Former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo was eviscerated at a fiery congressional hearing examining his handling of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Cuomo was grilled over his directive to nursing homes forcing them to admit Covid-positive patients, which Georgia Rep Marjorie Taylor-Greene branded murder.
The ex-Governor repeated his previous arguments that his guidance was based on federal guidelines from the Center for Disease Control and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
But Taylor-Greene who was among the panel members who rejected his explanation in an explosive rant.
You signed the directive to put Covid-19 patients into nursing homes on March 25 which led to the murdering of peoples parents, grandparents and great grandparents. Yes, murdering them, Taylor-Greene fumed.
Former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo was eviscerated at a fiery congressional hearing examining his handling of the Covid-19 pandemic
She accused Cuomo of dismissing high nursing home deaths as a conspiracy theory and invited him to turn around to apologize to victims families in the audience.
However, Cuomo emphatically stated he had never said that multiple times.
New York Rep Ellise Stefanik also accused Cuomo of manipulating the data to deflate the number of nursing home fatalities.
Cuomo, ordered, directed and executed this deadly executive order counter to CDC guidance, Stefanik said.
The disgraced former governor and his aides were caught covering up their vulnerability and guilt.
The chaotic exchange saw Stefanik and Cuomo talking over one another with Stefanik clashing over his multi-million dollar advance for his memoir on pandemic leadership.
Theres a reason you are the former governor of New York, Stefanik raged. You will never hold elected office again.
Her words prompted an outbreak of applause which saw Republican chairman Brad Wenstrup remind the hearing of the need for proper decorum.
Marjorie Taylor-Greene likened Cuomos actions to murder at the hearing on Tuesday
But Wenstrup also took aim at Cuomo, accusing him of threatening the GOP-led panel.
He said the panel had been threatened twice - once by Cuomo and another time by the Chinese Communist Party for looking into the origins of Covid-19.
We have not and will not bow to these threats, the chairman told the congressional hearing on Tuesday. I certainly hope you did not approve of these tactics.
He went on to slam the former governor over his health teams directive, which he said stood for several weeks after Cuomo became aware of it.
You own this. Its your name on the letterhead. Its your directive, Wenstrup said. The buck stops with you or at least it should.
Subcommittee ranking member Raul Ruiz (D-California) also said in his opening remarks that Cuomo had misrepresented nursing home fatality data.
New York Rep Ellise Stefanik was among the panel members who rejected his justification for issuing a directive mandating nursing homes into accepting Covid-19 patients
Did you direct your staff to make the number of nursing home-related fatalities lower than the actual? Ruiz asked.
No. We said these are the numbers without the out of facility death numbers which we will add when they are accurate, which will reduce the hospital death number but the total death stays the same, Cuomo said.
It was an allocation questions, do you allocate to the nursing home or do you allocate to the hospital.
Cuomo, 66, has previously testified behind closed doors in June during a session in which Wenstrup accused him of being shockingly callous about the estimated 15,000 nursing home deaths in New York City.
He repeated claims that during the hearing, Cuomo responded who cares when discussing the data on deaths.
Cuomo has tried to frame the congressional hearing as a MAGA-fronted smear campaign and blamed Donald Trump for poor leadership during the crisis.
Chairman Brad Wenstrup encouraged Cuomo to own the directive
This Republican run committee repeats the Trump lies and deception, Cuomo said on Tuesday.
The report does not deny that it was actually the Trump administration that first said in early March that Covid positive people could go from hospitals to nursing homes even if they were still infectious. That was your ruling.
He claimed the report found no causality between the policy and Covid deaths in nursing homes, stating that studies showed Covid entered the facilities via community transmission from staff and visitors.
Most Republican states actually had a higher death in nursing rate in 2020, Cuomo added. These are all diversions to blame New York and other states for the culpability of the federal response which was malpractice.
It was the Covid hunger games, the federal government was nowhere to be found.
In questioning, Wenstrup sought to get Cuomo to admit that federal advice on nursing home policy which the governor claimed was the basis of his own, was permissive rather than prescriptive.
He pointed to CMS Dr Deborah Birx previous testimony that the directive violated federal guidelines. But Cuomo accused him of misleading Birx on the matter.
Subcommittee ranking member Raul Ruiz (D-California) also said in his opening remarks that Cuomo had misrepresented nursing home fatality data
Congressman James Comer said Cuomo failed to follow the facts and he should have admitted error.
Meanwhile Iowa Rep Marianette Miller-Meeks told the hearing she had hoped to see a less defensive Cuomo who was more remorseful about what went on in New York but that was not the case.
She skewered Cuomos argument that Covid entered nursing homes through employees.
How in the hell would you know, if you prohibited testing? Miller-Meeks scoffed.
Her scathing remarks went virtually unanswered by Cuomo before chairman Wenstrup moved on, prompting outrage from Maryland Representative Jamie Raskin.
Raskin demanded to know if Cuomo would be allowed to answer the questions posed to him, but was dismissed by Wenstrup during another heated exchange.