As communications director, chief of staff and secretary to former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, Melissa DeRosa had a unique vantage point in navigating the harrowing early days of the COVID-19 pandemic in one of the hardest hit states in the country. In her new book, “What’s Left Unsaid: My Life at the Center of Power, Politics & Crisis,” DeRosa shares a range of stories and reflections both personal and professional on leadership during COVID, the Cuomo administration and her career in politics. She recently spoke with U.S. News, and she shared an excerpt from the book. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.
U.S. News: Why did you write this book?
Melissa DeRosa: The first draft of history is written by reporters in real time, oftentimes based on sourcing that isn’t in the room. During that two-year period of what I refer to in the book as the fog of COVID, it was really hard to see straight through what was going on, because of the turbulence we were all experiencing, because of the trauma we were all experiencing.
And so I wrote the book because I think the truth matters, and I think getting the truth from the people who lived it matters. I was on the phone with [former White House senior adviser] Jared Kushner. I was on the phone with Donald Trump. I was on the phone with [former New York City mayor] Bill de Blasio. I know how decisions were made. I know the political hardball that was taking place behind the scenes.
So that’s why I wrote the book. This is the second draft of history. And I think given the importance of the pandemic, in particular, but then also the fallout the year afterwards around the [Cuomo] administration, I think it’s paramount that the public get the truth about what was happening behind the scenes and have a fuller understanding of how decisions were made around COVID.
UNION SQUARE & CO.
Stepping back from not only living that experience but also chronicling it, what are a couple of key takeaways that you’d want to share with readers about your life and your career these last several years?
When you’re in these jobs, and it’s high-stress, high-intensity, it’s really hard to take stock of what’s going on around you. You just sort of go, go, go, go, go. I decided that, if I was going to write this book, one of the things I thought was critically important was that I told the whole story – and that included being really vulnerable and honest about what was going on in my personal life: the toll that the stress of the job and the demands of the job took on my marriage, on infertility, on my mental health. Remind people that the people that are in politics and government are still, at the end of the day, human beings, because I think a lot of that gets lost in the headlines.
I think it’s important for people to be able to see and understand who their government leaders are, what’s going on in their lives, how everything comes together, in order to really assess what went on. And so my goal was to sort of lower the veil and bring people into the room and onto the phone and experience it for themselves – what was going on both from a personal level and a professional level.
Bearing all this in mind, do you have a lesson or something that you know now that you wish you had known then?
I don’t think that there’s one lesson, but people ask me, Would I do things differently? I would do everything differently. The thing I think people need to try to remember, which is difficult now in hindsight and with Monday morning quarterbacking, is just how imperfect the information was at the time.
I think giving people a little bit of grace and understanding that people were public servants doing the best they could with the information that they had at the time. I think that’s why it’s so important that we tell this story and we really understand it – because there’s going to be another pandemic.
As we enter a big election year, do you have any thoughts looking ahead to 2024?
The partisanship in this country is at an all-time high. Tribalism really rules the day right now. We have this inherent “us vs. them” mentality that’s falling along party lines. My hope is that the American public can start to see past what divides us and focus on what unites us.
The current federal government cannot sustain itself much longer – just this constant gridlock and hostility. The Republican Party can’t even decide on a speaker of the House that sustains a yearlong tenure. Government is for the people and has to start being again for the people and not about partisan politics. The only way that that’s going to change is if politicians get that message directly from the voters.
The following is an excerpt from “What’s Left Unsaid: My Life at the Center of Power, Politics & Crisis,” published by Union Square & Co. Copyright © 2023 by Melissa DeRosa. Reprinted with permission.
The founding fathers viewed the federal government as a potential tyrannical force, so they drafted the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution, expressly limiting the federal government’s power vis-à-vis states, including in responding to a public-health emergency, and specifically giving states sovereignty on police power. The federal government had not only provided no direction at the start of the pandemic, it played no role in closing down the economy. Trump certainly had no authority to force governors to lift stay-at-home orders or reopen their state economies. Cuomo watched the White House briefing from the living room of the Albany mansion in real time.
“Dani, get me any news outlet that will take me, fast,” he said. Within minutes, Cuomo was on the phone with CNN, reciting the Constitution verbatim. “We don’t have a king,” he declared, assertively. The next morning he kept at it, whacking away on every cable and broadcast news station that would have him.
Trump was angry and quick to respond, “Tell the Democrat Governors that Mutiny on the Bounty was one of my all-time favorite movies!” He tweeted, “A good old-fashioned mutiny every now and then is an exciting and invigorating thing to watch, especially when the mutineers need so much from the Captain. Too easy!”
