Governor Andrew Cuomo avoided reporters on Friday amid growing controversy over the Post’s revelation that an aide admitted his government covered up data on deaths in nursing homes due to a pending federal investigation.
Despite traveling to Washington, DC, for a high-level meeting at the White House, Cuomo fell silent and did not appear in public – although Arkansas Republican Governor Asa Hutchinson addressed to journalists from outside.
The two were part of a bipartisan group of governors and mayors who sat down with President Biden in the Oval Office to discuss Biden’s $ 1.9 trillion COVID-19 aid plan.
In a statement released late in the afternoon, Cuomo and Hutchinson – who are the president and vice president of the National Governors Association, respectively – said that “the president and his team have made it clear that they recognize and appreciate how important this targeted aid is. for our ability to recover from this pandemic. “
Biden’s “American Rescue Plan” allocates more than $ 50 billion to the cashless Empire State, the Post reported exclusively on Friday.
During the daily press conference at the White House on Friday, press secretary Jen Psaki deflected a reporter’s question about whether Biden still trusted the way Cuomo dealt with the pandemic and whether the issue of death toll in nursing homes came up at the meeting.
“Well, the president received Governor Cuomo and a bipartisan group of governors and mayors at the White House today to get his perspective from the front lines, not to give anyone a seal of approval or to get his seal of approval – and to discuss the urgency to approve the American Rescue Plan, ”she said.
Cuomo is facing requests for federal and state investigations into comments made by Governor Melissa DeRosa’s secretary during a videoconference with Democratic state legislators on Wednesday night – the audio of which was obtained exclusively by The Post.
DeRosa said the Cuomo administration last year refused to reveal the true number of asylum residents killed by COVID-19 due to concerns that the overwhelming numbers “would be used against us” by the Department of Justice.