toxic governor like the bubonic plague.

But six months later, the mayor agreed to meet and asked me to set up a dinner with Cuomo, presumably because the new mayor believed he could learn a lot about navigating Albany and the wily Legislature from the fallen governor.

I arranged for the three of us to meet the next evening at Osteria La Baia, Adams’ new favorite haunt in midtown Manhattan. The meeting was not on the mayor’s public calendar.

Adams and I got there first and settled in at a private table near the back of the restaurant where we could have some privacy. I expected Cuomo would come in through the back or side entrance to avoid making a spectacle, but he strode in through the front door, shaking hands and glad-handing as though he were still in public office.

As a student of politics, I was fascinated by the next two hours, watching these two larger-than-life men navigate this discreet meeting with their respective agendas. Adams seemed genuinely interested in Cuomo’s opinions on various topics like bail reform and how to best leverage his power with the leaders of the Legislature.

But pretty quickly, it became apparent that Cuomo was there with a different goal: He wanted to get back into the political arena, and he was hoping the popular new mayor would become a potential validator for his comeback. “(If I become governor again), I’m the only guy that can fix bail reform,” Cuomo boasted, addressing a charged topic Adams had been railing about for months.

It seemed Cuomo was testing the waters for a gubernatorial run in 2022 against Gov. Kathy Hochul, his former lieutenant, and he hoped the mayor would get behind him and help smooth his way back to Albany.

And that was how the amiable conversation proceeded that night. The only other memorable moment was when the waiter came over to ask for our orders. “I’ll have the branzino,” the self-proclaimed vegan mayor said. I’d had many meals with him the previous two years, and this was the first indication that he was more “flexitarian” than vegan.

Cuomo left after he and Adams exchanged cellphone numbers and high-fived goodbye. I felt satisfied I had made a match that could help Adams accomplish some of his policy goals.

The next morning, one of Adams’ close aides called me on my cell. “Hey Tom,” he said, “what the fuck, a meeting with Cuomo?”

I was taken aback because I assumed Adams had told his team about the powwow with the ex-governor. Apparently, he hadn’t. And his aides were pissed. Now, Adams didn’t want to stir up any more controversy.

The mayor called me shortly thereafter. “If anyone asks you, we were having dinner together and Cuomo happened to be in the same restaurant, so we invited him over,” Adams ad-libbed to me.

“Really, that’s the story you want to go with?” I asked incredulously. “No one will believe it and I’m not comfortable trying to fool people. Let’s hope no one calls me.”

Fortunately, no one ever called me, but news of the meeting still leaked. Even “Branzino-gate” made Page Six in the New York Post. Some waiter or staff member at Osteria La Baia must have leaked that one.

So here we are, almost four years later. Biden is fading into obscurity, a scorned figure to many Democrats upset that he let Trump back into the White House because he didn’t yield to generational change early enough.

And on Oct. 23, Adams endorsed Cuomo for mayor. This was almost unimaginable a few weeks ago when Adams, then still a candidate for reelection, appeared at a hastily scheduled press conference outside Gracie Mansion to call Cuomo “a snake and a liar” and rebut rumors that he would exit the mayoral election.

He exited a few weeks later.

Politics is often called a blood sport. That might be true, but it often reminds me more of children playing on a merry-go-round or see-saw.

One day, you’re up, being talked about as a potential Democratic presidential candidate for your leadership during the COVID-19 pandemic. A year later, you’re down, chased from office.

One day, you’re “the future of the Democratic Party” and the “Biden of Brooklyn.” Three years later, you’re coming off a dismissed indictment and dropping out of the race for reelection because your polls show you barely have double-digit support from voters.

And one day, you’re calling your opponent “a snake and a liar” but just a few weeks later, you’re endorsing them to succeed you as mayor as you insist that the two of you are “like brothers, and brothers sometimes fight.”

Politics makes strange bedfellows indeed.