Republican Representative Matt Gaetz criticized the media for portraying Governor Andrew Cuomo as an “oracle” in his response to the coronavirus – after it was revealed that his aide admitted that the government had covered up the death toll in nursing homes.
“The media is absolutely guilty of promoting this Cuomo mythology that is belied by the facts, and the facts are getting uglier, both for the New York governor and for the media,” Gaetz told Fox News’ Jeanine Pirro on Saturday.
Gaetz said at the same time that the media cajoled Cuomo in his daily briefings broadcast on national television as the “great oracle of the response to the coronavirus, they were conducting the state flu against our president, acting as if everything he was doing was causing it. this virus to be more deadly. ”
The Florida Republican said that former President Donald Trump has put the country on “the path to developing the fastest and safest vaccines the world has ever known”.
He said Trump’s efforts are still saving lives, even when the controversy over deaths in Cuomo’s nursing homes is just beginning to be revealed.
“Here you had Governor Cuomo potentially destroying records that showed this scheme that was very deadly. Everyone is familiar with the Times Square card game. But here they were playing the three-card Monte with Grandma, taking people out of nursing homes in the hospital and then injecting the virus back into nursing homes, ”said Gaetz.
The Post revealed last week that Cuomo’s top aide, Melissa DeRosa, during a video conference with Democratic state leaders, told them that the governor’s office rejected a legislative request for the numbers because it feared the Trump administration would turn him into a ” giant political football “.
“He starts tweeting that we killed everyone in nursing homes,” said DeRosa. “He starts to go after [New Jersey Gov. Phil] Murphy, start chasing [California Gov. Gavin] Newsom, start chasing [Michigan Gov.] Gretchen Whitmer. “
Several lawmakers, including former governor George Pataki, have called for an investigation into the administration of Cuomo by President Biden’s Department of Justice, Attorney General Letitia James and the state legislature.
“This is one of the worst things I have seen in the New York state government, and I have been following this for a long time,” said Pataki.