Embattled New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s catastrophic failure surrounding the state’s growing nursing home scandal represents a permanent stain on a legacy tainted with deceit, chaos and thousands of deaths, critics are saying — and he could be taking his younger brother down with him.
Cuomo’s nursing home controversy came under renewed focus last week when his top aide admitted that his administration had withheld the true number of COVID-19 related deaths at nursing homes to avoid federal scrutiny, as first reported by the New York Post.
The state was forced to acknowledge a death toll among nursing home residents that reached close to 15,000 after initially reporting 8,500 — a figure that excluded residents who died in a hospital.
But as New York residents began to raise questions over the surging death toll in senior care facilities, the governor’s little brother and most ardent protector, Chris Cuomo, offered him a platform on his CNN show, “Cuomo Prime Time,” to appeal to viewers by conducting playful on-air conversations, largely avoiding the nursing home scandal entirely.
“This isn’t just a government scandal. It’s a media scandal,” New York Post columnist Karol Markowicz wrote in a recent column. “For while the Cuomo administration was sentencing seniors to death, the media was busy fawning over Cuomo in a series of softball interviews, many of them conducted by his own brother.”
- Chris Cuomo notably failed on Friday night to address the scandal of his brother
- His CNN show, Cuomo Prime Time, did not mention it, unlike colleagues’ shows
- Chris Cuomo was attacked on social media for ignoring the high-profile saga
- Governor Andrew Cuomo was at the White House on Friday to meet Joe Biden
- He was there to discuss COVID-19 relief and refused to answer questions
- Thursday a bombshell report showed his team covered up nursing home deaths
- New York State Assembly is considering rescinding Cuomo’s emergency powers
- He was granted in March powers to manage the pandemic; it expires on April 30
- Melissa DeRosa, Cuomo’s top aide, admitted Thursday they hid data on deaths
- She was on a call to state Democrats, obtained by The New York Post
- State Democrats had asked for the exact figures for nursing home deaths
- DeRosa said that at the same time the Trump administration was investigating
- She said: ‘And basically, we froze’ and kept the information secret for months
- Bipartisan calls are growing for Cuomo to be prosecuted over the cover-up