[House Hearing, 118 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
A HEARING WITH FORMER
NEW YORK GOVERNOR ANDREW CUOMO
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SELECT SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND ACCOUNTABILITY
U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
SEPTEMBER 10, 2024
__________
Serial No. 118-129
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Accountability
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available on: govinfo.gov,
oversight.house.gov or
docs.house.gov
______
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
56-885 PDF WASHINGTON : 2024
COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND ACCOUNTABILITY
JAMES COMER, Kentucky, Chairman
Jim Jordan, Ohio Jamie Raskin, Maryland, Ranking
Mike Turner, Ohio Minority Member
Paul Gosar, Arizona Eleanor Holmes Norton, District of
Virginia Foxx, North Carolina Columbia
Glenn Grothman, Wisconsin Stephen F. Lynch, Massachusetts
Michael Cloud, Texas Gerald E. Connolly, Virginia
Gary Palmer, Alabama Raja Krishnamoorthi, Illinois
Clay Higgins, Louisiana Ro Khanna, California
Pete Sessions, Texas Kweisi Mfume, Maryland
Andy Biggs, Arizona Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, New York
Nancy Mace, South Carolina Katie Porter, California
Jake LaTurner, Kansas Cori Bush, Missouri
Pat Fallon, Texas Shontel Brown, Ohio
Byron Donalds, Florida Melanie Stansbury, New Mexico
Scott Perry, Pennsylvania Robert Garcia, California
William Timmons, South Carolina Maxwell Frost, Florida
Tim Burchett, Tennessee Summer Lee, Pennsylvania
Marjorie Taylor Greene, Georgia Greg Casar, Texas
Lisa McClain, Michigan Jasmine Crockett, Texas
Lauren Boebert, Colorado Dan Goldman, New York
Russell Fry, South Carolina Jared Moskowitz, Florida
Anna Paulina Luna, Florida Rashida Tlaib, Michigan
Nick Langworthy, New York Ayanna Pressley, Massachusetts
Eric Burlison, Missouri
Mike Waltz, Florida
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Mark Marin, Staff Director
Mitchell Benzine, Subcommittee Staff Director
Marie Policastro, Clerk
Contact Number: 202-225-5074
Miles Lichtman, Minority Staff Director
Contact Number: 202-225-5051
------
Select Subcommittee On The Coronavirus Pandemic
Brad Wenstrup, Ohio, Chairman
Nicole Malliotakis, New York Raul Ruiz, California, Ranking
Mariannette Miller-Meeks, Iowa Minority Member
Debbie Lesko, Arizona Debbie Dingell, Michigan
Michael Cloud, Texas Kweisi Mfume, Maryland
John Joyce, Pennsylvania Deborah Ross, North Carolina
Marjorie Taylor Greene, Georgia Robert Garcia, California
Ronny Jackson, Texas Ami Bera, California
Rich Mccormick, Georgia Jill Tokuda, Hawaii
C O N T E N T S
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Page
Hearing held on September 10, 2024............................... 1
WITNESSES
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The Honorable Andrew Cuomo, Former Governor, New York
Oral Statement................................................... 7
Written opening statements and the written statements of the
witnesses are available on the U.S. House of Representatives
Document Repository at: docs.house.gov.
INDEX OF DOCUMENTS
----------
* Report, U.S. Department of Health and Human Service's Office
of the Inspector General, ``Certain For-Profit Nursing Homes
May Not Have Complied with Federal Requirements''; submitted by
Rep. Ross.
* Letter, September 9, 2024, Brown University School of Public
Health; submitted by Rep. Ruiz.
* Sun and Hu Indictment, August 26, 2024; submitted by Rep.
Greene.
* Statement for the Record; submitted by Rep. Nick LaLota.
* Statement for the Record; submitted by Rep. Claudia Tenney.
* Statement for the Record; submitted by Rep. Marc Molinaro.
* Questions for the Record: to Hon. Cuomo; submitted by Rep.
Malliotakis.
* Questions for the record: to Hon. Cuomo; submitted by Rep.
Miller-Meeks.
Documents are available at: docs.house.gov.
