Cuomo’s Nursing Home Scandal Has Lawmakers on Both Sides of the Aisle

"andrew cuomo" (CC BY-ND 2.0) by Zack Seward

On Friday, Lee Zeldin (R-NY) told Hannity that New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s political tactics are “to bully” and to be “filled with revenge and spite and backstabbing.”

Zeldin made the comments during a discussion about the coronavirus nursing home scandal that has beaten Cuomo’s administration. Then, former Arkansas Representative Mike Huckabee chimed in with his own comments during the same show. Huckabee, who joined Zeldin, Fox News contributor Charles Hurt and host Jason Chaffetz.

Huckabee said, “You know you’re in trouble when you’re Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat governor of New York, and you got AOC [Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez] and Alec Baldwin and members of your own party who smell the blood in the water, and they’re coming after him.”

The former Arkansas Governor added, “His [Cuomo’s] bullying has finally caught up with him, and people are no longer pretending they’re afraid of him, and they’re speaking out.” Huckabee continued, “I think his time is limited. He may finish his term, but I think this is the last thing he’ll do politically.”

Meanwhile, CNN and the governor’s brother, Chris Cuomo, have swayed away and downplayed Andrew Cuomo’s controversies, with the far-left network presenting its developments with little to no airtime and providing the governor’s younger brother free rein to conduct friendly interviews with his older sibling. 

Fox News contributor Charles Hurt then argued, “I still say, from 30,000 feet up, the far worst crime is the cover-up by the media.” Hurt added, “The degree to which the media is treating him like some kind of hero, treated him like some kind of hero from the beginning … We’re talking about thousands of people who died because of a directive he issued forcing COVID patients — highly-transmissible, infectious COVID patients — into nursing homes, into rooms with our most vulnerable people in the country.”

As the anger towards Cuomo grows, Huckabee stated that the Democratic governor’s arrogance would do him in, claiming that Cuomo is simply unwilling to be accountable for his decisions.

Huckabee also added that Cuomo’s arrogance is so overwhelming that he refuses to say, “I was wrong.”

As for what could happen next, Zeldin predicted that Cuomo could be stripped of his emergency powers about to expire on April 30. 

Zeldin concluded that there are ” a lot of different components” as to why Gov. Cuomo needs to go. He said, “I’m a proud New Yorker. If we want to save our state, Cuomo’s got to go.”

Meanwhile, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) received praises from conservatives last Friday after announcing her support for a “full investigation” against Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s nursing home scandal. 

For instance, Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-NY) tweeted Ocasio-Cortez’s saying, “As I said the other day, the one thing uniting the left and the right is the quest for justice in the #CuomoCoverup.”

Ocasio-Cortez said in a statement earlier last Friday that she supports the state’s return to co-equal governance and stands with the local officials who are calling for a full investigation of the Cuomo administration’s handling of nursing homes during the pandemic. 

She added, “Thousands of vulnerable New Yorkers lost their lives in nursing homes throughout the pandemic. Their loved ones and the public deserve answers and transparency from their elected leadership, and the Secretary to the Governor’s [Melissa DeRosa’s] remarks warrant a full investigation.”