Cuomo continues to come under fire for concealing nursing Home death figures.
After Cuomo’s secretary admitted to state Democrats last week that the state has been hiding nursing home deaths since last year, lawmakers from both parties in New York and across the country have come out to condemn Cuomo and New York State, with Democratic State Assemblyman Ron Kim (D-Korea) being one of the staunchest pursuers. On Wednesday (Feb. 17) Cuomo lashed out directly at Kim, who was quick to respond, and was later joined by more.
New York’s Korean-American Democratic Rep. exchanged fire with Cuomo. (Dan Lin / Epoch Times)
Gov. Cuomo looked calm and collected in the face of the wave of criticism on Monday, categorically denying the nursing home scandal and saying “the New York State Department of health fully and publicly reported all viral deaths in nursing homes and hospitals,” contrary to his senior staffer Melissa DeRosa’s admission that “froze the data out of fear that a federal investigation would be detrimental to state Democrats.”
In response, Rep. Kim Tui-seok, a New York state Korean Democrat who had a relative die in a nursing home, told the newspaper, “The facts are the facts, and why they didn’t release the death data was because of political considerations, because there was a federal investigation, and they didn’t release the data and the information because they were afraid (the data) would be used against them politically.”
As a New York lawmaker, Kim Tui-Shi said, he has an obligation to pursue the truth for the public.
“We asked for months because we wanted to legislate to save people’s lives, to help really solve problems and make policy.” And the governor took away that ability from us by not giving us the information we asked him to produce,” Kim Tui Sik said. That’s why this is so important, because he’s lost credibility, and we’re saying: Enough! We need to take away his executive powers and hold them fully accountable.”
In a remote press conference Wednesday afternoon, Cuomo took a shot at Kim Tui-Shi, saying the latter’s criticism of him over the nursing home was based on the state’s 2015 policy on the nail industry, which involved many Asian owners, including Kim Tui-Shi’s political donors, and that’s why Rep. Kim is attacking him over the nursing home at this point, “not illegally but unethical” attack on the nursing home.
In response, Kim Tui-Sik quickly responded sharply to Cuomo in a statement. He said that on March 25 of last year, Cuomo issued an executive order ordering the placement of COVID-19 positive patients in unprepared New York nursing homes, and that Cuomo implicitly included legal immunity for hospital and nursing home administrators in the state budget “at the request of powerful political lobbyists, such as the Greater New York Hospital Association (GNYHA), which is a group of hospitals and nursing homes in the New York area. Greater New York Hospital Association, an organization that gave $1.25 million to his (Cuomo’s) campaign,” Kim Tui-Shi wrote in the statement, “while his administration lied about the numbers.”
The statement went on to say that the state government has been misreporting death figures by 50 percent and blocking information, a move that again benefits longtime donors to his health system. “The governor can smear me in order to distract us from his incompetence in governing. But the facts won’t go away because they’re facts – unacceptable facts that will hold him accountable.”
The war between Cuomo and Kim Tui-Shi has sparked a host of public figures, most of whom side with Kim, including Democratic state Rep. Yuh-LIne Niou, D-Wash. “The legislature didn’t know about the Justice Department’s inquiry; legislators just asked the executive officer and the state health department director at the public hearing, and we were duped. What was said at the last press conference was frightening because it was utterly misleading for the purpose of misinformation.” She tweeted, “Let me also say that the DOJ inquiry doesn’t matter and the governor should not be lying, blocking and covering up information we need to use to make policy to save lives.”
On the same day, Republican state Rep. Mike Lawler of New York introduced a bill to require Cuomo to turn over audio and video recordings of his staff’s conversations with state Democratic lawmakers because “the public has a right to know what other things Cuomo’s aides and Democratic lawmakers discussed.”
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