Andrew Cuomo Hits Back at False Coronavirus Attack That Trump Launched During Fox News Town Hall: ‘That’s Not the Fact’
A false attack that President Donald Trump made during his Fox News town hall made its way to New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s latest coronavirus press conference, and Cuomo batted it down by telling the reporter “That’s not the fact, and you know it.”
During Tuesday’s Fox News town hall, Trump read portions of a post from conspiracy blogger Jim Hoft of Gateway Pundit that accused Cuomo of rejecting an opportunity to purchase 16,000 ventilators back in 2015, and suggested Cuomo is to blame for his state’s anticipated shortage of the devices.
Fox News anchor Bill Hemmer did not challenge Trump’s attack, and on Wednesday, it was repeated by a reporter at Cuomo’s press conference.
Wall Street Journal state beat reporter Jimmy Vielkind said to Cuomo “There was a report in 2015 where the state suggested, or a task force suggested, maybe New York should increase its stockpile,” and asked “Any reason that that wasn’t done?”
“Jimmy, that’s not the fact and you know it, read the fact checkers on it,” Cuomo said, and explained “There was an advisory commission called life and the Law that had a chart in 2015 that said, ‘If you had the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic, you may need X number of ventilators.'”
“There was no state in the United States that bought ventilators for the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic,” Cuomo said. “The Federal Government did not buy ventilators for the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic. Nobody in the world bought ventilators in preparation for a 1918 Spanish flu pandemic.”
In fact, the report to which Vielkind referred — which was twisted into being the source for Trump’s attack by anti-Obamacare activist and former NY Lt. Gov. Betsy McCaughey — specifically said not to stockpile ventilators.
And as Cuomo mentioned, the report contained a chart that estimated a shortage of 15,783 ventilators during one peak week of a 1918-like pandemic, but a surplus of 573 ventilators in a “moderate” pandemic.
Watch the clip above via CNN.
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