The Daily Signal - What We Know About Cuomo’s COVID-19 Cover-up

Episode Date: February 23, 2021

The cover-up may be worse than the crime, Joel Zinberg, a medical doctor and contributor to the Manhattan Institute's City Journal, says of New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s inaccurate reporting of COVID-19 nursing home deaths in his state.  Zinberg, who is also a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a professor, and a former member of the Trump administration, joins “The Daily Signal Podcast” to explain what is known about Cuomo’s mismanagement of New York nursing homes during the pandemic and whether or not he sees Cuomo’s actions as an impeachable offense.  We also cover these stories: The Senate holds confirmation hearings for Merrick Garland, President Joe Biden’s nominee for attorney general. The Supreme Court announces that it will not shield former President Donald Trump from having to turn over his tax returns to a New York grand jury. The Supreme Court says it won’t look at lawsuits from Pennsylvania Republicans regarding the state’s vote by mail policy.  Enjoy the show! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Daily Signal podcast for Tuesday, February 23rd. I'm Regina Dulgutist. And I'm Virginia Allen. Critical information continues to surface in New York over Governor Andrew Cuomo's handling of COVID-19 and nursing home residents. Joel Zimberg, a medical doctor and contributor to the Manhattan's Institute, City Journal, joins the show to discuss Cuomo's cover-up of the accurate number of nursing home deaths in the state and whether or not impeachment proceedings are likely going to

commence. Don't forget, if you're enjoying this podcast, please be sure to leave a review or a five-star rating on Apple Podcasts and encourage others to subscribe. Now onto our top news. The Senate is holding confirmation hearings from Merritt Garland, President Joe Biden's nominee for Attorney General, and Garland says that the handling of the Jeffrey Epstein case was horrendous. Epstein worked in the banking and finance sectors before being prosecuted for sex trafficking and was found dead in his prison cell on August 10, 2019, at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York. He said the handling of Epstein's case was horrendous, but added that he couldn't speak to why the Justice Department acted in the way it did, per USA Today. Garland also weighed in on the

gun control debate. Here's what he had to say via the New York Post. As I'm sure you know, the president is a strong supporter of gun control and has been an advocate all of his life, Professional life on this question. The role of the Justice Department is to advance the policy program of the administration as long as it is consistent with the law, Garland told the Senate Judiciary Committee. On Monday, the Supreme Court announced that it would not shield former President Donald Trump from having to turn over his tax returns to a New York grand jury. Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr., a Democrat, has been seeking access to Trump's financial records since 2019 after a New York grand jury issued a subpoena to view eight years of Trump's financial records, including his personal and professional tax returns. Vance in his office want to see the financial records to determine whether or not Trump made

payments to two women who claimed they had affairs with the former president and that Trump paid them to remain quiet about it. The tax returns are also being sought to investigate possible financial crimes committed by the Trump Organization. It is unclear whether or not Trump's attorney will submit additional filings to the Supreme Court to try to keep the financial records from being subpoenaed. The Supreme Court said Monday that it won't look at lawsuits from Pennsylvania Republicans on the state's vote by mail policy. The lawsuit sought to invalidate ballots that were counted due to Pennsylvania's extended mail ballot due date. Only three of the Supreme Court's justices,

Clarence Thomas, Samuel Lito, and Neil Gorsuch dissented to the decision not to hear the cases. In his dissent, per the Hill, Thomas said, These cases provide us with an ideal opportunity to address just what authority non-legislative officials have to set election rules and to do so well before the next election cycle, Thomas Broat.

The refusal to do so, is inexplicable. Political leaders and New York citizens are continuing to ask for an investigation into Governor Andrew Cuomo's handling of COVID-19 patients and nursing homes in the state. During a press conference on Monday, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio was asked if he accepted Governor Andrew Cuomo's explanation for why the accurate number of COVID-19 nursing home deaths were not reported. Here's what de Blasio had to say in response to that question. per the hill. No, I have not spoken to him. No, I do not accept his explanation. There needs to be a full

investigation. Thousands of lives were lost. Families deserve answers. We need to get the whole truth here. We need to make sure that nothing like this ever happens again. Now stay tuned for my conversation with Dr. Joel Zinberg as we discuss Governor Andrew Cuomo's handling of COVID-19 and nursing home death in New York. Americans use firearms to defend themselves between 500,000 and 2 million times every year. But God forbid that my mother is ever faced with a scenario where she has to stop a threat to her life. But if she is, I hope politicians, protected by professional armed security, didn't strip her of the right to use the firearms she can handle most competently.

