Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Friday avoided reporters amid growing controversy over The Post’s revelation that a top aide admitted that his administration covered up residence death data due to a pending federal investigation.
Despite traveling to Washington, DC, for a high-profile meeting at the White House, Cuomo later stepped down and did not appear in public, although Arkansas Republican Gov. Asa Hutchinson he addressed outside journalists.
Both men were part of a bipartisan group of governors and mayors who sat down with President Biden in the oval office to discuss Biden’s $ 1.9 trillion COVID-19 aid plan.
In a statement issued later in the afternoon, Cuomo and Hutchinson – who are the president and vice president of the National Association of Governors, respectively – said that “the president and his team made it clear that they recognize and appreciate the importance of that this relief is driven by our ability to recover from this pandemic. ”
Biden’s “American Rescue Plan” allocates more than $ 50 billion to the Empire State, which has no cash, The Post reported exclusively Friday.
During Friday’s daily White House press conference, press secretary Jen Psaki diverted a journalist’s question about whether Biden still had confidence in Cuomo’s handling of the pandemic and whether the issue of the number of deaths in the nursing home went out to the meeting.
“Well, the president has welcomed Governor Cuomo and a bipartisan group of governors and mayors to the White House today to get their perspective from the front line, not give any seal of approval to anyone or look for their seal of ‘approval and discuss the urgency of approving the American Rescue Plan,’ ‘he said.
Cuomo faces calls for federal and state polls over statements by Gov. Melissa DeRosa’s secretary during a video conference with Democratic state lawmakers Wednesday night, the audio of which was obtained exclusively by The Post.
DeRosa said the Cuomo administration last year refused to disclose the true number of residents of nursing homes killed by COVID-19 because of concern that the Justice Department “used against us” the numbers condemnatoris.