Get the latest BPR news delivered free to your inbox daily. SIGN UP HERE.
CNN host Jake Tapper blasted New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo for creating and selling a “victory lap” poster featuring a timeline of the state’s battle with COVID-19.
The antique-style poster noted the state’s “111 days of hell” and features personal jokes including his daughter’s boyfriend falling off a cliff, but, as Tapper noted, there are “no illustrations of the more than 32,000 dead New Yorkers.”
The Sea of Division. The Boyfriend Cliff. The Sun On The Other Side. See it all for yourself.
Pre-order the #NewYorkTough poster here:
— Andrew Cuomo (@NYGovCuomo) July 14, 2020
Tapper’s criticism of Cuomo began Monday evening after the governor appeared on “The Tonight Show” with Jimmy Fallon.
“NY state has lost more than 32,000 lives to COVID-19. So while it’s great that the numbers have gone down, it’s perplexing to see crowing, Cuomo going on Fallon, etc. No other state has lost as many lives, not even close. New Jersey is next with 17,000+,” he wrote.
NY state has lost more than 32,000 lives to COVID-19. So while it's great that the numbers have gone down, it's perplexing to see crowing, Cuomo going on Fallon, etc. No other state has lost as many lives, not even close. New Jersey is next with 17,000+https://t.co/aIphqXdWYz
— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) July 14, 2020
Tapper continued voicing his disdain for Cuomo’s “revisionism” with follow-up tweets containing news reports critical of the state’s response to the then-burgeoning outbreak, which led to New York City becoming the disease epicenter for weeks.
“Yes, this has been a major challenge for every leader, but New York’s leaders do not have a success story to tell. It’s been about missteps and late actions,” he wrote in one post featuring a New York Times article headlined, “How Delays and Unheeded warnings Hindered New York’s Virus Fight.”
2/ Yes, this has been a major challenge for every leader, but New York’s leaders do not have a success story to tell. It’s been about missteps and late actions.
From April: “How Delays and Unheeded Warnings Hindered New York’s Virus Fight”https://t.co/rTUcF2fbWF
— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) July 14, 2020
He also tweeted a New Yorker piece headlined, “Seattle’s Leaders Let Scientists Take the Lead. New York’s Did Not.”
3/ From April: “Seattle’s Leaders Let Scientists Take the Lead. New York’s Did Not”https://t.co/KO7vbl8ekZ
— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) July 14, 2020
On Tuesday during a segment with CNN health contributor Dr. Sanjay Gupta, Tapper revisited the issue.
(Source: CNN)
“New York’s democratic governor Andrew Cuomo seems to be on something of a victory tour congratulating the state and himself for defeating the virus,” he said, introducing the segment. “Even selling this poster, which shows his state getting over the mountain by bringing down the curve during the 111 days of hell, as the governor put it.”
“The poster includes references his daughters, a boyfriend, little inside jokes,” Tapper continued. “There are no illustrations, however, of the more than 32,000 dead New Yorkers, the highest death toll by far of any state.
“No rendering on that poster of criticism that Governor Cuomo ignored warnings, no depiction of the study that he could have saved thousands of lives had he and Mayor [Bill] de Blasio acted sooner. No painting there on the poster of his since rescinded order that nursing homes take all infected patients in,” Tapper continued.
Tapper then featured a clip of Cuomo on Monday claiming that his COVID-19 response was “historic.”
“Let’s be clear, this is revisionism,” Tapper said as he prepared to bring in Gupta. “A lot of the crowing and governor Cuomo going on ‘Late Night’ is offending a lot of New Yorkers given the fact that this is the highest death toll of any state.”
“I’m a little surprised by that poster because I think, if anything, what this virus has taught us is that we need to have a significant amount of humility,” Gupta said in response.
“This virus surprises us over and over again. There’s no place in the country that’s not vulnerable. And I think that we should’ve learned — I think we have learned — that victory laps are not the thing to be doing because we’re not through this by a long shot, sad to say, even in New York,” Gupta added.
Both Cuomo and de Blasio have been widely panned for their responses to the coronavirus.
The governor’s biggest criticisms have come from his decision to order New York nursing homes to accept coronavirus patients, despite knowing that older Americans with preexisting health conditions were far more susceptible to contracting the disease and dying from it.
A report released last week by the New York State Department of Health noted approximately 6,326 coronavirus-positive patients were admitted to elder care facilities, but appeared to downplay the risk to older patients, claiming that it “could not be the driver of nursing home infections or fatalities.”
Multiple health experts disagreed.
“It seems like the Department of Health is trying to justify what was an untenable policy,” University of California at San Fransisco nursing professor Charlene Harrington told The Associated Press.
“They really need to own the fact that they made a mistake, that it was never right to send COVID patients into nursing homes and that people died because of it,” added California Association of Long Term Care Medicine President Dr. Michael Wasserman.
Others were also critical of Cuomo’s misguided bragging, including Fox News senior meteorologist Janice Dean, who lost her mother- and father-in-law to coronavirus after they contracted it while in a New York nursing home.
Tens of Thousands died on Cuomo’s Covid mountain. You should add nursing homes and a cemetery.
— Janice Dean (@JaniceDean) July 14, 2020
DONATE TO BIZPAC REVIEW
Please help us! If you are fed up with letting radical big tech execs, phony fact-checkers, tyrannical liberals and a lying mainstream media have unprecedented power over your news please consider making a donation to BPR to help us fight them. Now is the time. Truth has never been more critical!
- Jan. 6 committee chair Benny Thompson offers a stunning take on potential Trump criminal actions - January 2, 2022
- Life-long New Yorker posts ‘sad’ Twitter ode on post-pandemic Big Apple being ‘shadow of its former self’ - January 2, 2022
- NYPD officer shot in head in police lot as he slept in vehicle between shifts - January 2, 2022
Comment
We have no tolerance for comments containing violence, racism, profanity, vulgarity, doxing, or discourteous behavior. If a comment is spam, instead of replying to it please click the ∨ icon below and to the right of that comment. Thank you for partnering with us to maintain fruitful conversation.