A HEARING WITH FORMER
NEW YORK GOVERNOR ANDREW CUOMO
----------
Tuesday, September 10, 2024
U.S. House of Representatives
Committee on Oversight and Accountability
Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic
Washington, D.C.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:20 p.m., in
room 2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Brad R. Wenstrup
(Chairman of the Subcommittee) presiding.
Present: Representatives Wenstrup, Comer (ex-officio)
Malliotakis, Miller-Meeks, Lesko, Joyce, Greene, Jackson of
Texas, Ruiz, Raskin (ex-officio), Dingell, Mfume, Ross, Robert
Garcia, and Bera.
Also present: Representatives Stefanik and Jordan.
Dr. Wenstrup. The Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus
Pandemic will come to order. I want to welcome everyone.
Without objection, the Chair may declare a recess at any
time.
Before we start, I ask for unanimous consent for Ms.
Stefanik, Mr. Jordan, Mr. Langworthy, and Mr. Moskowitz to
participate in this hearing for the purposes of questions.
I now recognize myself for the purpose of making an opening
statement.
Mr. Cuomo, welcome. I want to thank you for your
willingness to participate in today's hearing and for
testifying in front of the Select Subcommittee more than 2
months ago.
It took issuing a subpoena to get you to then agree to
testify previously. So, I appreciate you coming in voluntarily
today.
Before we get into the substance we are here to examine, I
want to tell you that this Subcommittee has been threatened
twice this Congress, once by the Chinese Communist Party
through its embassy for examining the origins of COVID-19; and
the second time, by you, through your counsel, for examining
the handling of COVID-19 in nursing homes.
I can tell you, we have not and we will not bow to these
threats. I certainly hope you do not approve of these tactics,
or perhaps you aren't aware of them, Governor Cuomo, which
seems to be a consistent pattern.
Nonetheless, the Select Subcommittee is holding this
hearing today to examine your administration's handling of the
COVID-19 pandemic in New York.
Specifically, we want to focus on the issuance of a
directive that resulted in the admittance and readmittance,
according to the AP, of more than 9,000 potentially COVID
positive individuals to nursing homes.
The Select Subcommittee has been authorized to investigate
the COVID-19 pandemic and to explore lessons learned, positive
or negative, to better prepare for future pandemics.
Since the beginning of this Congress, we've been committed
to conducting a thorough investigation, free from influence and
unafraid to follow the facts wherever they may lead. We've
acted in a transparent fashion, cognizant that Americans
deserve to see our work and review all available information so
they can draw their own conclusions.
We're examining actions taken by Congress, including
measures I voted for, but might want to do differently or
better the next time, so that when the next shocking pandemic
occurs, we have looked back, found what worked and what didn't,
and establish a workable system so that we may endure.
This is an after-action review in hopes of being able to
predict, prepare, protect, and perhaps even prevent the next
pandemic.
In search for best pandemic practices, today's hearing is
focused on New York and the March 25, 2020, directive from the
New York State Department of Health issued under Governor
Andrew Cuomo's leadership.
In this investigation, we have reviewed more than half a
million documents, and we've conducted ten transcribed
interviews with members of your Administration, including you.
Our findings are based on the evidence and testimonies that we
have received.
This is a comprehensive and painstaking endeavor to find
out what happened in New York nursing homes, with more than
2,000 pages of testimony publicly released to support our
conclusions.
Simply put, America cannot move forward without first
looking back. And that includes examining your directive,
Governor.
Mr. Cuomo, I think that you'll agree that New York State
became ``ground zero'' for much of the pandemic in the United
States.
In the earliest stage of the pandemic, COVID-19 was a novel
virus, and there was little information and a lot of unknowns.
But it quickly became clear that COVID-19 was particularly
dangerous for the elderly. We all saw the deadly consequences
of COVID-19 in nursing homes in Washington State, the earlier
epicenter of the pandemic.
There was a thousandfold higher risk of poor outcomes,
specifically hospitalization and death, for older people
relative to younger populations. Therefore, it was critically
important that the public health response prioritize protecting
high-risk populations.
This is an important lesson learned.
This was understood by the U.S. Centers for Medicaid and
Medicare Services and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention, the CDC.
