Cuomo was paid $4 million for book boasting handling of coronavirus pandemic

Democratic New York Governor Andrew Cuomo was revealed to have been paid $4 million for his latest book 'American Crisis: Leadership Lessons from the COVID-19 Pandemic' released in late 2020, Daily Mail reports.

The publisher Crown awarded Cuomo with the seven-figure book deal, allowing the Governor a large platform to tout his handling of the ongoing pandemic. The book is filled with self-congratulatory language, with Cuomo stating with faux-humility in an earlier draft of the book that he is "not a superhero."

"I have experience and a skill set that qualifies me as a good governor," the draft read. "I have accomplished by any objective standard more than any governor in modern history. But I am not a superhero."

Cuomo had initially received widespread praise in the mainstream media for his handling of the coronavirus pandemic in New York, with the Governor even receiving an Emmy award for his speeches.

Conservatives and Republicans remained skeptical of Cuomo's performance, however, a perspective which panned out in the long run as he now faces a variety of scandals shaking his administration.

One of the scandals is that Cuomo's office deliberately undercounted and underreported coronavirus-related deaths in nursing homes. While evidence suggested that 9,844 New Yorkers died in nursing homes across the state, the Cuomo administration publicly reported only 6,432 deaths.

One of the Governor's top aides, Melissa DeRosa, admitted to the administration's altering of the data, stating that it was done to avoid the issue becoming a talking point for Republicans during former President Donald Trump's reelection campaign. Trump's handling of the coronavirus pandemic has been controversial and polarizing, with Democrats seeking to blame him for the more than half a million deaths which the virus caused across the country.

Cuomo advisor Richard Azzopardi insists, however, that the July report undercounting coronavirus deaths was not intended to be a "full accounting" of the coronavirus deaths in the state, and only sought to determine whether Cuomo's policies contributed to raising the death toll in the state.

The report was released one day after an edited draft of Cuomo's book was sent to the Governor's mansion, although Azzopardi denies any connection.

On top of the nursing home scandal, the embattled Governor is also facing accusations that he sexually harassed multiple women during the pandemic, most of whom current or former staffers. The allegations range from inappropriate sexual innuendo to actively groping various women.

One of the accusers, former staffer Lindsey Boylan, criticized the massive book deal payout received by Cuomo, saying that he "[gets] paid to tell [a] fake story."

As both scandals have compounded, Cuomo has faced calls to resign or be impeached by both Democratic and Republican politicians at both the state and federal level. Cuomo has thus far refused, insisting that while he may have acted in an inappropriate way at times, he is innocent of the allegations made against him and his administration.