CNN said Wednesday it has reinstated a “rule” that prevents Chris Cuomo from “interviewing or covering his brother,” after the host completely ignored the death cover scandal at the nursing home that wrapped the Governor Andrew Cuomo.
Last year, Chris Cuomo repeatedly interviewed his older brother about the coronavirus pandemic, participating in often cringey jokes that initially helped raise the scores of the 21-hour “Cuomo Prime Time”.
But the controversy over the Cuomo administration’s admitted concealment of death rates in nursing homes – revealed exclusively by The Post last week – has not been mentioned on Chris ’one-hour program.
Despite coverage of other CNN programs, including Sunday’s “State of the Union,” in which host Jake Tapper criticized the Department of Health’s March 25 directive on nursing homes for admitting patients COVID-19.
“So Governor Cuomo, who has been unwilling to appear on this program despite dozens of applications over the past year, including last week, made a bad decision that may have cost his life,” Tapper said.
“And then his administration hid that data from the public.”
On Monday, “Anderson Cooper 360” also dedicated a segment to Andrew Cuomo’s first press conference since the controversy erupted, including a reference to how some Democratic lawmakers want to deprive him of his emergency powers related to the pandemic.
He also had very critical comments from Republican committee state chairman Nick Langworthy, who said, “The gravity of this cover-up cannot be overstated.”
“Andrew Cuomo should be prosecuted and Andrew Cuomo should be charged if such evidence exists,” Langworthy added.
In a prepared statement, a CNN spokesman said: “The first months of the pandemic crisis were an extraordinary moment. We felt that Chris was talking to his brother about the challenges facing millions of American families had a significant human interest.
“As a result, we made an exception to a rule we’ve had in place since 2013 that prevents Chris from interviewing and covering his brother, and that rule is still in effect today. CNN has widely covered the news about Governor Cuomo.” adds the statement.
The network did not answer a question he asked when Governor Cuomo was again banned from his brother’s program.
But in October, Chris Cuomo got into a heated live discussion with GOP Texas Sen. Ted Cruz over his older brother’s decision to ban nursing homes from the possibility of removing coronavirus patients. at the height of the pandemic.
“There ‘s something disgusting about Democrats doing that [presidential candidate] Joe Biden does it and what you do, that is, you try to blame the people who have lost the lives of your political enemies, ”said the Republican lawmaker, making his first appearance on the Cuomo program. “Particularly not right when your brother has presided over the state with the highest mortality rate in the country.
“Was it a mistake when your brother implemented a policy that nursing homes had to accept COVID-positive patients and endanger the lives of tens of thousands of seniors in New York State?”
Cuomo avoided giving a yes or no answer to the charge.
“My brother was the first to say that there was a learning curve and that mistakes were made and that things changed as soon as they could,” he said.
“So, were nursing homes the sum of the whole problem in the country? Is that what it was? Chris Cuomo – himself a survivor of the coronavirus – fired at Cruz.
“It caused New York to have 33,000 deaths compared to Texas which had 15,000 and Texas had 50% more population than New York,” Cruz countered. “Tell your brother to get in there.”