Governor Andrew Cuomo on Monday tried to emerge from the biggest hole in his career by blaming politics for the controversy that surrounded his government after the Post’s revelation that his aide admitted to withholding data on deaths in nursing homes amid a federal investigation.
During a virtual news conference in which he declined to answer a question from The Post, Cuomo said that “there is nothing to investigate” about the cover-up that Governor Melissa DeRosa’s secretary confessed during a video conference with Democratic lawmakers last week.
Cuomo – who never directly addressed DeRosa’s recorded comments in which she admitted “we froze” about whether we should confess to deaths in nursing homes in the face of a Justice Department inquiry – also repeated her defense of a highly criticized directive of 25 March of the Health Department of nursing homes to accept patients with COVID-19 discharged from hospitals.
Cuomo said there was “a lot of distortion” in relation to the rescinded warrant, which he said was issued by “professionals doing the best they could” and following guidance from the federal government.
Cuomo also said that the state has always reported the number of nursing home residents killed by COVID-19 – although it only started to release figures about those who died in hospitals after a hard-hitting report last month by Attorney General Letitia James, a Democratic colleague.
Last year, there was a toxic political environment and everything is political, ”said Cuomo during the press conference in Albany.
“There are political positions and there are facts.”
Cuomo said repeatedly that he took responsibility for the “emptiness” of official information that, according to him, led to conspiracy theories and “misinformation” in the middle of the pandemic.
“No excuses. I accept responsibility for that. I’m in charge, ”he said.
“We were very focused on doing the job and facing the current crisis … This created confusion, cynicism and pain for the families of loved ones
But Cuomo resisted a bipartisan move to withdraw him from his COVID-19 emergency powers following DeRosa’s comments.
“The emergency powers have nothing to do with asylums,” said Cuomo.
Cuomo said lawmakers “can reverse any action I take.”
“They never reversed a single action,” said Cuomo.
“These are public health decisions, not local political decisions.”
Cuomo said that “this virus is serious” and that “it is difficult to close schools, close restaurants”.
“These decisions should not be politicized,” he said.
“More people will die.”
Cuomo’s press conference marked his first public comments since the outrage that erupted last week, after the Post obtained an audio recording of DeRosa’s revealed comments on Wednesday night.
During the more than two-hour meeting, DeRosa said the Cuomo administration rejected a legislative request to store death data because it “froze” after being contacted by federal prosecutors.
“Because then 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 whether there will be an investigation” said DeRosa.