President Donald Trump on Tuesday attacked New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) who went after the President’s bungled response to the coronavirus pandemic in remarks at the Democratic National Convention on Monday.
“A horrible Governor,” Trump tweeted of Cuomo early Tuesday, adding, “Cuomo killed 11,000 people in nursing homes alone. Crooked & Incompetent!”
Along with the tweet, Trump shared a post from far-right opinion website The Gateway Pundit which cited an Associated Press report that suggests the death toll due to COVID-19 in New York nursing homes was likely much higher than the 6,600 originally reported.
The AP suggests that based on federal data, roughly a fifth of the state’s homes reported resident deaths from early June to mid July — a tally that is 65 percent higher than the state’s count for that period. The Gateway Pundit appeared to apply this 65 percent margin to all deaths reported in New York nursing homes to arrive at a figure of nearly 11,000 deaths in the state’s nursing homes total.
The comments come as the New York governor compared the coronavirus to the weakening of “America’s body politic” during a DNC speech Monday and called the Trump administration “incompetent.”
“Americans learned a critical lesson — how vulnerable we are when we are divided and how many lives can be lost when our government is incompetent,” Cuomo said.
Although The Gateway Pundit has a penchant for conspiracies, there is legitimate room for criticism of Cuomo’s handling of nursing home deaths. But Trump’s finger-wagging at Cuomo over who holds responsibility for COVID-19 deaths is rich as the nationwide death toll sits officially at 170,000 — and by many reports it has likely already exceeded 200,000.
In a flip-flopping move, the President also tweeted late Monday a campaign video that showed Cuomo appearing to praise the President’s team for being “on it,” when responding to the state’s requests during the height of the state’s outbreak. The clip seemed to suggest Trump deserved credit for Cuomo’s victory which he later decried as insufficient in his accusation of the governor as “Crooked & Incompetent.”
Trump appeared to go after anyone who had a bit of the spotlight at the virtual Democratic convention last night, also taking aim at former First Lady Michelle Obama, and former Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R), among others.
