CNN’s Tapper Calls Out Andrew Cuomo for Refusing ‘Dozens’ of Interview Requests Amid Nursing Home Scandal
CNN’s Jake Tapper tore into New York Governor Andrew Cuomo during a broad rebuke for those who would ignore the indecencies and failures of their own political party for the sake of retaining power.
As Tapper concluded State of the Union on Sunday, he spoke of the “small but respectable number of politicians willing to break with their partisan allegiances and criticize an intimidating leader in the face of loss of life.” Tapper emphasized that he wasn’t talking about the 7 Republicans who voted to impeach Donald Trump for incitement of insurrection, but rather, the New York officials who’ve spoken out against Cuomo’s handling of the coronavirus situation.
The monologue continued with an explainer of the scandal Cuomo is facing for apparently covering up the data on how many coronavirus deaths there have been in connection with the governor’s nursing home directive. Tapper noted that Cuomo “has declined to appear on this show despite dozens of requests over the past year” in order to answer for his “bad decision that may have cost lives.”
Tapper pivoted to look at how the Cuomo administration’s cover-up occurred while the governor and Trump were sparring over their coronavirus leadership throughout the year of 2020. The CNN anchor also panned Cuomo’s attempts to deflect from who’s to blame for the Covid deaths under his watch.
“Where those people died and why they died and if they died because of Cuomo’s March directive, that is information in the public interest,” Tapper said. “And fear of political enemies using the data against you, that’s not an excuse for covering it up from the public.”
From here, Tapper pivoted by slamming Republican lawmakers for their own political opportunism by refusing to hold Trump accountable for the storming of the U.S. Capitol.
If you are only upset about bad, even fatal leadership decisions and behavior based on the partisan affiliation of that leader, you are not operating from a place of righteousness. You are operating from a place of craven self-interest.
Tapper ended it by saying that even though the political situations of Trump and Cuomo are “very different,” “I will never understand the instinct that prompts someone to check the party affiliation of those acting abhorrently or indecently before figuring out how they should react.”
Watch above, via CNN.
