Gov. Cuomo Blames NY Nursing Home Deaths on Federal Government, CDC: They ‘Failed to Warn the Nation’

Gov. Andrew Cuomo blamed the high death rates in New York nursing homes on the Federal Government and the CDC, noting that they failed to handle the coronavirus pandemic and that they allowed the virus to enter the U.S. from Europe.

MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle asked Cuomo about his order that directed nursing homes to take in patients who had been infected by the coronavirus and reminded the governor that those who died were people’s parents and family members.

“This thing is not going away, sir,” she said. “Sixty-three hundred died in New York nursing homes, that is the most in this country. The more time that’s past the more your office can look into this. Do you take responsibility for that order and the role it may have played in those deaths?”

Cuomo insisted that Republicans were politicizing the issue by looking into the order and ridiculed them for implying that deaths have to do with politics. He later pointed out that people were dying in Republican states that opened up too early, calling for them to “look in the mirror.”

“Let’s look at the facts rather than the political rhetoric, yes we had more people die in homes than anywhere else, because we had more people die,” he said. “Because the Federal Government missed the boat and never told us that this virus was coming from Europe and not from China.”

Cuomo noted that before the travel ban, 3 million people had already traveled into New York from Europe, spreading the virus.

“The Federal Government and the CDC and all of them failed to handle this pandemic and warn this nation,” he added. “So New York had more cases, more deaths, and more deaths in nursing homes because that’s who the virus affects.”

Watch above, via MSNBC.