On March 13, 2020, CMS issued guidance--I want to stress
the word ``guidance''--that specifically directed nursing homes
to not accept COVID-19 positive patients if they were unable to
do so safely, and to only accept individuals if the nursing
home could follow CDC transmission-based guidance.
Again, this guidance was a nonbinding, federally issued
guidance. That's reflected by its language.
The CMS guidance used terms such as ``can'' and
``should''--consistent with the tone of guidance.
``A nursing home can accept a resident''--this is a quote--
``A nursing home can accept a resident diagnosed with COVID-19
and still under Transmission-Based Precautions for COVID-19 as
long as the facility can follow CDC guidance for Transmission-
Based Precautions.''
``Nursing homes should admit any individual''--``should
admit any individual that they would normally admit to their
facility, including individuals from hospitals where a case of
COVID-19 was or is present.''
This was not the case with the directive issued by your
administration on March 25, 2020.
While I know you like to play semantics and refer to it as
an ``advisory, it's clear that it's anything but. Merriam-
Webster defines an ``advisory'' as ``containing or giving
advice.''
Your ``advisory'' refers to itself in the language as a
``directive'' in the very first paragraph, with your name at
the top, Governor Cuomo. And it says, ``This directive is being
issued to clarify expectations for nursing homes receiving
residents returning from hospitalization and for nursing homes
accepting new admissions.''
Merriam-Webster defines a ``directive'' as ``an
authoritative order or instrument issued by a high-level body
or official.'' That's what that was on March 25, 2020.
In your case, that carries the weight of all.
Your directive uses words like ``shall,'' ``must,'' and
``prohibit.'' It directs that ``all Nursing homes must comply
with the expedient receipt of residents returning from
hospitals to a Nursing home.''
It directs, ``No resident shall be denied readmission or
admission to the Nursing home solely based on a confirmed or
suspected diagnosis of COVID-19.''
An authoritative directive from the state of New York with
the authority of law. ``No resident shall be denied readmission
or admission to the Nursing home solely based on a confirmed or
suspected diagnosis of COVID-19.''
It directs that ``nursing homes are prohibited''--
prohibited--``from requiring a hospitalized resident who is
determined medically stable to be tested for COVID-19 prior to
admission or readmission.''
See here's the problem. Medically stable can still mean
highly contagious.
The language in this directive is not advisory, and it's
not nonbinding. The CMS guidance was and still is advisory and
nonbinding.
``Directive'' with the authority of law supersedes
``guidance.'' ``Prohibited'' means not allowed. And prohibiting
testing for COVID-19 is nowhere in the CDC guidance.
Because of this language, the March 25 directive was dubbed
a ``must admit'' order by the public and press, and rightfully
so. Those words are not in there, but that's how it became
known in the common vernacular in the public and press.
But your directive was not consistent with Federal
guidance, nor consistent with medical doctrine. You do not put
highly contagious patients in with vulnerable patients subject
to infection, and in this case death.
Your former commissioner of the Department of Health told
us that you received the phone call from the Greater New York
Hospital Association asking you to do something about nursing
home residents that the hospitals wanted to be able to
discharge. He testified that you were told that these patients
needed to ``go home.''
And while you testified that you were not aware of the
directive until April 20, 2020, you decided to keep it after
learning about it. It remained in effect for almost 3 weeks
after you knew about it.
Governor, you own this. It's your name on the letterhead.
This is your directive, whether you knew about it or not.
You're the leader. The buck stops with you, or at least it
should.
It's important to look at your Administration's record.
Two weeks after you learned about the order, your office
changed the methodology of how nursing home fatalities were
categorized. You removed out-of-facility deaths that occurred
at the hospital, altering the full accounting of nursing home
deaths.
During your transcribed interview, when describing why you
chose not to disclose the number of nursing home residents who
died at hospitals, you remarked, ``Who cares?''
I'll tell you who cares about this. Doctors and nurses
trying to save lives care about this. People dying and their
families, they care about this.
If someone contracted COVID-19 in the nursing home and died
at the hospital, it matters. It is scientifically significant
to know where, how, and why someone contracted COVID-19 and
died if we're going to prevent this in the future. That is
important data.
