Andrew Cuomo going off the rails under the stress of NY’s pandemic woes

Gov. Andrew Cuomo is now in full-on flailing mode, zig-zagging wildly in the wake of New York’s coronavirus horrors.

Sometimes he seizes on common sense — as he finally did Wednesday in announcing that, yes, indoor dining can resume in New York City (though not ’til month’s end). Yet he was ranting at length just the day before about why that reopening couldn’t happen.

And this follows his bizarre, and fully premeditated, claim that “Donald Trump caused the COVID outbreak in New York.” That’s right: “caused.”

This, while Cuomo is demanding the moon when it comes to a federal bailout for the state.

For the record, “caused” boils down to the president not banning travel from Europe in time — even though Democrats kept calling those bans extreme back when Trump did it.

Cuomo’s Tuesday tirade also ran to his grudge over the prez’s cap on the federal state- and local-tax income-tax deduction (a gripe that, as E.J. McMahon notes isn’t remotely reality-based) as the gov fumed that Trump “is trying to kill New York City.”

Cuomo even claimed that Trump “admitted” triggering the outbreak, though an aide could show only that some Trump officials said folks initially underestimated COVID’s spread from Europe.

Make no mistake: Cuomo spent hours planning his unhinged harangue — taking the time to prep a series of slides such as the phony headline: “TRUMP TO CITY: DROP DEAD.”

OK, we get it: He hates being blamed for having ordered nursing homes to accept COVID-positive patients, which led to so many deaths in those facilities that he’s now too scared to release the true number. And he has no idea how to handle a state budget gap that was ballooning to the multibillions even before the pandemic and the lockdowns turned the red ink into a deluge to rival Niagara Falls.

So he’s playing to the countless New Yorkers who despise the president by pretending it’s all Trump’s fault. Heck, he’s now saying that if Trump won’t bail him out, he’ll “need” to raise taxes — even after repeatedly noting wealthy taxpayers will then flee. (You were right the first time, Gov.)

Let’s just hope that Cuomo’s indoor-dining turnaround is a sign that he’s found his center again.

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