Democratic New York Governor Andrew Cuomo blew off questions Thursday about the impact his policies had on nursing homes during the coronavirus pandemic.
Cuomo made an appearance on ABC’s “The View” to talk about the continued spread of COVID-19, and claimed that the Justice Department’s inquiry into his policies — particularly his March 25th order that required nursing homes to accept patients whether or not they had been tested or even tested positive — were politically motivated. (RELATED: ‘Does This Look Like A Couple Of Guys Taking It Seriously?’: Tim Murtaugh Mocks ‘Cuomo Brothers Comedy Hour’)
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“There has been a lot of confusion about an alleged March 25th order that directed nursing homes to accept in New York, infected COVID patients, possibly leading to the death of more than 6,000 seniors,” Sunny Hostin began, noting that Cuomo said in his recent book that was not true.
“The Department of Justice however is now supposedly looking into this issue. Can you explain what really happened?” she asked.
“Yeah. What a shock that the Department of Injustice sends a letter a few days before an election trying to advance a political theory,” Cuomo replied sarcastically. “I was shocked and amazed that the Trump Administration was capable of such a thing.”
Cuomo then pivoted to accuse the Trump administration of playing politics with coronavirus from the beginning, arguing that Democratic states only took the blame because they faced outbreaks earlier in the year.
“The truth is people are dying today in nursing homes in Republican states. It’s just that Democratic states had the disease worse and earlier, and older people are more vulnerable to COVID, right?” he explained.
Cuomo went on to say that New York law prohibited nursing homes from accepting patients they were not equipped to care for — but made no mention of his own March 25th order, which has since been removed from the state’s website.
Fox News meteorologist Janice Dean, who lost both her mother-in-law and father-in-law to COVID in New York nursing homes, shared a copy of the order while Cuomo was on the air.
I already know @NYGovCuomo is going to blame the president for all the deaths in NY. However, I don’t see Trump’s name on this order and from everything I’ve heard, Cuomo only listens to hospital lobbyists when it comes to putting Covid patients in nursing homes. pic.twitter.com/Cu3MRF21lt
— Janice Dean (@JaniceDean) October 29, 2020
“So the conspiracy they’re trying to spread just has no factual basis, but yes, people in nursing homes died, and they’re playing politics with the issue which I think is especially cruel because people who lost loved ones in a nursing home, they’re dealing with it, and now they also have to deal with the confusion or the pain of maybe government did this,” Cuomo continued.
Cuomo concluded by blaming President Donald Trump for those who had died in nursing homes, claiming that the virus had primarily been brought in by staffers who thought they could not spread it if they were asymptomatic.
The confusion over asymptomatic spread was not limited to Cuomo, however, and may not have come solely from the Trump administration. The World Health Organization was still clarifying comments about the potential risk for asymptomatic carriers to spread the virus as late as June.