NEW YORK (1010 WINS) -- Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Thursday continued to deny saying anything "inappropriate" to the women who have accused him of sexual harassment, while maintaining harassment "is not making someone feel uncomfortable."
At a news briefing Thursday morning, a reporter read Cuomo the statement he released after his former aide, Charlotte Bennett, accused him of harassment.
"You said, 'I now understand that my interactions may have been insensitive or too personal, and that some of my comments given my position made others feel in ways I never intended.' You didn't deny that you said inappropriate things to Charlotte Bennett. Do you acknowledge the fact that your intentions, according to the law, don't matter in sexual harassment? And did you say the things that… she accused you of saying?" the reporter asked Cuomo.
"No, I said I never meant to make anyone feel uncomfortable," the governor responded. "I never said anything I believe is inappropriate."
"You can leave this press conference today and say, 'Oh, the governor harassed me.' You can say that. I would say, I never said anything that I believed was inappropriate. I never meant to make you feel that way. You may hear it that way, you may interpret it that way, and I respect that. And I apologize to you if I said something you think is offensive," he added.
"Harassment is not making someone feel uncomfortable. That is not harassment," he went on to say. "If I just made you feel uncomfortable, that is not harassment. That's you feeling uncomfortable."
Following Cuomo's news briefing, Bennett's attorney, Debra Katz, released a statement calling his remarks "jaw dropping."
"For someone who signed the law defining sexual harassment in New York state, and who claims to have taken the state's mandated sexual harassment training every year despite Ms. Bennett seeing someone else take it on his behalf, Gov. Cuomo continues to show an alarming degree of ignorance about what constitutes sexual harassment," Katz said.
"The law is very clear on this. If an employer makes unwelcome jokes, comments, asks probing questions of a sexual nature or makes unwanted sexual propositions — which is exactly what Gov. Cuomo has already admitted to having directed toward my client, Charlotte Bennett — that employer has violated New York state law," she added. "There is no gray area here."
"The governor needs sexual harassment training, now," Katz went on to say. "His studied ignorance is truly alarming."
