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:
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:
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. —
CLICK HERE FOR FULL VERSION OF THIS STORY