CLAY: A little bit of a funny story now. Do you remember, Buck, when Andrew Cuomo was in office, all the Cuomosexual shirts were selling and he was doing his daily briefings?

BUCK: (impression) “He was the handsomest governor in America, the savior of New York state. He was grabbing people by the thousands, by their heartstrings and occasionally by other places as well.”

CLAY: (laughing) That is Governor Andrew Cuomo stepping in the studio there for a moment to address the nation. I have to say that Cuomo — we didn’t really talk much about this — at midnight last night, he left. I think it was just this morning, right? The new Kathy Hochul is now the governor. Cuomo has officially left the mansion. They have now stripped, Buck…

It was always one of the most ridiculous things that was out there that they had done this in the first place. But they have now stripped the honorary Emmy that they gave to Andrew Cuomo for his updates during the height of the covid crisis in March and April of last year. I guess they’re rescinding the Emmy, which is pretty funny in and of itself. I mean, the fact that he ever got an Emmy was an incredible indictment, to the extent that there’s any legitimacy to the Emmy in the first place. But they’ve taken it away.

BUCK: Did you watch in real time? He would sit there — this is during covid — and at first everyone was like, “Oh, my gosh, covid! We got to beat it!” But after a while it was (impression), “Okay. So what are we gonna talk about today? Today, we will discuss the origin of what it means to be the governor of New York. “I have slides,” and he would just go on and on and on.

CLAY: (laughing)

BUCK: There wasn’t that much. (impression) “Okay, we’re gonna do more talking. What does it mean for having a normal life again at some point? What do I mean by ‘normal life’?” You know this was the daily rhythm. But people got so dependent on this because we’re all locked at home.

CLAY: Yes.

BUCK: I think they started to feel like this was somehow comforting.

I was looking at this saying, shouldn’t this guy be doing stuff other than reading weird slides? They could just send out or just post the data on covid. But he was this comforter for so many people. He was the security blanket. He liked to hold people close, as we know.

CLAY: Yeah, and this still is blowing up on Chris Cuomo, his brother — who is the one that’s still in the public arena now — because of the memes that are out there now of the two Cuomo brothers on CNN for so long like they were, it’s impossible, basically, to escape. So I just thought that was a funny little anecdote.