MSNBC’s Geist: Andrew Cuomo’s Leadership Amid Pandemic Has Been ‘Terrible and Deadly’

Tuesday, MSNBC’s Willie Geist weighed in on the $5.1 million that New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) is set to receive from his book about the coronavirus pandemic.

Geist, on “Morning Joe,” called into question Cuomo’s leadership during the pandemic. He called it “terrible and deadly in many cases.”

“It’s crazy money for anyone,” Geist said. “And we asked him in real-time, whenever that book came out last year when he came on the show, ‘Why on God’s Earth you would write a celebratory book about your leadership while you were still right in the middle of the crisis?’ And it has not worked out well for him. As you said, the initial decision two Marches ago to send patients back into nursing homes, then covering up the number of deaths that were inside those nursing homes — there’s also, of course, the sexual harassment investigation in his time as governor — and yet, I don’t know how in good faith you could accept the $5 million for a book about your leadership in a crisis when your state, the state of New York — not all through his fault, but it’s a truth — had it as bad or worse than anybody else in the country. And the leadership in many cases, as these investigations are showing and this journalism has shown, has been frankly terrible and deadly in many cases.”

Follow Trent Baker on Twitter @MagnifiTrent