NY Gov. Andrew Cuomo Tries to Blame Trump for Nursing Home Death Scandal Cuomo Caused
Former NY Governor George Pataki: “Cuomo’s effort to blame Trump for his disastrous nursing home policies is complete nonsense. It was Cuomo’s DOH directive for nursing homes to take infected people.”
On the same day CNN anchor Chris Cuomo hosted his brother Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) for a 25 minute segment in which Q-tip sizes were compared, laughs were shared, and no actual journalism took place, Gov. Cuomo blamed President Trump for the fact that New York nursing homes were forced to accept Wuhan Coronavirus-positive patients.
The claim was made during the governor’s daily press briefing on Wednesday when a reporter brought up Cuomo’s March 25th executive order which mandated these facilities accept such patients. The reporter noted there have been calls for a federal probe into the state’s nursing home crisis. Here’s what Cuomo said in response:
Critics should “ask President Trump” about it, the governor said Wednesday, arguing that the federal government actually cooked up the mandate — and that New York was just following Washington’s lead.
“Anyone who wants to ask, ‘Why did the state do that with COVID patients in nursing homes,’ it’s because the state followed President Trump’s CDC [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] guidance,” Cuomo told reporters in Albany who pressed him on whether he had any regrets about the directive, which may have played a role in the deaths of thousands of nursing home residents.
“They should ask President Trump. I think that will stop the conversation,” he repeated.
Except the conversation hasn’t been stopped, thanks to New York Republicans who have for two months watched Cuomo accept no responsibility for the leadership failures that have happened throughout this crisis on his watch and at his direction.
Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY), who last week called for a probe into Cuomo’s nursing home policy, countered Cuomo’s claim in a series of tweets posted Thursday in which she noted Cuomo’s March 25th mandate went much further than the CDC guidelines:
Governor Cuomo continues to point fingers at the federal government.
But here are the FACTS regarding CDC guidance:
The Governor’s decisions to MANDATE that nursing homes accept COVID-19 patients completely disregards the case-by-case approach recommended by CDC.
— Elise Stefanik (@EliseStefanik) May 21, 2020
CDC guidance was clear that decisions about discharging COVID-19 patients should be based on the ability of the accepting facility to meet the recommended infection control practices. This includes the ability to place residents in a designated COVID-19 care unit that is equipped
— Elise Stefanik (@EliseStefanik) May 21, 2020
with the resources and PPE to safely prevent the spread of infections. Additionally, CDC guidance states that if nursing homes are unable to follow CDC guidance for COVID-19 patients under Transmission-Based Precautions, they must wait until these patients are no longer
— Elise Stefanik (@EliseStefanik) May 21, 2020
a transmission risk before accepting them. Governor Cuomo’s MANDATE requires acceptance regardless of a nursing homes capacity to safely accept COVID-19 positive cases.
— Elise Stefanik (@EliseStefanik) May 21, 2020
Stefanik also retweeted former NY Gov. George Pataki (R), who posted a copy of Cuomo’s March executive order and noted it was Cuomo’s decision to force New York’s nursing homes to accept such patients, not Trump’s:
@NYGOVCUOMO effort to blame @realdonaldtrump for his disastrous nursing home policies is complete nonsense. It was Cuomo’s DOH directive for nursing homes to take infected people. NO MENTION OF CDC. WHY did he wait 47 DAYS to reverse policy? Did #POTUS tell him to do that too? pic.twitter.com/5qB0lJGywp
— George E. Pataki (@GovernorPataki) May 20, 2020
What I thought was perhaps even more interesting than Cuomo passing the buck to Trump on this issue was his answer to a great follow-up question from a New York Times reporter. The reporter correctly noted that throughout the outbreak Cuomo had not been shy about “thwarting” Trump where he saw fit so, assuming for purposes of discussion that what Cuomo said was correct about CDC guidelines (he wasn’t, as Stefanik and Pataki noted), why not go in a different direction on who the nursing homes could accept and “do you regret it?”
Cuomo’s answer? No, he did not regret following CDC guidelines on nursing homes (which, as noted above, were not the guidelines at all).
I don’t think Cuomo realizes that the two answers he gave, first to the female reporter and then the NYTimes reporter, were contradictory.
