Saturday, Fox News Channel’s Jeanine Pirro slammed Gov. Andrew Cuomo for engaging what she deemed a cover-up for underreporting nursing home deaths during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The charge came from New York Attorney General Letitia James, which Pirro deemed “incompetent” on the part of Cuomo.
Transcript as follows:
PIRRO: The reason Americans don’t trust politicians is because they lie. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is a case in point. The Attorney General from his own party tells us he underreported nursing home deaths by 50 percent. This wasn’t an accounting error, an administrative error, it was a cover up — plain and simple — by an egotistical, uncaring, cold hearted political boy. You know the type: where he knows he is wrong and manipulates numbers so he can prevent being caught.
So nursing home deaths in New York State skyrocket from 6,700 to 13,000. Follow along with me.
When the COVID pandemic hits like any self-worshipping politician, Cuomo uses the occasion to promote himself. You’ll recall the Democratic presidential nomination is not yet cinched. So he goes in full throttle PR mode. Along with his brother Fredo on CNN, he does a daily television show promoting himself, his family, his meatballs, and his ego.
The left swoons over his modulated reason, tone, and queries his romantic availability. The narcissistic, self-absorbed Andrew writes a book in the midst of the pandemic called “American Crisis: Leadership Lessons from the COVID-19 Pandemic,” touting his own leadership abilities.
What a leader in the middle of a pandemic writes a book about himself, and then the fawning left gives him an Emmy for his daily masterful COVID-19 briefings where people around the world tuned in, and New York became a symbol of New York tough determination.
Now that the truth is out, the New York State has the highest number of nursing home deaths in the country. Why?
On March 25, 2020, Cuomo issued a new directive to nursing home administrators. Quote, “No resident shall be denied readmission or admission to the nursing home based on a confirmed or suspected diagnosis of COVID-19. Nursing homes are prohibited from requiring a hospitalized resident who is determined medically stable to be tested for COVID-19 prior to admission or readmission.” Close quote.
When he was asked why he was forcing nursing homes to accept COVID infected patients, he lied. He blamed the Trump administration saying he was following Federal guidelines. The lie: Federal guidelines do not and never did require nursing homes to take COVID infected patients. The truth: you, Andrew are one of the only governors in America — in America — to insist that COVID infected seniors be placed with our most vulnerable population, the elderly.
You and you alone inflamed all of New York’s nursing home population. You and you alone underreported the number by 50 percent thinking no one would find out and constantly ignoring and delaying the release of this information.
Now, Andrew, what made you do that? What made you write that directive? Why would you mandate readmission or admission of COVID infected patients, even requiring the elderly be admitted to a nursing home without a COVID test? It’s not like you were desperate for hospital beds.
Within days of your directive, President Trump delivered the USNS Comfort. The Javits Center was also available. Yet together, those giant makeshift hospitals didn’t have more than 100 New York patients.
So why would you force nursing homes to readmit COVID infected patients? You weren’t stupid? How many times did you take the Bar? But you’re good at blaming others, diverting attention from yourself. Another decision that indicates your malignant intent. Before seniors died, they were often moved to hospitals to die.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GOV. ANDREW CUOMO (D-NY): Who cares 33 or 28 died in a hospital, died in a nursing home? They died.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PIRRO: Why? So that you wouldn’t count them as nursing home deaths, so ship them to the hospitals to die. Don’t count them as nursing home deaths. So now, we have upwards of 13,000 elderly who died in nursing homes and you blame the Federal government?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CUOMO: Incompetent government kills people, incompetent government kills people.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PIRRO: You are incompetent — you — by undercounting and underreporting. You not only tried to cover up your intentional effort that recklessly caused the death of thousands of seniors, you believed you could manipulate the press and the public at the same time. And when caught, you blamed everyone in the Federal government, President Trump, old age, Roger Stone and God.
Curious: you never mentioned China. Are you in on the China junket plan, too? But then again, the blame game is a weapon in every shady politician’s arsenal. I know, I ran against you a long time ago.
The sad part when asked by grieving families like our own Janice Dean who lost her mother-in-law and father-in-law, you attacked the little people. They’re not worthy of answers. Your henchmen trashed Janice by saying, quote, “Dean is not a credible source on anything except maybe the weather.”
You even ridiculed Republican governors who kept their states open. Funny now that the truth is out, your state because of you has the highest number of nursing home deaths in the country. States you ridiculed like Florida with the second largest number of seniors in the country.
You even botched the rollout on the vaccines, totally messing up to the point where you prioritized patients in drug rehab and criminals in prison while people I know who are seniors with comorbidities in New York still can’t get the vaccine. You are a public health hazard on your own.
And in the continuation of your criminal scheme, you sign a law giving immunity to nursing home operators and administrators, so they are protected from lawsuits by the victims’ families.
Now, Andrew, why would you seek to give them an immunity shield? Aren’t you interested in justice? Why do you prefer to block justice?
So now the question is, will the Attorney General who has jurisdiction over crimes refer your malfeasance to the Deputy Attorney General for a grand jury investigation? A primer on what they might consider: manslaughter on the second degree, Penal Law violation 125.15 when you recklessly cause the death of another person; criminally negligent homicide, New York Penal Law 125.10; when a person causes the death of a human being in a way that was careless, reckless, or an intent of; and endangering the welfare of an elderly person, Penal Law, Section 260.34, when one knowingly acts in a manner likely to be injurious to the physical welfare of a person unable to care for himself.
What is more reckless than ordering nursing homes to readmit COVID-19 positive patients released from hospitals? It is a gruesome almost calculated decision to keep hospital beds open, while the elderly are shuffled involuntarily back into death traps against their will, while a military boat sent by the Federal government, yes, sent by Donald Trump remains empty.
Now, last year, the Associated Press concluded that you were undercounting the death by as much as 60 percent. You knew that you had to cook the books and that’s just what you did.
So as families desperately tried to get information about their loved ones during the pandemic, you and your team not only ignored them, demean them, and ridiculed them. All we heard about was how Trump failed New Yorkers. You failed New Yorkers. You made New York City and New York State among the worst places to live during the pandemic.
And ironically, you admitted that the virus spread through nursing homes like quote, “wildfire through dry grass.”
So why did you do it? What did you have to gain? What did you gain? And when you’re found out you say —
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CUOMO: I believe everybody did the best day could. My father died. I wish I had someone to blame.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PIRRO: Andrew, it’s not about your father. It’s about a man, a calculated politician, a grim reaper by all accounts who chose for reasons we don’t yet know but certainly will to direct COVID infected patients into nursing homes, a death zone, where our loved ones were, our parents and grandparents, the fragile and the vulnerable. The ones who, when they were young worked to raise us, fought in wars to protect us and gave their all for us.
They were trying to live their final years with dignity. You took that from them, and you gave them a death sentence. You forced death upon them.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CUOMO: Why COVID? Why did God do this? I don’t know.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PIRRO: You and not God decided when their lives would end. They died alone in fear without warmth and a loving touch needed before they passed. You cannot escape the consequences of your intentional and reckless acts. You cannot escape your intentional cover up thinking the little people would never bring you down.
And you can blame God for all you want, but in the end, you will have to answer to the very one you blame — God.
And God to help you.
Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor