New York’s ousted governor to spar with House lawmakers over Covid response

NEW YORK — Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who rose to national prominence and popularity during the height of Covid, is about to face the most high-profile scrutiny yet for his handling of the pandemic — and he plans to mount an aggressive defense.

Cuomo will be publicly questioned Tuesday by the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, a panel reviewing governmental responses to the public health crisis.

Republicans who control the hearing have signaled that they will grill him over his administration’s nursing home policies and why federally provided resources like the USNS Comfort hospital ship — sent to New York City to relieve health care providers — was barely used.

GOP lawmakers insist that the hearing is rooted in nonpartisan efforts to avoid mistakes during future crises and that Cuomo needs to answer questions. Cuomo’s team has telegraphed their disdain for the inquiry and accused Republicans of doing former President Donald Trump’s bidding.

The ex-governor rose to national stardom in the initial months of the pandemic, but later resigned amid sexual harassment allegations, which he has denied. After becoming ubiquitous — and gaining popularity — for his televised Covid briefings, his fall from grace was nothing short of epic.

The hearing is being held at a delicate time for him: Cuomo has been weighing a potential comeback via a run for New York City mayor or even his old job in Albany as the state’s chief executive.

Framing Tuesday’s questioning as a partisan exercise against him comes with a clear advantage.

And while it might help that more than four years since the onset of the pandemic Covid is not as politically potent an issue for voters, the Tuesday appearance may not reflect that general reality for Cuomo.

“For most New Yorkers, life is as close to back to normal as possible,” Siena College pollster Steve Greenberg said. “But Republicans asking Cuomo about what happened in the early days of the pandemic and how that hearing goes could absolutely trigger significant memories for a lot of New Yorkers.”

Cuomo, who was governor of New York for 10 years until his 2021 resignation, is well-versed in how to spar with members of Congress. He appeared before lawmakers multiple times while working in the Clinton administration as the Housing secretary. Cuomo spoke to the subcommittee in a private session earlier this year.

In such settings, Cuomo can be equal parts combative and lawyerly.

The impact of the hearing, too, may be muted. It’s being held the same day as Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris hold their first televised debate.

Exactly what he’ll face is not entirely clear, but it almost certainly will not be easy.

Republicans on the subcommittee set to question Cuomo say it’s valuable to gain insight on the decisions that were made — especially when it came to the state requirement issued in March 2020 that nursing homes and adult living facilities not turn away Covid-positive patients.

“Thousands of New Yorkers died,” Republican Rep. Nicole Malliotakis, the sole New Yorker on the subcommittee, said in an interview. “They were Republicans, independents, Democrats. It really has nothing to do with politics, and it’s about getting answers and accountability for these families.”

Cuomo has tried to “dodge and stonewall” the subcommittee, she said.

“He shows no remorse,” Malliotakis said. “No accountability and no remorse.”

Republicans intend to ask Cuomo about his administration’s requirement that long-term care facilities and nursing homes not turn away Covid-positive patients — a directive issued amid concerns New York’s hospital system would be overrun with sick people.

Aside from that, the federal indictment this month of Linda Sun, a former state employee accused of acting as an unregistered agent of the Chinese government, could also come into play.

Sun, who worked for both Cuomo and his successor, Gov. Kathy Hochul, helped secure personal protective equipment and ventilators from Chinese representatives and business leaders, according to her indictment. The state was later billed $700,000 for the equipment.

But while some GOP lawmakers want to keep the focus on Cuomo, the former governor will likely try to tie them to Trump.

Cuomo has long taken the view that criticism of his handling of the pandemic and the nursing home order — which was rescinded more than a month after it was issued — are rooted in Trumpian attacks.

In his Covid-era memoir, “American Crisis: Leadership Lessons from the COVID-19 Pandemic,” Cuomo wrote that nursing home accusations were, in part, stirred by “Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post” in an attempt by Republicans to cast blame on Democratic governors for the death toll.

Cuomo has long asserted the state was relying on guidance from the federal government and that the nursing home order was legal. The state order itself did not cite federal guidelines.

Cuomo and his top aides in 2020 actively covered up nursing home deaths and undercounted how many people died in the facilities, according to a 48-page memo released by the GOP-led subcommittee on Monday.

The memo, first reported by the Times Union of Albany, details how Cuomo tried to manage the public relations fallout over the nursing home order by withholding and manipulating data in a public state report issued in July 2020.

Cuomo’s spokesperson called the House Republicans’ memo “all smoke and mirrors."

Texas Rep. Ronny Jackson has blasted the former governor for a “nursing home massacre” and Cuomo spokesperson Rich Azzopardi believes the rhetoric from GOP lawmakers is a sign the hearing will be stacked against the former governor.

In an interview, Azzopardi unspooled a string of invective against subcommittee Republicans in response, accusing them of attempting to “run interference” for Trump and downplaying the actions Trump took as president during the pandemic.

“This MAGA committee of foot doctors, disgraced, demoted, naval captains-slash-Trump physicians and Q-Anon nuts are running interference for Trump and his Covid mismanagement,” he said. “Anyone with a brain in their head sees that.”

And yet Democrats on the select panel aren’t jumping to Cuomo’s defense.

They have made clear the hearing will spotlight Trump’s handling of the pandemic ahead of the November election, and that the panel should take an “objective look at the missteps that allowed COVID-19 to spread in our nation’s nursing homes — including the Trump Administration’s failure to ensure adequate supply of testing and PPE that paved the way for the virus to ravage our most vulnerable.”

Nicholas Wu contributed to this report.