New York Governor Andrew Cuomo dismissed the nursing home scandal plaguing his administration as a Republican-fueled controversy and dismissed thousands of deaths as nothing more than a “shiny object.”

In March, Governor Cuomo issued an executive order which forced nursing homes to take on patients that had tested positive for coronavirus. In an interview with New York’s WAMC-AM on Thursday, the Democrat governor whom the media heralded as a leader on the coronavirus response despite the scandal, apparently believed his own press and refused to acknowledge his decision cost thousands of lives. Cuomo was asked whether he could acknowledge his deadly policy was “on the wrong track,” to which he replied flat-out, “No.”

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Cuomo proceeded to blame Republicans for fanning the flames of the scandal. “The nursing home is an unfortunate situation on two levels. Number 1, people in nursing homes died,” he stated. “The nursing home [scandal] is pure politics, the Republicans in Congress, they think there’s a vulnerability.” He reiterated that “The nursing home thing it’s just all politics.”

Cuomo then downplayed the thousands and thousands of nursing home deaths at his directive. “They don’t want to talk about what the federal government did on COVID. So they want to attack the Democrats for nursing home deaths,” he claimed. “It’s the same M.O.— just distract, you know, create a shiny object to take the attention off what they don’t want you to focus on.”

He believes the real scandal is in the federal response. But even beyond that, Cuomo has previously passed the buck on the issue, blatantly blaming President Trump early on. “I’m not going to get into the political back-and-forth, but anyone who wants to ask why did the state do that with COVID patients in nursing homes, it’s because the state followed President Trump’s CDC guidance,” he falsely accused in late May. “They should ask President Trump. I think that will stop the conversation,” he added. Earlier this week, Cuomo tweeted out a message about the need to “take responsibility” during the crisis. And yet, he still refuses to do so.

Of course, the nursing home scandal is not about politics at all. It’s about the disproportionate number of deaths during the coronavirus pandemic at the hands of incompetent leaders who refused to protect their most vulnerable populations. A Wall Street Journal report indicates that 40% of all COVID-19-related deaths in the United States happened in nursing homes. And Cuomo’s New York was the epicenter of the crisis.

On March 25th, Cuomo issued an order stating, “No resident shall be ­denied readmission or admission to NH [nursing home] solely based on a confirmed or suspected diagnosis of COVID-19,” then failed to reverse the directive for six weeks as deaths mounted. As whispers started circulating about Cuomo’s edict, the New York State Department of Health admitted to undercounting the already staggering numbers of deaths. This, after they quietly changed the rules on reporting nursing home deaths so that they would be lower.

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Additionally, two typically left-leaning sources have blasted Cuomo’s handling of the nursing home scandal, showing it is anything but an exercise in politics. ProPublica issued a report stating “New York was the only state in the nation that barred testing of those being placed or returning to nursing homes” with his March 25th order. What happened next, they wrote, was “COVID-19 tore through New York state’s nursing facilities, killing more than 6,000 people.” Why would New York be the only one to do so if every state simply followed CDC guidelines? Answer: Because Cuomo’s order was different.

Oh, and the effort to blame Trump for what has happened in New York? Politifact —typically left-leaning in their material— rated that claim “mostly false” just a week ago, arguing that the CDC didn’t force nursing homes’ hands and by contrast, Cuomo left them feeling that “they had no choice but to accept these patients.”

The Democrat leader of the Empire State shockingly dismissed the nursing home problem by saying “nobody” can be prosecuted for those coronavirus deaths because “older people…are going to die from this crisis.” Shoulders shrugged. He would later welcome an investigation into his handling of the crisis stating, “If the federal government wants to start a probe, then they can start a probe.”

The New York Post, though, indicates Cuomo and his staff have not been quite as willing to cooperate as he may have indicated earlier. “Gov. Andrew Cuomo has refused a request by Congressional Republicans to provide documents and a staff briefing regarding the state’s handling of the COVID-19 crisis in New York State nursing homes,” the Post reports.

Republican Rep. Tom Reed (R-NY) explained the bottom line of what Cuomo’s actions did to his state’s most vulnerable residents. “We know black and white at least 6,200 grandparents were killed by that deadly order…since that time it is clear many more, thousands,” he said.

It’s remarkable how the New York media fawned all over Cuomo as the true leader of the coronavirus pandemic response for months, but when an actual scandal and major story comes out involving his administration, they fall silent. They too are the enemy of the people, the enemy of those who want to know why their senior citizen family members needlessly succumbed to the pandemic.

This piece originally appeared in ThePoliticalInsider.com and is used by permission.

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