President Trump fired back at Andrew Cuomo after the New York governor delivered a blistering speech by the Democratic National Convention, criticizing the White House’s response to the coronavirus pandemic.
In a tweet, Trump accused the three-term governor of being responsible for thousands of deaths in nursing homes, citing Cuomo’s controversial policy in late March that essentially ordered nursing homes to accept coronavirus patients from hospitals, a measure designed to free up hospital beds to make. (He finally reversed the order in May).
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“Now AP estimates that the true number of Cuomo killed because of his total incompetence is 11,000, not the 6,000 originally thought!” Trump tweeted.
The state has officially reported a toll house of nursing homes of more than 6,600.
But unlike other states with major outbreaks, New York only counts residents who died on nursing home property, not individuals who were transported to hospitals and died there, according to the Associated Press. The deviation could add thousands of individuals to the death toll from the state nursing home.
The Cuomo administration has refused to release the number, leading to speculation that the state is deliberately manipulating the figures.
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For months, New York was the epicenter of the virus, which eventually killed more than 32,000 people, the highest death toll in the nation.
Trump also tweeted a clip of Cuomo saying the White House team “has been up, responsive, late at night, early in the morning.”
“Cuomo, like his brother Fredo, did not have a very good memory!” he wrote.
Other Republicans were also quick to criticize Cuomo’s speech, in which he slammed the Trump administration for its management of the pandemic.
“Our nation is in crisis, and in many ways, COVID is just a metaphor,” the mayor said. “A virus strikes when the body is weak and when it cannot defend itself. In recent years, America’s body policy has weakened.”
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“Americans learned a critical lesson – how vulnerable we are when we are divided and how many lives can be lost if our government is incompetent,” he added.
Matt Whitlock, a senior adviser to the National Republican Senatorial Committee, called Cuomo’s remarks to describe his administration’s success in treating the virus “so gross.”
The U.S. has close to 5.5 million COVID-19 cases, the most in the world, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. More than 170,000 people have died as a result of the virus – and cases are still rising in large parts of the country.