In July 2020, you released a report under the auspices of
the New York State Department of Health that blamed nursing
home employees rather than your directive for the deaths that
occurred in nursing homes. Your spokesperson, Rich Azzopardi,
described this report as ``peer reviewed.'' I'm not sure if Mr.
Azzopardi understands the peer-review process.
An effective response to the pandemic required a
willingness to adapt to evolving data, to new information. It
will be required for the next pandemic as well.
It's important to review the data--actual data--to
recognize the dangerous and disastrous consequences of your
directive--a directive that goes against medical protocols and
is considered by many medical professionals to be malpractice.
You wrote in your book that it wasn't your, quote, ``place
to filter or edit the truth,'' end quote. But it's clear that
it seemed to be someone's place.
You said, ``Who cares?'' But we do care about the truth
because it's obvious that you don't, like the out-of-facility
nursing home deaths. It's a truth that matters.
And that's why we're here today: to ask why you made the
decisions that you or your executive team made; to try and
account for your actions and responses without naming and
blaming others, as you have repeatedly done, because we need to
help America be prepared for the next pandemic and to protect
American lives.
And because infectious diseases like respiratory viruses
don't recognize borders, we want to protect lives beyond our
borders as well.
I look forward to a strong, on-topic discussion today.
And I would now like to recognize Ranking Member Ruiz for
the purpose of making an opening statement.
Dr. Ruiz. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Let me begin by taking a moment to acknowledge the seniors
that our Nation has lost to COVID-19, as well as the grief of
the families who lost parents and grandparents during the
pandemic. Each and every life taken by the virus is a tragedy,
and I am sorry for your loss.
With 4 years having passed since the height of the COVID-19
pandemic, many of us have become numb to the grave uncertainty
that we faced in 2020. That spring, as a novel virus took hold
across our Nation, hospitals overflowed with patients as
hundreds--and eventually thousands--of Americans died each day.
Frontline healthcare workers were forced to wear garbage
bags as gowns and life as we knew it had come to a total halt.
Things were in absolute chaos.
And in the midst of that chaos, public officials at every
level of government were left to make challenging decisions in
real time with constantly evolving information and extremely
limited resources.
Now, with the darkest days of the pandemic behind us thanks
to the Biden-Harris Administration's historic work getting
vaccines in arms, safely reopening schools and businesses, and
jump-starting our economy, we have the opportunity to look back
on those decisions and learn from them. And in doing so, we can
acknowledge that in future public health crises, we would make
certain decisions differently.
One such case is policies that arguably required the
readmission of COVID-19 patients back into nursing homes
without infection prevention and control in an early effort to
relieve hospital strain.
In hindsight, knowing now what we do about how COVID-19
spreads, including through aerosolized droplets and by
asymptomatic carriers, these policies were a misstep, and they
are something we can learn from as we look to better prepare
for future pandemics.
However, we must be comprehensive in our examination of
where things went right and where things went wrong in
responding to COVID-19. And we would be doing our Nation's
seniors and nursing home residents a disservice by not taking a
hard and honest look at the data that has emerged from that
period.
And this data shows us that the driving force behind the
infections and fatalities that occurred in our Nation's nursing
homes was broader community spread, which led to dedicated
staff inadvertently bringing the virus into these vulnerable
settings.
And as we look back on policy missteps that put our
Nation's seniors at risk, I would be remiss if I did not
mention that the issue of community spread, the driving factor
is one that was severely exacerbated by the severe shortages of
PPE and tests that our Nation experienced at the hand of former
President Trump and his Administration's early blunders.
These failures hampered our efforts to get a handle on the
outbreak of COVID-19 and left states to fend for themselves
when it came to obtaining critically needed supplies to protect
our most vulnerable.
As Ranking Member, I have championed objectivity and called
for the Select Subcommittee to put people over politics.
And in that vein, I want to make something abundantly
clear. Any public official who sought to obscure transparency
or mislead the American people during the COVID-19 pandemic
should answer to the American public regardless of political
party.
