Former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, testified before the House of Representatives on Tuesday about his early response to the pandemic, with particular focus on how the governor's office managed nursing homes and facing a bipartisan congressional investigation.
Cuomo's appearance at the hearing came after subpoenas from subcommittee Chairman Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio), which released a damning investigative report the day before and led to dozens of hours of testimony from Cuomo and former administration staffers earlier this year.
At the hearing, Wenstrup announced that he had issued additional subpoenas to New York Governor Kathy Haukle (D), seeking documents related to Cuomo's nursing home directives, which Wenstrup accused Haukle of wrongfully concealing.
Reached for comment, Haukl's office said it was surprised by the decision to issue the subpoena but added that “we intend to fully comply with the law in this matter.”
Attending the hearing alongside the governor were family members of New York nursing home residents who have died during the pandemic.
New York State Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-New York) drew applause from the audience as she urged Governor Cuomo to apologize to the families.
Governor Cuomo addressed the families of the victims, condoling their grief and saying he believes “this country should have done better. You deserve an apology.”
For more than two hours, Gov. Cuomo fiercely defended his record on the COVID-19 pandemic as Republicans sharply criticized his COVID-19-era nursing home policies.
The former governor's opponents say orders he issued early in the pandemic led to infections in nursing homes and preventable deaths, and Cuomo has also been accused of trying to hide the number of nursing home resident deaths.
Three takeaways from the hearing were:
The dispute over wording
Wenstrup spent much of his time questioning Cuomo about the language he used when ordering nursing homes to admit patients who test positive for SARS-CoV-2.
In March 2020, Governor Cuomo directed nursing homes to accept patients who were discharged from hospitals and deemed medically stable.
A memo issued by the New York State Department of Health states, “Residents may not be readmitted or denied admission to an NH solely on the basis of a confirmed or suspected diagnosis of COVID-19. NHs are prohibited from requiring hospitalized residents who are deemed medically stable to be tested for COVID-19 prior to admission or readmission.”
Cuomo, who rescinded the order less than two months later after a public backlash, claimed he was following federal guidance, but Wenstrup disputed that defense, pointing to differences in the language used by federal officials.
Just before the New York Governor issued his order, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services issued guidance stating that nursing homes “may admit residents who have been diagnosed with COVID-19 and are taking transmission-based precautions for COVID-19, as long as the facility is able to follow CDC transmission-based precautions guidance.”
“You're a lawyer, so you know the difference between permissive language and prescriptive language. So are 'shall' and 'must' permissive or prescriptive?” Wenstrup asked. Cuomo replied that it depends on “context.”
When pressed by Wenstrup, Cuomo said he did not speak with CMS or the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) before issuing the nursing home directive.
He further defended the directive, arguing that a New York state law was still in effect at the time requiring nursing homes to refuse admission to people known to have a contagious disease.
Blame Trump
Throughout the hearing, Governor Cuomo and Democrats repeatedly pointed to former President Trump's actions during the pandemic response.
“I often disagree vehemently with President Trump because from day one he has intentionally deceived the American people,” Cuomo said in his opening remarks.
“Trump literally said, 'I'm not responsible,' and then he manufactured a political attack by blaming the Democratic governor, saying that on March 25th, New York state issued a health order that recklessly and needlessly led to thousands of deaths by moving people who tested positive for COVID-19 from hospitals into nursing homes,” Cuomo said.
The former New York governor mentioned Trump nearly 10 times during his opening statement at the hearing.
Rep. Raul Ruiz (D-Calif.), the subcommittee's ranking member, said in his opening remarks that problems such as shortages of personal protective equipment were exacerbated “by early mistakes by former President Trump and his administration.”
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), the ranking member of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee, charged that the committee's Republican majority decided to “avoid and ignore central events of the outbreak for entirely political reasons,” including “President Donald Trump's reckless and incompetent pandemic response.”
“I appreciate Governor Cuomo volunteering to appear to answer questions,” Raskin said. “Where is Donald Trump, to answer questions about his horrific negligence, as pointed out by his own COVID-19 advisors?”
Numbers Questions
Another major issue for Republicans at the hearing was whether Governor Cuomo knowingly concealed the number of COVID-19 deaths occurring in New York nursing homes.
A staff memo released by the subcommittee on Monday concluded that Cuomo's office decided to exclude out-of-facility deaths that occurred after nursing home residents were transferred out of the facility.
A 2021 investigation by the New York State Attorney General's Office found that reported COVID-19 deaths in nursing homes were likely undercounted.
Governor Cuomo told the committee on Monday that he wasn't trying to hide the death toll, but rather wanted to avoid inaccurate reporting.
“Let's count the people who were in the hospital, the people outside of what we call nursing homes,” Cuomo said. “The numbers, in my opinion, were very uncertain and fluctuated widely from day to day. We specifically said that because we didn't intend to report inaccurate information. Here are the nursing home numbers, excluding the outside of nursing homes numbers. We will provide those numbers when we have them.”
When asked by Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.) why the governor's office did not tally the number of out-of-facility deaths until February 2021, even though the initial numbers were released in July 2020, Cuomo again blamed President Trump and said an investigation launched in New York by the Department of Justice at the time led to the governor's office auditing the numbers.
