Gov. Andrew Cuomo in a radio interview on Tuesday with WAMC’s Alan Chartock said the n-word while quoting a New York Times article and talking about anti-Italian discrimination.

The interview began with the governor and Chartock discussing the controversy over a New York City project promoting prominent women not including a statue of the famed Catholic nun and saint, Mother Cabrini.

Cuomo had announced Monday at the Columbus Day parade in New York City the state would fund and commission the statue.

During that portion of the interview, Cuomo discussed discrimination toward Italians in the United States, pointing to a New York Post front page that depicted him, his father, and his brother as characters from The Godfather. He once again took issue with a column in the Albany Times Union that disputed the etymology of the Italian slur “wop.”

Later in the interview, Chartock asked Cuomo about the state’s Medicaid spending. Cuomo pivoted back to Italian discrimination.

Here’s the full transcript:

Alan Chartock: An article in The New York Times says that you’ve been delaying payments by a few days to push them into the next budget year. Is that kosher? Will there be a repeat of the practice next year?

Gov. Cuomo: To tell you the truth, I don’t even — I don’t understand that fully.

Chartock: Well, if the Times said it so, it must be so, right?

Cuomo: Oh, well, yeah. Oh, the Times also said in an article the other day, appropo of nothing, they were talking about, going back to the Italian Americans because you now have me —

Chartock: I read the article, yeah.

Cuomo: They used an expression that southern Italians were called, I believe southern Italians, Sicilians, I’m half Sicilian, were called quote-unquote and pardon my language I’m just quoting the Times, n----- wops. N-word wops as a derogatory comment. When I said that wop was a derogatory comment that’s when the Times Union told me, no, you should look in Wikipedia. Wop really meant a dandy. I’m sure that’s what they were saying to me back in Queens. You’re a dandy. When they looked at me with scorn and gave me a hand gesture. So that’s The New York Times.

 

Cuomo has made verbal misfires over the years. Most recently, he told a woman reporter her question about sexual harassment does a “disservice to women.” He also walked back a statement that America was “never all that great.”