And that is why the former Governor and members of his
Administration faced serious questions from both sides of the
aisle about allegations that they misrepresented nursing home
fatality data to evade public scrutiny during the closed-door
transcribed interviews that led up to this hearing.
It is also why I have been so forceful in my condemnation
of the former President and his reckless efforts to downplay
the threat of COVID-19 in the early days of the pandemic.
The American people deserve honesty, transparency, and
integrity from their public officials, full stop.
At the same time, I continue to believe that the greatest
thing we can do for the American people is contribute to
forward-looking work of preventing and preparing for future
pandemics.
That is why today I am leading Select Subcommittee
Democrats in announcing new legislation to strengthen infection
control and prevention efforts in our Nation's nursing homes.
The SAFER Nursing Homes Act is forward-looking legislation
that makes new, robust investments in the Centers for Medicare
and Medicare Services survey and certification efforts which
uncover incidents of poor or substandard care to be available
for these crucial oversight activities. Our new legislation
builds on the Biden-Harris Administration's legacy of
protecting and advancing the health of our Nation's seniors.
Earlier this year, the Administration finalized its long-
term care staffing rule which establishes new Federal standards
to ensure that our parents and grandparents in nursing homes
receive the highest quality care.
And in 2022, President Biden and Vice President Harris took
on Big Pharma and signed into law the historic Inflation
Reduction Act which kept the monthly cost of insulin at $35 for
seniors a month and finally allowed Medicare to negotiate for
lower prescription drug prices.
One thing is certain: There is still more we can and must
do to protect and advance the health of our Nation's seniors.
As we look to strengthen our Nation's preparedness for
future pandemics and public health threats, it is my hope that
the Select Subcommittee can play a meaningful role in this
work.
And in service of every senior who we lost too soon at the
hands of the pandemic, it is my hope that we can work together,
every member of the Select Subcommittee, to make progress on
this critically important mission so that we can save future
lives.
With that, I yield back.
Dr. Wenstrup. Thank you, Dr. Ruiz.
Before we proceed with the witness statement, I want to
announce a subpoena to the Governor of New York for documents
related to Mr. Cuomo and his March 25 directive.
The subpoena is vitally important as this inquiry
continues, and because the current Governor is improperly
withholding documents from Mr. Cuomo's time that are responsive
to our requests.
We hope that Governor Hochul lives up to her promise of
transparency and proceeds without further delay.
Our witness today is Mr. Andrew Cuomo. Mr. Cuomo was
Governor of the state of New York from 2011 to 2021.
Pursuant to Committee on Oversight and Accountability rule
9(g), the witness will please stand and raise his right hand.
Do solemnly swear or affirm that the testimony that you are
about to give is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but
the truth, so help you God?
Mr. Cuomo. I do.
Dr. Wenstrup. Thank you.
Let the record show that the witness answered in the
affirmative.
The Select Subcommittee certainly appreciates you for being
here today, Governor Cuomo, and we look forward to your
testimony.
Let me remind the witness that we have read as much as we
could of your written statement, and it will appear in full in
the hearing record as requested. Please limit your oral
statement to 6 minutes as we agreed upon.
As a reminder, please press the button on the microphone in
front of you so that it is on and the members can hear you.
When you begin to speak, the light in front of you will
turn green. After 5 minutes, the light will turn yellow. When
the red light comes on, your 6 minutes has expired, and we
would ask that you please wrap up.
I now recognize Mr. Cuomo to give an opening statement.
STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE ANDREW CUOMO
FORMER GOVERNOR
STATE OF NEW YORK
Mr. Cuomo. Thank you.
First, to the families of the victims here today and across
the country, I am sorry for your loss, and I believe you are
owed an apology because this country should have done better.
There is no reason why we lost 1.2 million people, more than
any country on the globe, when we have the most sophisticated
medical system.
This committee must deliver real answers so it never
happens again, and I am here today to help in that mission.
As you know, New York was hit first and worst by COVID
through no fault of its own. I did daily briefings, and
millions listened in because they wanted--no, because they
needed--information and guidance.
And, yes, I often vehemently disagreed with President
Trump, because from day one he willfully deceived the American
people, denying COVID's very real threat. Telling us that it
was like the flu. It would go away by Easter. It was a
Democratic hoax. Use Clorox. And his lies and denials delayed
our response, let the virus spread, and this country never
caught up.
