GOP mayoral candidate Curtis Sliwa delivers resignation demand to Cuomo’s NYC office

NEW YORK — New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo faced ratcheted-up calls to resign Wednesday morning with Republican mayoral nominee Curtis Sliwa showing up at his Manhattan office to demand he step down immediately.

Sliwa homed in on Cuomo’s response to New York Attorney General Letitia James’ scathing report that he groped and intimidated female staffers and attacked the governor for trying to explain away the findings by saying his kissing and hugging are culturally based and something he learned from his family, the now-deceased Gov. Mario Cuomo and mother Matilda Cuomo.

“His response was abominable,” Sliwa said outside Cuomo’s office at 633 Third Ave. “He said directly, explicitly that this was inherited behavior, part of his DNA as an Italian American — touchy, kissing, feely — all of those things attributed to him he said were cultural in nature and was learned behavior from his father, Mario, and his mother, Matilda.”

Sliwa’s broadside comes in response to the prerecorded response Cuomo issued Tuesday to the AG’s report. The video Cuomo released contains photos of him kissing, hugging and squeezing politicos over the years.

After speaking to reporters outside the midtown office for about 20 minutes, Sliwa, the founder of the Guardian Angels, then marched into the building to deliver his written demand that Cuomo resign.

A security guard instructed him that he would have to call the governor’s office upstairs to have someone pick it up. So Sliwa walked to the front desk to make his call with a gaggle of reporters and photographers in tow.

“I have to mail it to Albany?” he said into the lobby phone. “Do you realize how many tax dollars we pay for the governor to have an office in New York City?”

After whoever Sliwa was speaking with hung up, he quipped: “They introduced me to Mr. Click.”

Sliwa then slowly sauntered to the other side of the lobby, crouched down, and placed his letter on the lobby floor.

“It is no secret that your ego is bigger than New York State itself,” the letter said. “You must resign immediately.”