He had a hard edge—and liked to play hardball.
He loved his younger brother, Christopher, but was tough on him too. Years later, as a television reporter, Christopher would leave his job at ABC coanchoring the show 20/20 to go to CNN—in part because Andrew, friends said, had mocked him for being a lightweight. But merely switching to CNN wouldn’t do the trick: One colleague recalled being shocked after an on-air story Christopher had done, when he took a cell phone call from his brother and started cringing under Andrew’s withering review.
As the henchman in his father Mario’s first races for political office, Andrew was, as one New York journalist put it, “a nasty piece of work who took delight in firing and cutting down to size people decades older.”
Periodically, when Andrew would be eyeing an upcoming election or position, reporters would hear about the new and improved Andrew, a man said to have somehow become thoughtful and considerate. Alas, the retooled Andrew never lasted for long.
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