Trump literally said, I take no responsibility, and he
fabricated political attacks, blaming Democratic Governors,
including saying that New York issued a health order on March
25 having COVID-positive people enter nursing homes from
hospitals, which recklessly and needlessly caused thousands of
deaths.
And then Trump weaponized the Department of Justice,
starting investigations against New York and three other
Democratic states.
Trump's shocking allegations, all false, were designed to
shift blame from him to Democrats, and they did. They also
created great pain, confusion, and fear for families.
And this Subcommittee, run by Republicans, repeats the
Trump lies and deceptions, and it inherently makes two powerful
admissions.
First, the report does not deny--contrary to what New York
Republicans said for 4 years--it does not deny that it was
actually the Trump Administration, the CMS and CDC, that first
said in early March that COVID-positive people could go from
hospitals to nursing homes even if they were still infectious.
That was your ruling.
The committee attempts to argue that the New York advisory
didn't follow the CMS guidance and overrode safety laws. But
that has already been investigated by the New York Attorney
General who said you're wrong and who confirmed the March 25
advisory was in total compliance with Federal guidelines and
that all New York's nursing home laws remained in effect,
period.
In addition, the report provides no evidence to support
Trump's main allegation, repeated for 3 years, that New York's
guidance killed thousands in nursing homes. In fact, the report
finds no causality whatsoever. Not one death. All hype.
Why? Because it never happened. All credible studies now
say that COVID came into nursing homes through community spread
and infected staff, not hospital admissions or readmissions.
Numbers don't lie. Thirty-five states had a higher death
rate in nursing homes than New York, including Ohio. Most
Republican states actually had a higher death rate in nursing
homes than New York in 2020. And that fact damns them and
reveals their hypocrisy.
But these are all diversions to blame New York and other
states for the culpability of the Federal response, which was
malpractice. There was no preparation, no PPE, no testing, no
masks, no science, no leadership.
As one Republican Governor said about Trump, the General
was missing in action, leaving 50 states bidding against each
other for scarce medical supplies. It was the COVID ``Hunger
Games.'' The Federal Government was nowhere to be found.
New Yorkers remember well those traumatic days when the
only sound that echoed through the empty streets were the
constant sirens from ambulances; when mass graves were being
dug on Hart Island; when bodies were being stored in
refrigerated trucks. Our hospital system nearly collapsed. And
Trump was threatening to send Federal troops to blockade New
York so no one could leave. That was the Federal response.
And, yes, New Yorkers were scared. But they were New York
tough, and they showed that when--showed that they responded to
government leadership when they believed it was based on facts.
In that moment in New York, there were no Democrats and
Republicans, there were just New Yorkers, helping and relying
on each other. They were guided by their better angels. They
followed science, took vaccines, wore masks, and acted
responsibly, one for another. New Yorkers' heroic actions
brought us back from the brink and saved many, many lives.
When COVID-19 started in 2020, we had the highest death
rate in the country. But at the end of 2021, remarkably, New
York had a lower death rate than 30 states. But even with all
New Yorkers did, we lost far too many, and I am sorry for every
life lost.
In closing, I know this is a political year, and I have
testified before many, many congressional committees, but this
issue really matters. There will be another pandemic, and they
will pull out your report for guidance. I hope it has real
answers. God forbid 1.2 million people died in vain.
Thank you.
Dr. Wenstrup. Thank you.
I now recognize myself for as much time as I may consume
for questions, with equal time being afforded to the Ranking
Member of the committee.
You know, the question is asked, did the Federal Government
require that the state of New York mandate that its nursing
homes admit or readmit residents? The answer is no.
Did the Federal Government mandate that your state issue a
directive that prohibited a nursing home from testing an
admitted or readmitted resident for COVID-19? The answer is no.
In fact, I don't believe I'm aware of any other state
besides yours that expressly prohibited a nursing home from
testing returning or newly admitted residents. Only in New
York. The other states that have been alleged issued similar
orders; none were in place as long as New York's.