In the answer he gave to the female reporter, he said in a nutshell that if you want someone to blame for nursing homes being forced to accept Wuhan Coronavirus patients, look to Trump and the CDC. But then in the very next answer he gave to the NYTimes reporter, he said he didn’t regret not “thwarting” President Trump’s alleged CDC guidelines (which as we now know were different from Cuomo’s March mandate) and then went into a long explainer about why he felt it was the right thing to do.
I’ve set the video below to start with the female reporter’s question. The New York Times reporter’s question was after hers. Watch, and you’ll see what I mean:
Cuomo’s pass-the-buck answer should be given more scrutiny than the national press has given it. Unfortunately, it won’t be because the vast majority of the media are too busy plumping Cuomo’s pillow and talking about the “Cuomosexual” phenomenon and all the other irrelevant garbage that has nothing to do with addressing the nursing home crisis.
But where the media is failing, the courts could ultimately succeed. Whether or not a federal probe actually takes place, I think there’s a strong probability that lawsuits will be filed by distraught family members who wonder if the death of their loved one could have been prevented had Cuomo not put that executive order in place.
These lawsuits could ultimately end up being a self-own for Cuomo, considering in March his aides quietly “added a provision to the state’s newly approved budget that prevents residents from suing facilities including nursing homes over some allegations of negligence related to the coronavirus outbreak.”
Family members may not be able to sue nursing homes, but they can still sue the state and the governor.
New York has more nursing home deaths from the Wuhan Coronavirus than any other state in the country – and the numbers are likely much higher.
This scandal will not be going away anytime soon for Cuomo, no matter how dismissive he and many in the mainstream media have been on it.
Stay tuned.
— Stacey Matthews has also written under the pseudonym “Sister Toldjah” and can be reached via Twitter. —
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Comments
Good grief. These Leftists truly are garbage human beings.
Josef Mengele Cuomo
Cuomo cannot stand the fact that in virtually every way Trump is a better person. Bile is eating at him.
That very thing has happened right here on LI to a regular commenter or two
Rare for a politician to actually have to admit they’re useless for anything other than pomp and ribbon cutting.
PDJT has had to deal with adversity and overwhelming problems. He’s used to delegating (Kayleigh is the latest of his beautiful, smart assassins) to others and holding them accountable.
Unlike “jake” cuomo.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JFvujknrBuE
You knew that detritus was going to pull that. Son of Mario the Pious needs to slither back under that liberal rock.
I could only listen to a small fraction of that video, but I did hear Cuomo state that they (NYC/NY) had alternate beds for the patients. So, why didn’t he use them?
The hospital ship was initially set up for 1,000 non-covid patients so that people could be treated without being afraid of catching the virus. There was the Samaritan’s Purse site, Javits Center, the tennis center, and a few other places. Lots of money was spent to set up and staff these places, only to be dismantled without significant use.
So, why weren’t the older patients placed in these centers where they could get proper care and avoid infecting anyone else? I am assuming that the cost of the care was going to be picked up by the federal government.
I’ve also seen differing reports about the counting of deaths. If a LTC patient died in a hospital, the death was supposedly counted as a hospital death. If the person died at the LTC facility, they were counted as a Covid death, not dying of cancer or old age or whatever.
If that many patients were dying from Covid, why weren’t they transferred back to the hospital for care? Were the patients refused transport back to the hospital? Were they considered to be “hospice” level patients, sent back to die? It would be interesting to have a review of the discharge plans.
A bit off-topic, but I saw this article from zerohedge re a late night drop of a C-19 drug study…
https://www.zerohedge.com/technology/remdesivir-study-finally-out-drug-only-helped-those-oxygen-finds-mortality-too-high
It turns out that the expensive remdesivir works on a specific group of patients,
“…only significantly helped those on supplemental oxygen.
Meanwhile, and explaining the 6pm release on a Friday, the study also found no marked benefit from remdesivir for those who were healthier and didn’t need oxygen or those who were sicker, requiring a ventilator or a heart-lung bypass machine.”
I seem to recall that the HCQ-Zn-Zpac combo works best if taken in the early stages of the disease, not as a last minute drug. But, the sacred double blind tests are only being done with HCQ and a zpac. Forget the zinc, which is the active virus buster.
The zinc should not matter unless one is zinc deficient. It’s one of the oldest myths in anecdotal infection fighting, just like vitamin C dosing (another big myth).
