Mayoral candidate Adrienne Adams ripped rival Andrew Cuomo’s handling of the COVID-19 crisis — as she tearfully remembered the injustice of her military veteran father’s death in a hospital during the shutdown.
Adams on Thursday criticized Democratic Party primary frontrunner Cuomo for his “redemption” campaign to return to office several years after resigning as state governor while embroiled in scandal.
“This past Easter Andrew Cuomo campaigned in a church,” said Adams, who is now serving as City Council president.
“Recounting this chapter in New York’s past he said: ‘You hit us with COVID, life and death, we do what they said was impossible, and we save lives.’
“His words stayed with me. Because I remember begging the governor’s office to send life saving vaccines to my community,” Adams told reporters at a news conference at Elmhurst Hospital.
“And for weeks and months, our request was denied no matter what we said. Because the site where the vaccines were supposed to go was run by then-Mayor de Blasio, the former governor’s political enemy.”
She tied the bickering to the death of her father Irvin Eadie, who died of COVID-19 in Long Island Jewish Hospital May 22, 2020 before the vaccine was developed.
She said didn’t take her UPS driver and Air Force military veteran dad to Elmhurst — even though it was the closest hospital to his Jackson Heights home — because it was overwhelmed with coronavirus patients and considered the local epicenter of the pandemic.
“People only go to Elmhurst to die,” a tearful Adams claimed the EMTs told her when her father was being taken for medical treatment.
She could not visit him in the hospital, hold a military funeral service at his beloved St. Mark AME church or a hold ceremony at Calverton National Cemetery because of pandemic restrictions, she added.
Cuomo and de Blasio feud over lags in vaccine distribution and the control of distribution sites “punished New Yorkers,” Adams said.
“His words stayed with me because my father lost his life,” she said at the event, held on the anniversary of Eadie’s death. “My father served his government with pride. But when he needed his government to serve him, it failed him. And it didn’t fail him by accident. It failed him by design.”
The council speaker noted her daughter, Aliya, who was in the audience supporting her mom on Thursday morning, was on the front lines as a paramedic during the pandemic.
She had claimed in 2020 that hospital staff did not have enough protective gear, pointing out that some nurses donned garbage bags over their gowns for protection from the deadly infection, as The Post had previously reported.
Adams’ broadside comes as the Trump Justice Department has opened a criminal investigation into Cuomo for allegedly lying to Congress about deaths in Empire State nursing homes during the pandemic shutdown.
A report released by Mayor Eric Adams administration in March claimed Cuomo’s heavy handedness and micro-managing hindered pandemic coordination and response between city and state agencies.
Cuomo has denied wrongdoing and even released a campaign aid claiming he’s being unfairly targeted by Trump.
But Adrienne Adams — no relation to the current mayor — claimed the pandemic showed Cuomo is too vindictive to run City Hall.
“Expect leaders who care more about solving our problems than punishing their enemies,” Adams, who is the first black City Council speaker, said.
“Not for power. Not for redemption. But for the New Yorkers who’ve lived with neglect and never left. Who never lost hope. I’m in it for all of us.”
In response, the Cuomo campaign put a key social service provider on the phone and provided statements fromthree black pastors claiming the ex-governor was responsive in providing pandemic fighting resources during the COVID-19 outbreak.
“The Cuomo administration worked feverishly to provide communities of color with information, testing and vaccines,” said Jennifer Jones Austin, CEO of the Federation of Protestant Welfare Agencies.
Bishop Orlando Findlayter of New Hope Christian Fellowship in Brooklyn rapped Adrienne Adams for unfairly the ex-governor.
“Governor Cuomo stood with the Black community during our most difficult days, in ways few elected officials ever have. It is deeply troubling when any leader chooses to mislead our community for political gain,” Findlayter, who has endorsed Cuomo, said.
“I hope Speaker Adams, as someone who understands the weight of leadership, will reflect on the importance of honesty and unity as we all work toward a better future for our communities.”
