Transcript: Cuomo, With His Mother, Former First Lady of New York Matilda Cuomo, Joins Mother’s Day Service in the Bronx
Cuomo: "I want to say to my Mother on this Mother’s Day, not just thank you for coming here today, I want to thank her for a lifetime devoted to her family."
"She has always been a place of comfort for me, and strength for me, and there is nothing like the love of a mother to give you comfort and strength. Thank you for that. In Italian there is an expression, that there are: two things in life that will never leave you are the eyes of God and the love of a mother. And that is so true."
Governor Andrew M. Cuomo, candidate for Mayor of New York City, today attended a Mother’s Day Service at The Sanctuary Church, alongside former first lady and mother, Matilda Cuomo. Cuomo, who was welcomed by Reverend Susana Rivera Leon and Assembly Member Yudelka Tapia, spoke about the strength and influence of women and mothers, the need to stand in solidarity with our community in the Bronx, and address issues like public safety, affordability, and expanding economic opportunity.
A transcript of his remarks at The Sanctuary Church appears below:
Gracias, Reverend Susana Rivera Leon. How beautiful was her preaching today? I also want to say gracias to Bishop Ray Rivera and all the great work he does with the Latino Pastoral Action Center. Let's give him a round of applause.
Listening to Reverend Susana and her relationship to her father reminds me in many ways of my relationship to my father, Mario Cuomo, he was a great Governor of New York, and growing up with him is – his lesson was so powerful, it was so impactful, that it actually guided my life to public service. And I think in many ways that is also Reverend Susana’s, followed in her father’s footsteps because of a powerful example. Let’s give her a round of applause.
Feliz día de las madres.
A special guest that I have here today, my mother, she was the former first lady in the state. She's here with my sister, Maria, my brother-in-law, Kenneth Cole, I want to say thank you for coming. My mother, we are soon to be celebrating her 33rd 60th birthday. I want to say to my mother on this Mother’s Day, not just thank you for coming here today, I want to thank her for a lifetime devoted to her family. She was devoted, we lost my father. My father was in service for 20 years, and you know, when you are in politics– I chose to be in politics, you deal with a lot when you’re in politics, you know, and it can be ugly out there in politics, especially in today’s world, but that's the choice I made, it’s the choice my father made. But what you don't appreciate sometimes is the burden on the family when you are in politics and the time away from family. And that when people are mean to you or abusive to you, your family feels it also. And my mother, 20 years with my father and 23 years with me. And she has always been a place of comfort for me and strength for me, and there is nothing like the love of a mother to give you comfort and strength. Thank you for that. In Italian there is an expression, that there are: two things in life that will never leave you are the eyes of God and the love of a mother. And that is so true. And I learned that from my mother.
I want to say thank you to Assembly Member Yudelka Tapia who is with us today. I’m a little tired because she kept me out too late last night at a Mother’s Day party and we had, it was a lot of fun. I was endorsed by Congressman Adriano Espaillat and Assembly Member George Alvarez, I want to thank them very much for that. But again, I want to thank all of you with gratitude for allowing me to be here today.
And it’s Mother’s Day today. We celebrate mothers today with flowers. I have flowers, Mom, and we’re going to go for lunch together. But we really celebrate mothers every day and we have to have this respect, this love and gratitude every day. We have to show it every day and we work very hard to do that. We respect the traditions that you passed onto us, we respect the heritage, the legacy, the love of family, the love of our legacy. And we do that and we do it for the community at large. We have tremendous respect for the Latino legacy, for the legacy of the people of Puerto Rico who make a difference to New York, the people of the Dominican Republic who make such a difference to New York.
When Puerto Rico has struggled, when the Dominican Republic has struggled, we brought all the New Yorkers to help the Dominican Republic after they dealt with earthquakes and storms, when Puerto Rico had Hurricane Maria, we brought hundreds of New Yorkers to Puerto Rico to help restore power to Puerto Rico. So that is our obligation to make sure people have affordable housing, which is harder and harder today. Our obligation to make sure that you have the healthcare that you deserve and that you need, and our obligation to make sure that you are protected and that you are safe. And that is especially true here in the Bronx. Every day we read about the crime that is happening in the Bronx. This past week a 23 year old woman was robbed and assaulted in Throggs Neck in the Bronx, today in the newspaper there is a story about the park at St. Mary’s and how much drug use is going on and how many people are getting in trouble at the park.
And that is a story that we read about too much, especially in the Bronx, and in truth, the Bronx has not been given the respect and the care and the attention that it deserves from the City of New York.