I had no idea what he was referring to, but the governor, a Marlon Brando aficionado, explained: “Trump clearly hasn’t seen Mutiny on the Bounty. In it, Captain Bligh loses the fight to maintain control over his crew, and his first lieutenant mounts a successful rebellion to overthrow him.”
Despite Trump’s ignorance of classic movie trivia, the point was clear: Trump wanted to stoke partisan division, pitting blue states against red states and painting reopening decisions along political lines. But he also had no idea what he was talking about, and apparently brighter bulbs at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue (presumably in the White House counsel’s office) prevailed this time. Within twenty-four hours, Trump backtracked, saying he would “allow” governors to authorize their own reopening plans. His new position was still legally incorrect, but it didn’t matter. At least we were no longer on a path tantamount to dictatorship.
The majority of New Yorkers were well-disciplined and committed, at that point, to staying the course on COVID. The daily press briefings worked. They communicated presence, compassion, confidence, and humanity. But Trump’s agitation was beginning to have an effect in conservative areas across the state, and, given what we had just gone through, we were nervous. One day at the end of April, I picked up the phone and dialed Jared’s cell.
Jared Kushner had become an unlikely ally of ours during COVID. The president trusted his son-in-law implicitly, and Jared had the clout to move the immovable bureaucratic machinery. He and Governor Cuomo had known each other for years before Donald Trump was elected, with Cuomo even attending Jared’s wedding to Ivanka in 2007. The two of them maintained a longtime relationship, and the governor honestly believed Jared was doing his best to help when we asked for it. Jared credited their positive relationship in part to the fact that, when his father, Charles Kushner, was arrested for illegal campaign contributions, tax evasion, and witness tampering in 2004, Cuomo reached out, saying, “I’ve had highs and lows as well. You’ll be back.”
Jared’s roommate from Harvard had married one of my closest friends from Cornell, and as a result we had crossed paths a few times socially over the years in New York City. During COVID, we became each other’s primary point of contact between New York and the White House, a relationship that could be beneficial or contentious – or both – depending on the day.
Jared’s soft monotone voice came on the line.
“Hey, Melissa. How are you?” he asked politely. “What’s going on in New York?”
“Things here are okay,” I told him. “As I’m sure you know, we’ve flattened the curve and—fingers crossed – it feels like we have entered a more positive phase of this.”
“Yes, that’s great to hear,” he responded. “I’ve spoken with a lot of friends, but they have mainly relocated to Florida. Did you know everything is open there?”
“I did know that, yes,” I answered evenly.
“And the death rate there has been much lower than in New York,” Jared went on, “even without the shutdowns. Did you know that, too?” His tone was smug.
“I have read that,” I said. “Although I also read that they are classifying nearly every death of those over sixty years old as pneumonia, so I’m not sure I trust their statistics, either.”
“Ah, well,” Jared scoffed, “don’t believe everything you read, Melissa.”
“Right.” I didn’t like the direction this conversation was going, but there was no going back now.
“So, you called me,” Jared said. “What can I do for you?”
“I’m calling to ask that you talk to the president about his rhetoric,” I said.
“His rhetoric on what?” Jared asked.
“All of this ‘liberate’ business,” I explained. “I feel okay about how most New Yorkers are responding, but there are pockets of upstate and Staten Island and Suffolk County where we are starting to see noncompliance. We were the center of this thing. We can’t go backward.”
“Melissa, let me stop you right there,” Jared jumped in, his voice sharpening ever so slightly. “This isn’t the president’s ‘rhetoric’ – it’s what he believes. We’ve done polling, and you guys are in the wrong place on this.”
“Well, Jared, respectfully,” I said, “we aren’t basing our decisions on polling. But Siena just came out of the field with a new poll showing that, overwhelmingly, the people of New York support how the governor is handling COVID – including our stay-at-home order.”
“Sure, that’s possible,” Jared agreed. “But I’m not talking about New York. I’m talking nationally. Pennsylvania. Michigan. Ohio. Florida. People do not support these shutdowns there. And they want their kids back in school and the economy open. That’s where our focus is now.”
“What does that mean?” Was New York not part of Trump’s America, all of a sudden? I wondered.
“Melissa,” Jared had transitioned to patronizing, “our interests no longer align. I understand why you have to do what you have to do. You should understand that we have to do what we have to do. And the president is going to continue to push governors to get their state economies back up and running. The people have had enough already.”
So had I. I couldn’t believe the conversation I was having. We were in the middle of a pandemic, one that had already killed tens of thousands of people, and I was talking with President Trump’s top adviser, who until recently had lived in New York, about polling in swing states? There was no point in continuing the call; I heard him loud and clear.
“Got it, Jared. I understand.”
Jared was right about one thing. Our interests most certainly were no longer aligned.
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