To watch the rest of Heritage expert Amy Swearer's testimony on assault weapons before the House Judiciary Committee head to the Heritage Foundation YouTube channel. There you'll find talks, events, and documentaries, backed with the reputation of the nation's most broadly supported Public Policy Research Institute. Start watching now at heritage.org slash YouTube. And don't forget to subscribe and share. I am joined by Joel Zimberg, a medical doctor contributor to the Manhattan Institute's City Journal, a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a professor and a former member of the Trump administration. Dr. Zimberg, thank you so much for being here.

Thank you for having me. So today we are talking about New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, his handling of nursing homes during COVID-19, and what we know about the cover-up and really that cover-up of the accurate deaths of individuals living in nursing homes and long-term care facilities. So I want to start by going back to spring 2020. Between March 25th and May 11th,

the New York's Department of Health, under Governor Cuomo's leadership, they issued an advisory that nursing homes should allow previously hospitalized COVID-19 patients back into those care facilities without first checking to make sure that they were COVID-negative. Explain the situation a little bit further, if you would, and what we know about why these individuals were actually being delivered back to nursing homes without first being tested. Well, it wasn't merely that they could admit them. They were ordered to admit them. This was a, you know, this was not an advisory that was giving them any sort of discretion. They were told in no uncertain terms that they must comply with this and that they were prohibited from barring someone from admission based on a confirmed or suspected diagnosis of COVID-19. In fact, They were even prohibited from testing any prospective admissions.

So they were told that they must readmit these patients who had known COVID infections into the nursing homes. And even though they subsequently claimed that, oh, they were just following federal guidance or that this, you know, this was some discretionary action or that nothing happened on, you know, that was untoward. All of those claims are untrue. Now, the rationale at the time for this policy was that they were concerned with preserving the number of hospital beds available for COVID infections. And, you know, it is reasonable to note that at the time, hospitalizations were rising, utilization of ICU beds were rising. So it was a legitimate concern. But that did not mean that one should do. then pour these potentially infected patients back into nursing homes, which everyone knew it,

even at that early stage, were breeding grounds for COVID infection. And that's where the most vulnerable people, the elderly and the infirm, were living in closed congregate facilities. Moreover, it's worth noting that at the time, the Javitt Center was opening up, the U.S. Navy ship, comfort had sailed into New York Harbor. These were outlets that were available to the state to place these patients, but instead they insisted that they go back in this very dangerous fashion right into these nursing facilities. And were there not medical professionals telling Governor Cuomo that this was a bad idea and could ultimately result in the virus doing exactly what it did, spreading rapidly through these elder care facilities and taking the lives of so many?

Well, large numbers of people looked askance at this, and they were a concern that this was a problem. Yet, you know, this was a directive issued by the Department of Health, by Governor Cuomo's own Department of Health. We'll never know, I suppose, ultimately, who was responsible. You know, the Commissioner Zucker was involved in the process. He did sign off on this, but we don't know who exactly within the Department of Health was for or against this policy. We now know, with hindsight, that more than nine senior officials in the New York State Department of Health have resigned or taken early retirement, presumably because they've disagreed with policies of the Cuomo administration. So for several months, we've really seen Cuomo dodge a lot of different questions about this order and why these patients were allowed back into the nursing homes were ordered back into the nursing homes.

There's been just lots of questions, but Cuomo has really kept from answering a lot of those questions directly. In January, information began to come out about the actual accurate numbers of nursing home COVID-19 deaths. And that information has continued to surface by the end of January. Cuomo was reporting that there were 8,500 nursing home deaths. But now we know that that number is at least double. Walk us through why it has taken so many months for the accurate numbers to actually come to light. Well, there are, I think, two primary reasons. One is you had on the large part a very uncurious media.

