BREAKING: NYGovCuomo & his team instructed senior DOH officials to lie to NY State Senators when questioned about the March 25th directive that forced nursing homes to accept infected COVID-19 patients, an order that ended up killing thousands of elderly New Yorkers.
While Andrew Cuomo projected calm during his daily public briefings, with thousands dying as the virus ravaged New York City, public health officials were forced to find ways to work around him
‘Ridiculous demands’ and ‘impossible requests’: Life outside Cuomo's pandemic war room
ALBANY, N.Y. — No one dared tell Andrew Cuomo how terrible they thought his idea was.
In the summer of 2020, with Cuomo at the height of his pandemic-inflated fame, the then-governor of New York suggested that the state health department deploy half its roughly 5,000 employees to check restaurants for their compliance with the state's mask-wearing and capacity limit rules. Cuomo wanted to tout the number of tickets issued for noncompliance during his nationally televised news briefings, according to a former administration official who was on a call when the governor floated the idea.
“He was like, ‘You could use them like an army,’” said the official, who worked on the state’s pandemic response and requested anonymity to speak freely.
The governor's proposal — “an impossible request” — baffled the official, whose account was confirmed by another person familiar with the plan. But, the official said, "the call ended and no one said ‘no’ to him ... No one could explain to him how bad the idea was."
Cuomo, who resigned in August, is facing renewed scrutiny over his response to the pandemic, including allegations that he downplayed Covid deaths while writing a pandemic memoir that netted him more than $5 million. New POLITICO interviews with several former state Department of Health officials, along with a trove of government documents released this month, suggest the former governor’s behavior behind closed doors was in direct contrast to the science-first, hyper-competent image Cuomo presented in his Emmy-winning 2020 press conferences.
The interviews, combined with a legislative impeachment investigation report and transcripts made public by state Attorney General Tish James’ office, paint a picture of an administration in chaos at the height of the emergency, with political appointees and public health professionals frequently at war over decisions and messaging. As Cuomo projected calm during his daily public briefings, with thousands dying as the virus ravaged New York City, public health officials were forced to find ways to work around him.
NEW: CNN host Chris Cuomo used his sources to get info on brother Andrew Cuomo's accusers. He also engaged with sources to get a read on upcoming stories that took aim at his brother.
"I have a lead on the wedding girl," Cuomo told Melissa DeRosa.
Fredo fired by CNN over the weekend. So both Cuomos and unemployed scumbags now
So whatever Chris Cuomo did, it was worse than peddling Russia collusion lies like Jake Tapper does, and worse than Jeffrey Toobin’s at-work self-pleasuring. Because they’ve both kept their CNN jobs.
Zucker fires back at Cuomo: CNN chief tells staff that network will investigate sexual misconduct claim against the fired host and says 'Chris had been much more deeply involved than he'd ever told us'