CNN internal media analyst Brian Stelter continued to protect New York Governor Andrew Cuomo over the weekend, ignoring the latest bombing over the Democratic governor’s growing nursing home scandal during his “Trustworthy Sources” program on Sunday.
A senior adviser to Cuomo told top state Democratic lawmakers that the government withheld data on COVID-19 deaths in nursing homes to avoid federal scrutiny, according to a New York Post report released last week.
CUOMO AIDE SAID THE NY DEMOCRATS ADMINISTRATION HIDDEN DOMESTIC NURSING DATA TO KEEP FROM TRUMP DOJ: REPORT
The revelation sparked condemnations and even rumors about impeachment in Albany, the state capital. Rep. Lee Zeldin, RN.Y., asked the Justice Department to initiate an obstruction of justice investigation – but the CNN anchor did not find this worthy of note enough to mention in his program.
A transcript search found that the words “nursing homes” and “Andrew Cuomo” were not spoken once on Sunday during 11 am on CNN. MSNBC’s Sunday programs also seemed to ignore the developing scandal, dedicating the broadcast time to the consequences of former President Donald Trump’s impeachment and absolution trial.
Both networks covered the New York Democrat with enthusiastic praise from the start for his way of dealing with the pandemic, largely ignoring his asylum guidelines for accepting patients who had or were suspected of having COVID-19. The decision created a violent attack on COVID-19 cases that infected thousands of elderly patients and resulted in thousands of deaths among the state’s most vulnerable population.
Cuomo ended up reversing the course – but not before the death toll in the state reached worrying numbers in nursing home facilities.
Brian Stelter of CNN asked followers to click on the link in his tweet before criticizing his theory about President Trump.
The governor’s younger brother, Chris Cuomo, was widely ridiculed for avoiding difficult issues surrounding the nursing home scandal at the beginning of the pandemic. The CNN anchor finally mentioned the controversy to his brother after ignoring it for at least 10 on-air interviews, but Cuomo quickly pointed out how there were deaths in nursing homes “across the country” and said “we have to figure out how to do it better next time “before the next wave of viruses occurs
NEW YORK GOV. BROTHER OF CUOMO QUIET IN HOME NURSING SCANDAL
The latest development sparked outrage last week, when the Post reported that Melissa DeRosa, the governor’s secretary, told the Empire State Democrats during a videoconference that the government misrepresented the true death toll to DOJ investigators for fear that the data could ” be used against us. “
The DOJ began investigating coronavirus deaths in nursing homes in four states in August – including New York.
“We were in a position where we were not sure whether what we were going to give to the Department of Justice, or what we gave you, what we started to say, would be used against us while we were not sure if there would be an investigation,” DeRosa told lawmakers, according to the Post’s report.
Cuomo refused for months to release data on how the pandemic hit nursing home residents, rather than pointing to numbers more favorable to his administration.
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In the past few weeks, a court order and a report by the state attorney general has forced the state to recognize that the death toll in nursing homes is almost 15,000, when it previously reported 8,500 – a figure that excluded residents who died after being taken away. for hospitals. The new number reached about a seventh of the people living in nursing homes in 2019 in New York.
Brian Flood and Bradford Betz of Fox News contributed to this report.