You know, for the past year, the Governor Cuomo has been lauded by this adoring press. And as someone who was giving a forthright and accurate response to the COVID-19 pandemic, he was rewarded with a lucrative book contract. He got an Emmy for using TV to provide the public with reliable information. But the fact is that, you know, Cuomo and his associates were making a series of disastrous policy, not just this nursing home mistake. And the press seemed curiously uninterested in looking at this. Now, not all the press, because the second reason is that the governor had a concerted effort

to cover up any kind and to stonewall any kind of inquiry. So back early in this process, the Associated Press filed a freedom of information lack excuse me, a freedom of information law request, a foil request to get information on the nursing home admissions. They were rebuffed. The Empire Center for Public Policy, which is a think tank in New York State, similarly filed a foil request. They were told they were going to have to wait until November, and this was basically six months later. So they filed an action in court to compel the government to respond. Many New York legislators, including Democrats, made multiple inquiries to find out what was going on, but they were all rebuffed. So this was a concerted and

prolonged cover-up by the Cromo administration. And as you pointed out, the dam only broke in January when the New York Attorney General, Letitia James, released a report that indicated they had, the Department of Health had undercounted the nursing home deaths by at least 50%. And everyone knew they were undercounting it because they had changed their policy once people questioned the whole nursing home directive. They had changed their policy to only count deaths that physically occurred in the nursing home. It didn't matter if you sent a patient who was sick from COVID out to a hospital where they

died two days later. they didn't count that as a nursing home death. So everyone knew that there were problems, but the Cuomo administration was not willing to acknowledge them. Well, and of course, things really boiled to the surface when earlier this month, a senior aide of Governor Cuomo's phone call was leaked of her telling other Democrats in the state of New York

that really the accurate numbers had not been reported in order to protect Cuomo. Your response to this? Well, you know, I think she, she in a candid moment acknowledged something that everyone at that point already knew. Because, you know, after the Attorney General's report came out, a Supreme Court judge in New York ruled in favor of the Empire Center FOIL request. And the state responded by showing that approximately 15,000 nursing facility patients had died. And that's a 63% increase over what the Department of Health had said. And there was finally a Department of Health response to the Associated Press FOIL request,

and where they admitted that 9,000 people had been admitted back to nursing homes from hospitals, which was, again, of a 43% increase over what the Department of Health had previously said. So at that point in time, by the time the interview where Ms. DeRosa made this admission came out, Everyone knew that there was something very rotten in the state of New York. And this just confirmed it. And it confirmed that the cover-up was done for political reasons. The Cuomo administration was concerned that federal authorities would point to the poor political policies of the Cuomo administration and therefore made a conscious decision not to share that information, either with them or, frankly, with anyone else, including. New York State legislators.

So you wrote in a recent City Journal piece that Cuomo's cover-up of the actual numbers of nursing home deaths that that might actually be far, far worse than the order itself that sent all those individuals back into the nursing homes. Could you explain that a little bit further

and your thoughts on that? Right. I mean, you know, this goes back. Obviously, people talk about what happened in Watergate and the Nix administration that the cover-up was worse than the crime. You know, one might argue, as I mentioned earlier, that this was just a misguided policy in the heat of the moment in the spring. They thought they were doing the right thing by trying to preserve hospital beds, even though there was good reason to believe that they didn't have to do that. But putting that aside, now you have a situation where they've admitted that they did not respond to federal inquiries.

They've admitted that they sat on foil, legitimate foil requests. They've admitted that they rebuffed the New York State Legislature, which last time I checked as a co-equal part of the New York State government. So it's no surprise now that it's been announced that the U.S. attorney in the Eastern District of New York is investigating. And now they're investigating for criminal reasons. The previous investigations had been on for civil reasons. These are now potential criminal investigations for obstruction of justice or false statements or misuse of federal monies.

So this has become a very serious problem for the Cuomo administration. On February 15th, Cuomo, he hosted a press conference to address his failure, to report the accurate numbers. So let's take a listen to what, just a portion of what Cuomo had to say per Reuters. I take responsibility. We should have provided more information faster. We were too focused on doing the job and addressing the crisis of the moment, and we did not do a good enough job in providing information.

