Wednesday, May 05, 2021

5 May 2021: Cuomo Claims Deadly Directive Was "Smart"

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo COVID-19 Press Conference Transcript May 5

Here's an excerpt from the transcript of Governor Cuomo's 5 May 2021 press briefing that illustates how desperate Governor Cuomo is becoming in defending his deadly 25 March 2020 directive forcing New York nursing homes to blindly admit COVID patients being discharged from hospitals to free up their bed space without testing to determine if their coronavirus infections were still contagious. We'll pick up the transcript from when the reporter identified as "Speaker 5" begins asking questions. The highlighted emphasis is ours:

Speaker 5: (34:04) Dr. Zucker, can I ask you a question about The New York Times report that came out a few days ago? It said that the Governor's senior aides prevented a scientific paper from publishing, that they delayed the release of an audit on those nursing home deaths by months, and that they prevented or blocked your department from sending letters to state lawmakers. I guess just straight up question here, did the Governor or his senior aides do those things. Did he order you or the department to withhold that nursing home data beginning of April of last year?

Dr. Zucker: (34:34) I think the Governor addressed that at a previous press conference. And as I have said before, this is an ongoing investigation, so I won't answer any questions at this point.

Speaker 5: (34:42) Governor, Congress, six Republicans have now asked the Senate Finance Committee to open an investigation into the whole nursing home scandal. Are you willing to testify in front of Congress or cooperate with any investigation?

Andrew Cuomo: (34:55) Look, they want to play more politics, the Republicans. They have fully politicized COVID from the beginning. That's where this all started, with the federal government's politicalization of COVID. They were in denial of COVID. You had the President of the United States who said it wasn't a problem. It was going to go away. We were going to reopen by April. He wanted to blame the Democratic governors for COVID. He did blame the Democratic governors for COVID.

Andrew Cuomo: (35:29) At the presidential conventions last year, I got up and condemned the federal government and the Republican party for their lack of leadership on COVID. The President tweeted 31 times against me. And then Gretchen Whitmer from Michigan spoke at the convention and the Governor tweeted against her, saying she was a murderer, same thing with other Democratic governors.

Andrew Cuomo: (35:59) They then seized on nursing homes as an issue because nursing homes were ground zero for COVID for obvious reasons all across the nation. And they've continued to politicize it because they don't want to accept responsibility for what happened. They're still in denial. They're still pointing fingers. They've learned absolutely nothing.

Andrew Cuomo: (36:23) And when you politicized public health and medical decisions, you are on a very dangerous course, my friend, because what you do is you chill medical decisions that are made in the best interest of public health when you put them through a political filter. And that's what this federal government did. It was never about public health. It was never about doctors and science. It was all spin and all politics, and it still is.

Speaker 5: (36:57) With respect, Governor, you've been accused of doing the exact same thing because you have said that the reason why you did not provide the data was because you feared that data would be used politically against you.

Andrew Cuomo: (37:05) No.

Speaker 5: (37:06) So did you also-

Andrew Cuomo: (37:07) No, don't tell me what I said.

Speaker 5: (37:09) Okay.

Andrew Cuomo: (37:10) The Republicans politicized an order, a health order that was put out by the state Department of Health on March 25th, which was, from a medical point of view, smart. They wanted to blame nursing home deaths on that order. They then wanted to blame a report that clearly said how COVID got into nursing homes. It had nothing to do with March 25th. They've taken every attempt to politicize it and blame Democratic states. They then not only politicized it, they tried to criminalize it. And the President refers, has the Department of Justice start an investigation against those Democratic-

Andrew Cuomo: (38:03) ... Justice starting an investigation against those Democratic states. How frightening is that? Not only do you politicize health decisions, you try to criminalize health decisions. That's not the United States of America.

There's quite a lot of bunker mentality on display here. From New York Health Commissioner Howard Zucker's dodging a simple question to Governor Andrew Cuomo's extended paranoid response to whether he would testify about New York's COVID nursing home deaths scandals in the U.S. Congress.

The timeline however has the following entries related to the events Governor Cuomo referenced in his tirade. Be sure to read the entry for 29 March 2020 and compare what was said then to the highlighted text of what Governor Cuomo said on 5 May 2021. Also note that senior Cuomo administration staffers purposefully altered the report he mentions to reduce its count of the full extent of COVID deaths of nursing home residents by thousands, changes that would have required the concurrence of Health Commissioner Zucker.

The Republican convention to which Governor Cuomo refers took place from 24 through 27 August 2020. The indications are Governor Cuomo's cover-up of the full extent of COVID deaths among New York nursing home residents began roughly five months earlier.

Meanwhile, the earliest documented record of President Trump attacking Governor Cuomo's handling of COVID in nursing homes is from 17 August 2020. Here is the Empire Center's Bill Hammond's lead tweet on the topic, with more information in the thread.

The timeline presents much more information that objectively contradicts much of Governor Cuomo's bunkered view of history, including quite a lot of evidence that criticism of Governor Cuomo's nursing home policies has been bipartisan for a very long time now, but for a quick overall summary of his nursing home deaths scandals, check out our summary Major Milestones in Governor Cuomo's Nursing Home Deaths Scandals.

On a final note, it certainly didn't take long for an observation we made at the end of this 4 May 2021 entry entitled "The Gaslighting Governor" to be confirmed.

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