Why Is the White House Covering for Cuomo?

Andrew Cuomo’s political future is in serious jeopardy as his cover-up of nursing home COVID deaths is finally starting to get the attention it deserves. For many months, only conservative media reported on Cuomo’s deadly order mandating that nursing homes accept COVID patients and Cuomo’s subsequent cover-up of the nursing home COVID deaths data. Now, he’s starting to get called out by New York Democrats, and could be on the verge of impeachment.

Cuomo’s fall from grace is long overdue, but will those who praised him admit they were wrong? Like, for example, Joe Biden, who called Cuomo’s leadership during the pandemic the “gold standard”?

Yes, he actually said that. In early April of last year, Joe Biden appeared live onThe Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon from his basement, during which the COVID pandemic was obviously the biggest issue of discussion. During the interview, Fallon had asked Biden why there wasn’t a national stay-at-home order. Biden said he wasn’t sure, but said that at least governors were stepping up.

“In New York, where I am, and Delaware, where you are, we have strict stay-at-home orders,” Fallon noted. “Why is there not a nationwide stay-at-home order?”

“The answer is, I don’t fully know. We’re leaving it to the governors. Thank God the governors have been moving. Your governor in New York’s done one hell of a job. I think he’s the gold standard,” Biden told Fallon, before smearing President Trump.

Will Joe Biden backtrack on his past praise? It appears that he won’t. On Sunday, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki was asked whether he still sees Cuomo as the “gold standard” of COVID leadership.

“Last spring, President Biden cited Andrew Cuomo as the ‘gold standard’ for leadership during the pandemic,” asked ABC News host Jonathan Karl. “So now we’ve seen that Governor Cuomo has allegedly undercounted nursing home deaths, misled legislators in New York, and he called New York Assemblyman Ron Kim raising questions, basically threatening to destroy him I think was his actual words, so does President Biden still consider Andrew Cuomo the ‘gold standard’ when it comes to leadership on the pandemic?”

And, true to form, Psaki evaded the question.

“Well, we work with Governor Cuomo just like we work with governors across the country. He’s also chair of the [National Governors Association]. He’s played an important role in ensuring that we’re coordinating closely and getting assistance out to people of his state and to states across the country. And we’ll continue to do that. And, of course, there will be a process. The investigations, we’ll leave that to others to determine the proper law enforcement authorities to determine and how that path is going to move as we look forward.”

“But we’re going to continue to work with a range of governors, including, of course, Gov. Cuomo, because we think the people of New York, the states across the country, need assistance, not just to get through the pandemic, but to get through the difficult economic time and that’s where our focus remains,” she continued.

Karl was clearly disappointed by her non-answer and pressed for a simple “yes” or “no” in response to whether Joe Biden still thought of Cuomo as the “gold standard.” While many Democrats, particularly in New York, have not been shy in criticizing Cuomo, Psaki was unwilling to criticize him, claiming that it’s not a simple “yes” or “no” answer.

Biden’s press secretary repeatedly refuses to condemn Andrew Cuomo’s actions that led to the deaths of thousands of elderly New York nursing home residents. pic.twitter.com/0VPApRtUV2

— Arthur Schwartz (@ArthurSchwartz) February 21, 2021

This was actually a very simple question for Psaki. In fact, Karl probably thought that it was a softball question because he was handing Psaki the opportunity to disavow Cuomo’s COVID response, which included his deadly nursing home policy and his attempt to cover up the true number of deaths it caused. But she couldn’t—or wouldn’t. Why not? At least 15,000 people died because of Cuomo’s policy, no one would blame the Biden administration for throwing Cuomo under the bus.

Why won’t the White House won’t condemn Cuomo? Does Cuomo have to be impeached first?

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Matt Margolis is the author of Airborne: How The Liberal Media Weaponized The Coronavirus Against Donald Trump, and the bestselling book The Worst President in History: The Legacy of Barack Obama. You can follow Matt on Twitter, Gab, Facebook, MeWe, Heroes, Rumble, and CloutHub.