The Bronx has the highest crime rate in the City of New York. The Bronx has the highest crime rate than any of the other boroughs. Has the highest poverty rate than any of the other boroughs. Has a lower median income than any of the other boroughs. And that is just not fair and that is just not right.
The Bronx has not gotten the attention it deserves and shame on the New York City government because some things you can’t do for yourself. You can’t keep yourself safe in this city, you can’t get yourself affordable housing. And that's why we have government. That's what government is all about. That's why we elect people. But we elect people and we put people in government to actually make change, and actually produce results, and somewhere along the way we’ve lost that. We have a lot of politicians and you know what they do – my grandfather used to do this, do you know what this means? All talk. They’re all talk. In politics they’re very good at talking but politics is not about talking, it's about action, about making a difference in people's lives. It's not about words, it’s about deeds. It’s about real results that change their lives. And that is not happening in New York City. And that has to happen in New York City.
I wasn’t planning on running for Mayor, I served 8 years in the Bill Clinton administration as Housing Secretary, then I was Attorney General, then I was Governor for 11 years. I was going to take a break, I thought I deserved a break, no? I had done my tour of duty and I had my share of shrapnel so I was going to take it easy, I was in the private sector, and I did something called taking a vacation, which I had not done in many, many years. But I was watching New York City and I’m worried about New York, I'm worried about the direction of New York City. We had 500,000 people leave New York City since COVID– 500,000. We have rich people leave but we have middle class people working because they can’t afford to live in New York City. It’s too unsafe to be in New York City and that has to change and that’s why I’m running for Mayor.
What I spent time doing in government, look at what I did as governor, everything I did, was about actually getting things done for people, making a difference in people’s lives. We passed laws that changed lives. We raised the minimum wage, it was $9 dollars, we raised it to $15 dollars to put more money in your pocket. We passed free college tuition for the middle class so you don’t have to worry about paying for your child’s tuition. We passed laws to give more minority and women owned business opportunities. Make a difference in people’s lives. Go look at the new Laguardia Airport that we built, it was the worst now and now it's the best, new JFK airport, new Second Avenue subway, new Moynihan Train Hall at Penn Station, go to the new Sheridan Expressway which was one of the highways with the highest number of accidents and now we made it safe. What we did in Hunts Point.
It’s about making a difference and we have to make a difference in New York City and we have to make a difference fast in New York City. We have to make it safe again and we're going to make it safe by hiring more police who are responsive to the community, and respect the community and work with the community. We’re going to build more affordable housing, increase the supply of affordable housing, and you will bring the price down. It's about getting it done. There is no rocket science here, we know what to do. It's about the competence to actually make it happen.
And it's especially important today because we have another challenge on top of everything. We elected a new president, I forget his name, but we elected a new president and he's not a friend to New York, he is not a friend to working families. He put forward a budget, you know what the budget does? It cuts housing for senior citizens, it cuts funding for public housing, for NYCHA. It cuts Medicaid, which is healthcare for poor people. It cuts all the funding that is essential to make this city work. That's what this President did. Now, we've dealt with this president before, I was governor and he was president, and we were dealing with COVID and New York had COVID worse than any place on the globe. Highest infection rate on the globe and we were alone and he was the president and we had to get basic help, we had to get masks, we had to get vaccines, we had to get testing equipment and we had to fight him every step of the way.
But you know what? New Yorkers know how to deal with a bully, we know how to deal with a bully. I'll tell you what, real New Yorkers are tough, and we are going to deal with the president, and we are going to protect New York and we are going to protect you. And you have my word on that if I am fortunate enough to be Mayor.
Next point, COVID taught me something else, when things were at their worst and we had no idea what was gonna happen. We literally didn't know if we were gonna live or die, and nobody could tell us what to do. Nobody knew the right thing, nobody knew what the virus was going to do. All different opinions, one doctor says this, one doctor says this, one doctor says you can get it by touch, one doctor says you can’t get it by touch, we had no idea, none of the experts had any idea. We were on our own. But you know what we did, we came together as New Yorkers, unified and helped one another, we were there for one another. It didn’t matter if you were Black or White, or Latino, or rich or poor. We were there together.
And that unity was a great strength. That unity was the most important strength and I learned from you that when we come together, there is nothing that we can't do. So we think we have problems in this city, we think we have a crime problem, we think we have an affordable housing problem, we have an affordability issue, we have a President who isn’t going to help. Yes, we do. But you know what? We can deal with every one of those problems if we remember what we did during COVID, we come together, we stand together, we fight together, and we will win together.
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Watch the Full Remarks of Governor Cuomo’s Speech Here
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