Cuomo expresses sympathy for Covid-19 victims, criticizes Trump’s pandemic response in contentious hearing

Originally Published: 10 SEP 24 07:00 ET

Updated: 10 SEP 24 17:40 ET

By Clare Foran and Gloria Pazmino, CNN

(CNN) — Former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo expressed sympathy for victims of Covid-19 while defending his administration and casting blame toward former President Donald Trump’s pandemic response on Tuesday as he testified publicly before a GOP-led House panel and faced questions over the Covid-era nursing home policy in the state.

Cuomo called the federal response to the pandemic “malpractice” during Trump’s time in office.“From day one, he willfully deceived the American people, denying Covid’s very real threat,” the former governor said of Trump. “His lies and denials delayed our response, let the virus spread and this country never caught up.”

Recalling shortages of necessary medical supplies in the early days of the pandemic, Cuomo said, “It was the Covid hunger games, the federal government was nowhere to be found.”

Cuomo, a Democrat, has been out of office for several years, but the tense public hearing offered a high-profile opportunity for Republicans to grill the former governor after he testified in June behind closed doors before members of the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic.

The hearing focused in on nursing home deaths and a controversial March 2020 directive from the New York State Department of Health on hospital discharges and nursing home admissions. Republicans argued that Cuomo has not taken accountability for policy missteps. The former governor also faced pointed questions from some Democrats on the panel.

“You own this,” Republican Rep. Brad Wenstrup of Ohio, chairman of the subcommittee, told Cuomo at the outset of the hearing.

Rep. Raul Ruiz, the panel’s top Democrat, said at the close of the hearing that he understands that those listening to Cuomo’s testimony “may or may not be satisfied” with his answers.

“Too many families have lost loved ones and many families are still looking for answers. They deserve those answers. I understand that we may or may not be satisfied with those provided by Gov. Cuomo. I acknowledge that questions remain about his administration’s transparency.”

“In assessing those questions, we must objectively look at the facts … we must not allow our collective memory of the early pandemic to be clouded by a rush to assign blame. We must remember that across the country, public officials at every level of government were scrambling to make the right choices to protect people. At that time, the right choices were difficult to discern.”

The former governor also had a message for the families of victims of the pandemic, saying “I am sorry for your loss and I believe you are owed an apology because this country should have done better.”

Republicans on the panel questioned the former governor’s sincerity and pressed him for answers over his handling of the pandemic.

Rep. Nicole Malliotakis, a New York Republican, told Cuomo pointedly at one point during the hearing, “you’ve shown no empathy, you’ve shown no remorse, you’ve shown no responsibility for the actions of your administration. That’s just not leadership.”

For over a year now, Democrats in New York have watched in anticipation as speculation that Cuomo is seeking a political comeback has heightened. For months Cuomo has sought to reinsert himself into the public eye, launching a podcast and making public appearances in New York City. Asked Tuesday whether he is considering a run for office, Cuomo smiled and said he has “no plans to run for office.”

At the outset of the hearing, Wenstrup announced a subpoena to compel New York Gov. Kathy Hochul’s office to turn over documents related to Cuomo’s pandemic response.

“We hope that Governor Hochul lives up to her promise of transparency and proceeds without further delay,” Wenstrup said.

Hochul spokesperson Avi Small said in a statement that the governor “is committed to transparency and immediately released additional COVID-19 data the day she took office” and that “while today’s action is surprising, given the subcommittee’s previous comments expressing appreciation for the state’s prompt and extensive cooperation, we fully intend to comply with the law in this matter.”

Cuomo was in the national spotlight early in the outbreak for his daily coronavirus briefings and passionate pleas for more medical equipment from the federal government, but later became a focus of controversy over deaths in nursing homes. The former governor has defended his handling of the pandemic, saying that the state followed federal guidelines.

New York state’s handling of nursing homes and their residents during the pandemic has been a subject of scrutiny, particularly after the state health department issued a controversial advisory on March 25, 2020, relating to hospital discharges and nursing home admissions.

The advisory stated that residents must not be denied admission to nursing homes “solely based on a confirmed or suspected diagnosis of COVID-19” and that nursing homes “are prohibited from requiring a hospitalized resident who is determined medically stable to be tested for COVID-19 prior to admission.”

In May 2020, Cuomo announced an executive order requiring patients to test negative for Covid-19 before being discharged from a hospital to a nursing home.

Cuomo has said that New York followed federal guidelines when sending coronavirus patients to nursing homes and that the advisory was consistent with guidance from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Ahead of Tuesday’s hearing, Republicans on the House panel released a 48-page memo stating that Cuomo was “involved in the decision that led to the March 25 Directive.”

The memo further states that the directive “was not consistent with applicable federal guidance regarding hospital to nursing home transfers and COVID-19 related infection control” and that the policy ultimately had “predictable but disastrous consequences.”

The memo also accuses the Cuomo administration of manipulating data, which concealed the magnitude of nursing home deaths, and claims that top advisers to the governor influenced a report by the Department of Health in order to shift the blame for the deaths of nursing home residents.

As part of its investigation, the subcommittee interviewed Cuomo and approximately 10 aides in addition to reviewing more than 550,000 pages of documents.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, testified on the pandemic at a contentious public hearing before the same subcommittee in June.

Azzopardi, the Cuomo spokesperson, said in a statement, “This MAGA Congressional Committee came up short on verifying the Big Lie they’ve been peddling for years: Its report does not conclude there was any causality between the March 25th DOH guidance and deaths in nursing homes.” The statement says that the claim of Cuomo’s involvement with the guidance “not only wasn’t supported by the testimony they cited,” but is “directly contradicted” by testimony from a former health department official.

New York State Attorney General Letitia James issued a report in 2021 finding that the New York State Department of Health undercounted Covid-19 deaths among nursing home residents by approximately 50%. The New York health department undercounted the number of Covid-19 deaths in nursing homes by thousands during Cuomo’s time in office, an audit conducted by state officials found in 2022.

Critics have argued that counting only residents who died inside nursing homes while excluding residents who died in hospitals led to a much lower count of nursing home deaths, which helped Cuomo portray New York as having a better response to the pandemic than other parts of the country.

Azzopardi said in the statement that the report shows that “out-of-facility nursing home tabulations were initially withheld due to legitimate concerns over accuracy.”

Cuomo has been investigated by the Department of Justice, Manhattan district attorney, New York attorney general and the New York State Assembly, none of which brought charges for his handling of the pandemic.

A release from the committee announcing the memo further states that current New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, also a Democrat, “has not been cooperative” with document and information requests, and the panel is “considering next steps,” including “potentially issuing a subpoena.”

The memo states that the New York State Executive Chamber did not produce documents until February 2024, which it says was “more than eight months after the original request,” but notes that the panel “has since received three separate productions amounting to 373,999 documents.”

Cuomo was first elected governor in 2010 and served nearly three full terms before he resigned in August 2021 following the release of a report by James’ office that found he had sexually harassed multiple women. Cuomo has denied the allegations.

This story and headline have been updated with additional developments.

CNN’s Paul LeBlanc, Annie Grayer and Piper Hudspeth Blackburn contributed to this report.

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