Cuomo’s COVID-19 House testimony: 3 takeaways

Former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) faced bipartisan congressional scrutiny Tuesday as he testified before the House on his early handling of the pandemic, with particular attention paid to how his office managed nursing homes. 

Cuomo’s presence at the hearing was preceded by a subpoena issued by subcommittee Chair Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio), a damaging investigative report put out the day before as well as several dozen hours of testimony given earlier this year by Cuomo and former staffers of his administration. 

At the hearing, Wenstrup announced additional subpoenas for current New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) for documents related to Cuomo’s nursing home directive. Wenstrup accused Hochul of improperly withholding these documents. 

When reached for comment, Hochul’s office said it was surprised by the decision to issue a subpoena while adding, “We fully intend to comply with the law in this matter.” 

Along with the governor, families of New York nursing home residents who died during the pandemic attended the hearing.

New York Rep. Elise Stefanik’s (R) heated demand that Cuomo apologize to the families drew applause from those in the audience.

Cuomo addressed the families, saying he is sorry for their losses and believes “you are owed an apology, because this country should have done better.” 

Over the course of more than two hours, Cuomo vehemently defended his record on the COVID-19 pandemic as Republicans tore into his COVID-era polices for nursing homes. 

The former governor’s opponents allege that directives made by him early in the COVID-19 pandemic led to nursing home exposures resulting in avoidable deaths. Cuomo is further accused of making efforts to obscure the number of deaths among nursing home residents. 

Here are three takeaways from the hearing: 

Fights over wording 

Wenstrup dedicated a significant portion of his time pressing Cuomo on the language he used in his directive for nursing homes to accept patients testing positive for SARS-CoV-2. 

In March 2020, a directive issued by Cuomo stated nursing homes were to accept patients from hospitals who were deemed medically stable to return. 

The memorandum issued by the New York State Department of Health read: “No resident shall be denied re-admission or admission to the NH solely based on a confirmed or suspected diagnosis of COVID-19. NHs are prohibited from requiring a hospitalized resident who is determined medically stable to be tested for COVID-19 prior to admission or readmission.” 

Cuomo, who rescinded that directive less than two months later in response to public backlash, maintained he was following federal guidance. But Wenstrup took issue with this defense, noting the difference in language that federal authorities used. 

Shortly before the New York governor issued his directive, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) issued guidance stating nursing homes “can accept a resident diagnosed with COVID-19 and still under Transmission Based Precautions for COVID-19 as long as the facility can follow CDC guidance for Transmission-Based Precautions.” 

“You’re a lawyer, so you know the difference between permissive versus prescriptive language, I assume. And the word ‘shall’ and ‘must,’ are they permissive or prescriptive?” Wenstrup asked, to which Cuomo responded that it depended on the “context.”

When pressed by Wenstrup, Cuomo said he did not speak with CMS or the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) before issuing his nursing home directive. 

He further defended the directive by arguing New York state laws requiring nursing facilities to deny admission to people known to have communicable diseases were still in effect at the time. 

Blame Trump 

Throughout the hearing, both Cuomo and Democrats on the panel repeatedly pointed to former President Trump’s conduct during the pandemic response. 

“I often vehemently disagreed with President Trump, because from day one, he willfully deceived the American people,” Cuomo said in his opening remarks.  

“Trump literally said, ‘I take no responsibility,’ and he fabricated political attacks, blaming Democratic governors, including saying that New York issued a health order on March 25 having COVID-positive people enter nursing homes from hospitals, which recklessly and needlessly cost thousands of deaths,” said Cuomo. 

The former New York governor mentioned Trump nearly 10 times in his first statement at the hearing. 

Subcommittee ranking member Raul Ruiz (D-Calif.) said in his own opening remarks that issues including the lack of personal protective equipment were exacerbated “at the hand of former President Trump and his administration’s early blunders.” 

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), ranking member of the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, accused the GOP majority on the panel of deciding to “evade and bypass the central events of the epidemic for totally political reasons,” including “Donald Trump’s reckless and incompetent pandemic response.”

“I appreciate the fact that Governor Cuomo has appeared voluntarily to answer the questions,” said Raskin. “Where is Donald Trump, to answer the questions about his horrific negligence, as identified by his own COVID-19 adviser?”

Questions about numbers 

Another primary issue for Republicans at the hearing was whether Cuomo purposely obscured the number of COVID-19 deaths occurring in New York nursing homes. 

The staff memorandum released by the subcommittee Monday concluded that Cuomo’s office decided to remove out-of-facility deaths, those that occurred after nursing home residents were transferred out of the facility. 

A probe conducted by the New York attorney general’s office in 2021 found that reported COVID-19 deaths in nursing homes were likely undercounted. 

Cuomo told the panel that he was not trying to hide deaths but wanted to avoid reporting inaccuracies. 

“Let’s go count those that were in hospitals, what they call out of facility,” Cuomo said. “Those numbers, in my opinion, were very sketchy and they, depending on the day, they moved around a lot. I was not going to report inaccurate information, so we specifically said, here is the nursing home number without the outer facility number and when we have it, we will provide it.” 

When asked by Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.) why it took his office until February 2021 to include out-of-facility deaths when the initial numbers were released in July 2020, Cuomo again directed blame toward Trump, saying the investigation the Justice Department had launched into New York at the time led to his office auditing the numbers.