Biden told Cuomo to stay out of 2020 race, new book claims

President Joe Biden called Gov. Andrew Cuomo and warned him not to enter the 2020 presidential race, according to a new book co-written by former City Hall reporter Hunter Walker.

The book, titled “The Truce: Progressives, Centrists and the Future of the Democratic Party,” examines the relationship between the moderate and progressive wings of the Democratic Party, both nationally and inside New York state. Walker, who covered city politics for the New York Observer before reporting on national politics for Talking Points Memo and Yahoo News, co-wrote the book alongside Luppe Luppen, the New York attorney behind the popular social media account @nycsouthpaw.

The book quotes a source close to Cuomo describing a conversation that Biden allegedly had with Cuomo at the height of his national popularity in 2020, when many saw him as a potential presidential candidate:

Andrew Cuomo also flirted with a presidential run in 2020. A source close to Cuomo said he abandoned that bid after a phone call and meeting with Joe Biden. According to the source, Biden appealed to Cuomo’s concerns about the ascendant progressives. The source recounted Biden’s words to Cuomo: “Do me a favor, you and I will be going after the same vote and some nut on the left will win. You’re young, you have time. Support me, otherwise we’re going to have some nut.”

According to the source, Cuomo was swayed by Biden’s prediction that his candidacy would lead to the rise of a leftist “nut.” He stayed out of the race. It was yet another example of the effective coordination among more moderate Democrats that helped Biden consolidate support to fend off the left and win the 2020 primary.

Melissa DeRosa, who served as Cuomo’s top aide, recounted a similar conversation in her memoir, which was published last October. And Walker and Luppen said that the president’s team did not deny the existence of the conversation when asked to comment on it.

Walker told City & State that he does not believe Cuomo ultimately regretted sitting out the 2020 race.

“His presidential deliberations … occurred at sort of the height of his COVID fame, which was immediately followed by total scandal, right?” he said, “I think it's hard to imagine the Cuomo campaign would have ultimately proved viable in that cycle, given, you know, what immediately happened. I think he was riding very, very high for a moment, with his book, with his press conferences, and that is clearly a time when he looked towards the White House. But it very quickly all fell apart.”

Walker also told City & State that the conversation between Biden and Cuomo is an indication of the president’s complicated relationship with the left wing of his party.

“A big theme in our book on the national level is how Biden had successfully managed to build bridges and unity with (Bernie) Sanders and the progressive movement,” he said. “And I found his purported conversation with Cuomo interesting because, at points in our reporting, we did find these flashes where – even though he later was a lot more progressive than I think people were expecting him to be and even though Biden later, you know, built alliances with the progressive movement – there were also these flashes where we could see that he had real concerns about them that were shared with his fellow moderates.”

In addition to chronicling Cuomo’s rise and fall from grace, the book includes previously unreported details about Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s upset victory over former Rep. Joe Crowley and a chapter devoted to former state Sen. Alessandra Biaggi and former Assembly Member Yuh-Line Niou – two progressive insurgents who helped oust Cuomo and then ran unsuccessfully for Congress.

“The Truce” will be published by W.W. Norton on Tuesday.