FOR BREAKING NEWS VISIT WWW.QNS.COM FEBRUARY 25, 2021 • THE QUEENS COURIER 17
QNS fi le photos
Kim speaks out over feud with Governor
Cuomo over nursing home COVID deaths
BY CLARISSA SOSIN
editorial@qns.com
@QNS
By Saturday morning, Queens
Assemblyman Ron Kim had
suff ered a meltdown.
He’d gone from local lawmaker
to national fi gurehead
overnight by standing up to the
excesses of a governor who’d
been given unlimited power
because of the coronavirus pandemic.
His name was splashed
across headlines locally and
around the country, his family
was nervous about the feud,
and the issue it was over was far
from solved.
So, he cried.
“I had about three meltdowns,
including this morning,” Kim
said in an interview on Saturday.
“I do feel better every time I
kind of let it out. And then you
move on.”
Kim stepped into the spotlight
last week aft er telling the national
press that Governor Andrew
Cuomo reportedlycalled
himand threatened his career.
Cuomo demanded Kimdidn’t
back him in an ongoing controversy
over his administration’s
handling of COVID-19 in nursing
homes. Kim denied him.
Th e controversy has pitted
Kim against one of New York’s
most powerful and politically
connected families — a match
up that frightens his own family
members.
Kim immigrated with his
parents as a child from South
Korea. His mother takes the
subway every day to her job as
a cook in a supermarket. His
father is battling cancer, fi ghting
for health.
“We’re a bunch of immigrants,
you know, from Flushing that
are just trying to survive, and
trying to fi gure out how to have
some social mobility,” he said.
His family knows who Cuomo
is from the news, he said. Th ey
see him in the newspaper, know
that he has power, wealth and
connections. Th ey understand
that he comes from a political
dynasty, and has a brother with
a bully pulpit on CNN. Every
day they are fi elding phone calls
from worried friends. Th ey are
scared of what could happen,
he said.
“Th ere’s a lot of fear taking
on a very powerful politician
who made — who made tangible
threats,” he said.
Earlier in the week, it was
reported that Cuomo’s administration
purposefully withheld
and misconstrued data on the
number of COVID-19 deaths in
nursing homes throughout New
York state.
Kim, whose uncle died of presumed
COVID-19 in a nursing
home, was already a vocal critic
of Cuomo’s handling of the virus
in nursing homes early in the
pandemic. He’d been outraged
at the deaths, and the immunity
for the industry that Cuomo had
covertly slipped into the budget.
So when Cuomo allegedly
called him to demand he make a
statement supporting him, Kim
refused. Th at refusal prompted
the threatening phone call.
Cuomo’s office did not
respond to requests for comment
for this story.
Kim has since led a call for
Cuomo’s emergency powers
to be revoked. Th is is a complete
turnaround from a year
ago when he was one of the fi rst
sponsors of the bill granting the
governor emergency powers in
the fi rst place.
“I even got up and made the
argument against the, against
my close progressive friends
who voted against it, that we
need to give him a chance,” Kim
said.
But he pretty quickly regretted
that eff ort when, two weeks
aft er the budget vote, he found
out that Cuomo had snuck in
immunity for the nursing home
industry.
“I think the state of politics
prioritizes corporations over
people’s lives, and there’s no way,
no other way to describe it. Th is
pandemic is a clear example of
that,” he said.
He understands that people
make mistakes, Kim said. But
Cuomo’s inability to admit his
mistakes is what got the state
into this position. Instead of
owning up to them and collaborating
to fi nd a fi x when everything
went wrong, he covered
up his mistakes.
“Th ey’re just, at best, off ering
Band-Aids,” Kim said about
Cuomo. “And not admitting to
those horrible things that they
did like providing, you know,
apply good immunity for nursing
and executives at the peak of
the pandemic.”
Kim’s adamant months-long
stance against Cuomo’s handling
of the virus in nursing
homes has gotten him into what
he called “political trouble.” In
fi ghting Cuomo he’s partnered
with Republicans, and gone up
against the Democratic establishment.
He even befriended
people like Janice Dean,
a conservative FOX News
Meteorologist who became a
fi erce critic of Cuomo’s aft er
both of her parents died of
COVID while living in assisted
living homes.
“I don’t think these travesties
have any political affi liation,”
he said.
Despite the stress on his family
and the fear, Kim said he is
doing what he has to do and he
hopes he can leverage the attention
into real policy change.
“Every lawmaker should be
doing this if they see something
wrong. Our job is to call it out
and legislate,” he said. “Th is is
what we should do.”
Gov. Andrew Cuomo (l.) has been feuding with Assemblyman Ron Kim.
There’s a lot of fear taking on a very
powerful politician who made —
who made tangible threats.
— Assemblyman Ron Kim
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