Fox News host Jesse Watters slammed Democratic New York Governor Andrew Cuomo over his COVID order to nursing homes.
Watters addressed the issue Thursday during a segment of “The Five,” saying that Cuomo was refusing to take responsibility for his actions and accusing the media of covering for him. (RELATED: ‘That Person Always Gets Demolished’: Jesse Watters Says Obama Has A ‘Horrible Track Record’ On Endorsements)
WATCH:
“More stunning incompetence from New York Governor Andrew Cuomo,” Lawrence Jones began the segment with a clip of Cuomo — who ordered nursing homes to accept COVID positive patients — saying that he would not send his mother to a nursing home under the current conditions.
“More than 5,000 nursing home residents died in his state after he ordered COVID patients be returned to assisted living facilities and he is admitting he wouldn’t send us own mother to a nursing home during the crisis,” Jones continued, noting that 40% of New Yorkers are now dissatisfied with the way Cuomo handled the nursing home situation. “The governor has been on these press conferences. He got praise from both sides. Will this destroy that narrative right now?”
Dana Perino pointed out the fact that Cuomo most often has a friendly interviewer in his own brother, CNN anchor Chris Cuomo, and is not used to being pressed on the difficult questions. “This is where journalism actually catches up and he’s forced to answer it. There was a story by Peter Hasson about how they are counting the numbers of nursing home deaths and maybe altering them,” she said.
Marie Harf defended Cuomo in part, arguing that he apparently was not the only governor who followed the initial CDC guidelines but conceding that he did bear responsibility fir the consequences.
“Marie is wrong about the guidelines,” Watters replied. “The guidelines didn’t say stuff sick people in the nursing homes. It was a lot more than that. If those were the guidelines, why didn’t DeSantis do it? He did something totally different and that was brilliant and he saved countless lives.”
Watters went on to say that every time someone challenged one of Cuomo’s decisions or suggested that he was wrong, he blamed someone else — President Donald Trump, the CDC, and even the nursing homes themselves.
“Remember what he did. First he played dumb. ‘What directive?’ And then he said, ‘oh you know what,’ in the dark, he tried to like delete it, then he said, ‘Trump told me to do it.’ Now he said, ‘No, it’s the nursing home’s fault.’ So he got caught red-handed and now he’s scrambling and everybody can see he made a boneheaded error,” Watters concluded. “But the media is covering for him.”