Further, Zinc supplementation may hinder the action of azithromycin because it is a divalent cation when ionized. Azithromycin may work by 2 mechanisms on bacteria: membrane disruption by chelating divalent cations and inhibiting protein synthesis by binding to bacterial ribosomes.
In the context of a virus, I do not know the benefit of zithromax. However, I do know that supplemental zn/ca/mg in diet with zithromax can hinder its absorption and make it less effective.
Hydroxychloroquine is a zinc ionophore. It helps the zinc get where it needs to be, to inhibit viral replication.
Cumo’s “tough guy” front masks his rather mediocre intellect. The one truth about his ‘tough guy’ front is indeed that he is a thug.
Worse than Fredo. Mafioso figlio di puttana. Vaffanculo Cuomo, mangia un grosso saccetto di cazzi. Pezzo di merda.
If you don’t speak Italian do not go to Google Translate while holding a cup of coffee!!
Priceless!
What happened to: “some people live, some people die. Ask God.”
That type of language showed how heartless and thuggish he is. Even a few members of the MSM started to ask questions.
So now he plays the Trump card. and all of his murders will disappear in the eyes of the MSM and the hateful Democratic leaders.
They are not pro-life. Including the elderly and vulnerable.
I wonder if the Feds can open an investigation. Imagine if they sent covid laced blankets to the nursing homes.
I’m pretty sure Coumo is basing his blaming Trump and the CDC on a directive issued on March
13. But a nursing home Dr/administrator called Mark Levin show on 3-6 and detailed how the state was already forcing nursing homes to take infected patients.
Cuomo is no intellectual, if you can stand listening to him to hear he is at best average intelligence, but I suspect it is below average.
His manner of speaking betrays his lack of intellect. Him telling lies on top of it all, instead of making an admission of having made an error in anything echos Obama. Narcissism at it’s finest. Only Cuomo has even less to be narcissistic about than even Obama had.
This isn’t going to end well for Cuomo. The MSM will try to downplay this. The NYT may be constrained by their location. They can’t very well not report this issue. The SUN and other local papers will make the NYT look foolish. So maybe the NYT will report from a mostly neutral position but withhold editorial page defense?
Eventually some MSM member will count up the number of people infected, hospitalized, hospitalized but released to nursing homes. Then count up the number of available hospital beds and surge beds available on the Comfort and other surge beds funded and built for covid response.
Then they compare those numbers on a daily basis. This will come out in explicit detail eventually. Cuomo’s future presidential ambitions, if any are likely moot due to his incompetence.
With due respect to the writer, Cuomo knows it’s all contradictory. He’s just trying to muddy the water so he doesn’t have to actually answer.
He and his health director engaged in premediated infection of these people. I don’t practice criminal law and don’t know what charges could be brought, but it was knowing and premediated.
Also, in the 2015 report which explained the decision not to purchase ventilators, they admitted they would ration ventilators in an epidemic. They explained how they would tier recipients.
THEN when the actual crisis came, they knew they couldn’t actually say to New Yorkers: we’re going to ration the ventilators….
Frankly, the whole New York government reaction appalls me.
He really thinks this is going to work after 2 months of using “Trump can’t tell us what to do!” as his rallying cry?
Andrew owns this and he knows it. New York lawmakers know too or else they wouldn’t have inserted the “you can’t sue me” clause into their legislation.
I wonder if that counts as an ex post facto law, at least in some cases?
Capone had more honor
A serious answer here. I went and looked up the nursing homes admissions guidelines for C-19 patients. They are absolutely contrary to everything Cuomo did. they are extensive, and I will not copy them, but he is lying.
The Dems/Progs have seminars on buck passing. Never has their incompetence and near complete lack of understanding been on display as in the past three months. Too bad almost 40% of voters go along with them.
The nursing home scandals in California, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and New York are by design, and not by accident.
Why would anyone throw a match on tinder?
Only because they want to start a fire.
Inflated death rates provide multiple democrat benefits: they undermine republican strengths while allegedly justifying democrat authoritarianism.
It’s Trump’s fault for not fixing the world so Gov Soprano can send known COVID-Mary’s to share air with people t-ed up to get the disease without anybody getting sick from it?
If he could do that, the Kung-Flu would be over.
“My hatred for Trump made me do it so I could blame Trump and look good in the eyes of my fellow Trump hater.”