In compliance with a congressional subpoena, the disgraced former governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo, finally arrived in Washington, DC, on Tuesday to answer for his pandemic actions before the subcommittee tasked with investigating the COVID-19 response.
In typical fashion, he opened the hearing with the familiar lies and hackneyed talking points we have been hearing for four years.
But unlike his Albany fireside chats in which he pretended to know what he was doing, Tuesday’s statements are now part of the congressional record and made under oath.
Cuomo’s comment on the March 25, 2020, directive that sent more than 9,000 COVID-positive patients into nursing homes for six weeks: It wasn’t his fault!
He was just following orders by the federal government, folks!
But where is this federal guidance compelling state governments to pack care facilities with COVID patients?
How does Cuomo explain that the majority of other states in the union did not carry out this practice?
Let’s be clear on this one.
Other than Cuomo’s former health commissioner, Howard Zucker, no doctor or health professional has ever come out in support of this direct order.
Here is a little refresher course for those who are new to Cuomo’s blame game: Back in 2020, Cuomo pointed fingers at Trump and the federal government for his deadly order.
In response, Seema Verma, the former director of the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services, said she “disagree[d] with” his command.
“Under no circumstances should a hospital discharge a patient to a nursing home that is not prepared to take care of those patients’ needs,” Verma stated at the time.
In fact, the CDC warned nursing homes to keep COVID-19 patients out of their facilities.
The only time a home could allow a sick person into the residence is if the facility could “properly care” for the patient — and at the time, anyone with a disease this contagious and lethal would be confined to an isolation wing in a strict hospital setting.
Nursing-home operators felt they had no choice but to accept these patients, it was widely reported at the time — and said that Andrew Cuomo threatened to take away their licenses if they didn’t play by his rules.
If Cuomo was following federal CDC guidelines, why did his administration do everything it could to cover up the state’s total number of elderly deaths?
His top aide, Melissa DeRosa, famously “froze” out of fear that the true number would be held against her by federal prosecutors.
In his long-winded opening statement on Tuesday, Cuomo also blew off several important state investigations that found his executive chamber lied and falsified reports.
The New York state comptroller came out with a 41-page audit that found Cuomo’s health department underreported the full death tally by as much as 50% during April 2020 and February 2021.
We lost both my husband’s parents in separate elder-care facilities during the pandemic, so just hearing Andrew Cuomo’s voice again brings PTSD.
I’m not surprised that he used the same old platitudes and lies he has been feeding the press for years, but this time he was under oath — and there is plenty of evidence to counter his banal bromides.
I would like the subcommittee to subpoena documents and drafts about the origins of Cuomo’s March 25 order.
If the former governor is so sure that the CDC or some other entity of the federal government was behind it, by all means, he should prove it.
If there’s one thing we know for sure after four years of trying to get justice and accountability for the deaths of our loved ones, Andrew Cuomo has never taken responsibility for his actions, issued apologies or admitted mistakes.
Judging by his performance today, that day will never come.
But we have the angels on our side — and Tuesday’s sworn testimony is the beginning of Cuomo’s Judgment Day.
Janice Dean is senior meteorologist at the Fox News Channel.