I take total responsibility for that. The pain in it is it created confusion, and cynicism and pain for the families of the loved ones. So Dr. Zinberg, your response to Governor Cuomo saying, I take responsibility, we sort of in a way almost sounding like there was just a lot going on, so we weren't able to report accurate numbers. Well, look, you know, his high aid, Ms. DeRosa has given the lie to that. She's made it very clear that it wasn't that they were distracted by just,

doing the job, they made a conscious decision not to provide the information. So, you know, it's clearly untrue what he said. And he said, I take responsibility, but he hasn't taken any responsibility. He's persisted in blaming others for this misguided policy. So he persists in claiming that they only undertook this policy because they were directed by federal guidance. This This was a claim they made at the time. This was a claim they made in a July 2020 report put out by the New York State Department of Health, which sought to respond to concerns about the policy. This was a claim that he makes to this day, but it's an untrue claim.

It's a, you know, the, the CMS guidance on this issue said that they, nursing homes can accept patients back from hospitals if they have adequate infection control facilities. They were never told that they must or that they should or that they have to, all of which was language that was in the New York State directive. They've persisted in, the administration has persisted in saying that this is somehow discretionary, that the nursing homes are responsible somehow. Again, if you look at the language of the directive, it was not discretionary at all. And they persisted in claiming all along that the policy didn't harm anyone.

You know, if you look at the report done in July, and then you look again at the health commissioner Zucker's response to the Attorney General's statement, January report release, you will see that they continue to claim, well, COVID, was already there in the nursing homes because some staff had it. Therefore, that's how the infection spread. They completely discount the possibility that dumping thousands of probably infected people back into the nursing homes could have in any way impacted the death toll. No one has ever claimed that this misguided policy was responsible for all the deaths, but it really is very likely that it contributed to increased unnecessary deaths. They also make a very technical argument, which most people didn't bother read their July report,

but people like me who did found that it's a completely silly argument. They claim that the median length of stay for the nursing home admissions in the hospital was nine days, and that the CDC had actually said that most people aren't still infectious by that point. So therefore, the people returning to the nursing home couldn't be a source of infection. But if you actually look at the CDC statement that they quote, the CDC was saying that people who have mild to moderate symptoms are unlikely to be infectious by 10 days, but that people who have severe symptoms are still infectious up to about 20 days. And who is it who gets admitted to a hospital? Well, it's not people with mild and moderate symptoms.

It's people with severe symptoms. So right away, you know that they were returning a large number of people who were probably still infectious. And in addition, they make the really ludicrous claim that because the median is nine days, that this couldn't have been a problem. Anyone who knows even a modicum about statistics knows that a median is the midpoint of the distribution, which means that half of the people who returned were in the hospital for less than nine days, making it extremely likely they were still infectious. So on each and every level, the administration has been misleading,

both in their July report and in their subsequent releases, and they've been obstructionist in failing to respond to legitimate inquiries. Well, and I think so many New Yorkers are truly frustrated, and they're calling for there to be accountability. We've seen that both, as you mentioned, both Democrats and Republicans in the state of New York are saying, wait a second, there needs to be accountability here, and many are actually calling for impeachment proceedings to begin.

Do you see Cuomo's actions as an impeachable offense? Well, you know, the New York state law is actually even less clear than the U.S. Constitution on what's impeachable. So, and there's only been in history one governor who's been impeached, and that you have to go back more than 100 years or that. Nevertheless, you have a lot of enraged legislators, including Democrats. And so at minimum, we have New York legislators calling for curbing the governor's emergency powers. So they're looking to repeal a bill that gave him emergency powers that would really overturn New York laws. And that's supposed to run through April. And they're now looking to repeal that, or at least in some way curb it.

You've also had suggestions from the Republican side of the aisle, which is granted a small minority in New York State, but you've had suggestions that impeachment proceeding should begin. And we'll see whether Democrats are willing to go on board. But I can tell you, for example, a Democratic Assemblyman, Assemblyman Kim, has already come out and said that he's been threatened by the governor himself, that he should be. go along with the governor's point of view on this and not do anything to imperil the governor. Otherwise, he would be, quote, unquote, according to Assemblyman Kim, destroyed. So you may find that there are enough Democrats who are so enraged about this policy and then the cover up that they would go along with an impeachment. It's going to be fascinating to see as information continues to surface.

But Dr. Zinberg, we really appreciate you breaking this down for us. Thank you so much for your time. You're very welcome. And that'll do it for today's episode. Thanks for listening to The Daily Signal podcast. You can find the Daily Signal podcast on Google Play, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and IHeart Radio. Please be sure to leave us a review and a five-star rating on Apple Podcasts.

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