Politics

‘Loud Enough For My Wife To Hear’: Ron Kim Details Threatening Phone Call From Gov. Cuomo

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Virginia Kruta Associate Editor
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Democratic New York Assemblyman Ron Kim gave details Thursday about the threatening phone call he said he received from the governor.

Kim told MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough that Democratic New York Governor Andrew Cuomo called him at home, demanding that he issue a new — false — statement about a meeting he attended with six other lawmakers. During that meeting, Kim said that Cuomo aide Melissa DeRosa conceded that the administration had hidden the real nursing home coronavirus numbers. (RELATED: ‘Utterly Ghoulish’: Meghan McCain And Sunny Hostin Join Forces, Lash Out At Gov. Cuomo Over Nursing Homes)

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Kim said that Cuomo called him while he was at home with his family, demanding that he issue a statement contradicting what he had seen in that meeting.

“For 10 minutes he berated me. He yelled at me. He told me that my career would be over,” Kim said, adding that Cuomo gave him only until that night to issue a new statement. “He has been biting his tongue for months against me. And I had tonight — not tomorrow, tonight — to issue a new statement essentially asking me to lie. I heard and saw a crime the other day. And he’s asking me [to say] that I did not see that crime.”

Kim went on to say that his wife had also been impacted by the governor’s threats, telling Scarborough and cohosts Mika Brzezinski and Willie Geist that the initial phone call “was loud enough for my wife to hear. She was in shock. She didn’t get any sleep that night,” he said. “And we were terrified.”

Kim said that Cuomo called him four more times after that — and his staffers made several additional calls as well.

“When we get closer to the truth behind the growing nursing home scandal in New York, Governor Cuomo tries to implicate you in the cover-up, or threatens your livelihood if you don’t lie for him. And that’s what happened to me in the last week,” Kim said.

Cuomo, Brzezinski noted, had been invited to appear on “Morning Joe” and had not responded to the invitation.