Andrew Cuomo: ‘Joe Biden has the best case’ for 2020

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) said Wednesday that former Vice President Joe Biden is the strongest potential 2020 candidate among Democrats because his “credibility” is the “secret ingredient” needed to beat President Trump.

In an interview with New York radio station WAMC, Cuomo said Biden’s credibility amounts to a characteristic that other Democratic candidates don’t possess.

{mosads}”I think of all the names that are out there, I think Joe Biden has the best case,” Cuomo said, without naming any of the other potential contenders. “I think Joe Biden has the best case because he brings the most of the secret ingredient you need to win for a Democrat, which is credibility.”

He said that attribute would distinguish Biden and other front-runners from the likely crowded pack of candidates vying for the party’s nomination.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) this week announced she was forming an exploratory committee. Biden has not announced taking a similar step.

“I think there’s going to be a big field. I think the problem for the Democrats is going to be this: It is going to be credibility,” Cuomo said, adding that serious candidates must put forward their own, positive agendas for the country’s future.

“I think that the main issue for the Democrats is not going to be the articulation of the negative; it is going to be the articulation of the positive,” he added.

Cuomo’s remarks came the day of his inauguration to a third term as New York’s governor following a high-profile primary challenge from activist and actress Cynthia Nixon in 2018.

In his inaugural address Wednesday, Cuomo pledged to pursue a progressive agenda that would serve as a foil to Trump’s agenda.

“Just as [President Franklin Delano Roosevelt] turned the frustration of the economic depression into a movement to pass the New Deal, let New York use the frustration of the social depression to pass a new justice agenda,” Cuomo told a crowd Wednesday on Ellis Island.