Outsight Book Reader Diary: February 2023

Sunday, February 19, 2023

Review: American Crisis: Leadership Lessons from the COVID-19 Pandemic

American Crisis: Leadership Lessons from the COVID-19 Pandemic by Andrew M. Cuomo
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Published October 13, 2020, this book came out while "the COVID-19 Pandemic" was still very much in swing. It was pleasant to read some COVID memoir that was not all finger pointing and had some accomplishments to celebrate. Also, I remember his frequent briefings which at least put forward a confident, sensible reaction based on science something I wished to have seen from more government officials, especially at the national level. He also sought that and documents here his fraught interactions with Trump specifically and the federal government in general including mistreatment by FEMA:

When we were at the White House on April 21, I was on my way out of the West Wing when I ran into Secretary of the Treasury Steve Mnuchin. Secretary Mnuchin is a New Yorker, and I had known him tangentially. As we were standing in the hallway near the Roosevelt Room, Mnuchin informed me that they were considering waiving the requirement that New York State pay the 25 percent share of the FEMA cost. This was a positive gesture by the federal government and was surely warranted, because New York had paid a much higher cost for the COVID virus than any other state.

“I just need the president to sign off,” he said.

Jared Kushner was nearby, and Mnuchin suggested that we go back into the Oval Office to get the president’s sign-off, which we did. They called the president back into the Oval Office to meet with us; Mnuchin explained the situation, and the president authorized the waiver. Secretary Mnuchin estimated this would save New York State approximately $300 million. The president told me that I should announce it publicly. We left the White House, went to the airport, and flew back to New York. I was grateful for the assistance. It didn’t make any sense that the state that endured the most pain and death had to pay because it endured the most pain and death. The reprieve made my trip worthwhile, and we agreed that we would publicly announce it immediately. That evening I did my briefing and among other news thanked the president for the waiver and the $300 million in savings for New York.

Several weeks later, I was in Albany when Robert Mujica, the budget director, came in with the FEMA agreement, which was requiring that we pay the 25 percent match. I told him it was a mistake and that he should contact FEMA. Several days later he came back and said that FEMA refused to waive the 25 percent. I called the FEMA administrator, Peter Gaynor, and he said he had no knowledge of the 25 percent waiver. I asked Gaynor if the president was authorized to make such decisions—because he had. I told Gaynor that when I was a cabinet secretary, the president did have authority to make such decisions and that the president’s decisions usually mattered. I suggested Gaynor call the president and call me back. I told him if he wanted more information, he could google it by punching in “Trump Cuomo FEMA.” I never heard back from Gaynor.

and

...What I did not expect was that FEMA, the main federal operating agency that can help states, would offer assistance, only to make the situation worse by involving us in a scam.

When we contacted FEMA on the issue of ventilator procurement, they directed us to a company that would sell us ventilators for immediate delivery. FEMA did not offer to pay for the ventilators, but they would facilitate the procurement. We thanked them for their help and contracted with the company they recommended.

The price that the company was charging for ventilators was outrageous. Each ventilator would cost on average more than $59,000. The pre-pandemic price of a ventilator was $15,000. But we believed lives were on the line and understood we had few alternatives.

We agreed to the terms and signed an $86 million contract requiring a $69 million pre-payment with Yaron Oren-Pines’s company for delivery of 1,450 ventilators. Detecting possible fraud, banks in the United States and China froze the funds. At the same time, Oren-Pines began to warn of delivery complications and failed to arrange required inspections. We moved to cancel the contract and recovered $59 million. Not a single ventilator was delivered. To date we are in the midst of legal action to recoup the remaining $10 million, and law enforcement is reviewing the matter for possible prosecution.

View all my reviews