So many states reversed course. And I've surmised, because
it doesn't take a doctor to realize that it was a dangerous,
misguided plan.
Nevertheless, Governor, you've maintained and testified to
us since the pandemic that your directive was based on and
consistent with CMS and CDC guidelines.
You're a lawyer, so you know the difference between
permissive versus prescriptive language, I assume. And the
words ``shall'' and ``must,'' are they permissive or
prescriptive? Governor? Are the words ``shall'' and ``must''
permissive or prescriptive?
Mr. Cuomo. It depends on the context.
Dr. Wenstrup. Well, those words are right in the directive.
This was not advisory or guidance.
You have also claimed that the directive followed CMS and
CDC guidance. Did you ever speak with anyone at CMS or CDC
about the directive beforehand?
Mr. Cuomo. You'd have to ask--the Department of Health had
those conversations.
Dr. Wenstrup. So, what you're saying is you did not ever
speak with anyone at CMS or CDC about the directive beforehand?
Mr. Cuomo. I----
Dr. Wenstrup. I'm asking you. I can ask them later, but I'm
asking you.
Mr. Cuomo. I spoke to the CMS and CDC about a number of
matters. I don't believe I----
Dr. Wenstrup. Did you speak to them about the directive
beforehand, your directive?
Mr. Cuomo. I did not speak to them about this directive, to
the best of my recollection.
Dr. Wenstrup. OK. Not even after? After the directive, did
you speak with them?
Mr. Cuomo. To the best of my recollection, no.
Dr. Wenstrup. OK.
Mr. Cuomo. Nor did they speak with me.
Dr. Wenstrup. Not even to ensure that what you----
Mr. Cuomo. No, they never called.
Dr. Wenstrup. OK. In fact, no one we interviewed said they
consulted with them to ensure the applicable science was being
followed.
Former White House Coronavirus Coordinator Dr. Deborah
Birx, she was in charge of all Federal guidance in 2020. She
testified that your order absolutely violated CMS guidance.
Is it your position that Dr. Birx lied?
Mr. Cuomo. My position is you deceived Dr. Birx. You
suggested to Dr. Birx that we did not have transmission-based
precautions in place. And that was not true. As you know, the
Attorney General conducted this investigation. This is not new
news. These charges were made 4 years ago.
You then had three Department of Justice investigations
that reviewed them. You then had an Attorney General's
investigation that reviewed them.
The Attorney General of New York, who governs the New York
law and interprets the New York law, found exactly contrary to
what you are saying, and said it repeatedly, and you know she
said it repeatedly.
She said, quote, ``The March 25 advisory did not require
admission of COVID-19 patients into nursing homes,'' but rather
said the admissions could not be denied solely. Solely.
Merriam-Webster says that means only on the basis of the COVID
diagnosis.
The Attorney General said while some commentators--and
these were Republican commentators she was referring to--
suggested the Department of Health March 25 guidance was a
directive that nursing homes accept COVID-19 patients even if
they could not care for them, such an interpretation would
violate statutes and regulations that place obligations on
nursing homes to care for residents.
The March 25 guidance was consistent with the CMS guidance.
The March 25 guidance was consistent with the CMS guidance if
nursing homes have the ability to adhere to infection
prevention and control recommendations.
It was also consistent with CDC-published transmission-
based precautions. That's the attorney general's position and
opinion, and that's the law of the state of New York.
And when you spoke to Dr. Birx, you posed the question
suggesting we did not have infection protections in place, and
that was not true.
Dr. Wenstrup. Mr. Cuomo, you're a lawyer, so you know the
difference between permissive versus prescriptive language, I
assume.
Mr. Cuomo. In a context, I will interpret it for you, as
the attorney general did here.
Dr. Wenstrup. Are the words ``shall''----
Mr. Cuomo. As the Attorney General did here.
Dr. Wenstrup. Are the words ``shall'' and ``must''
permissive or prescriptive?
Mr. Cuomo. It depends on the context. In this context, the
nursing homes were not directed to accept anyone. It was up to
the discretion of the nursing home. That was made abundantly
clear.
All the laws of the state of New York remained in effect.
As a matter of fact, the law of the state of New York says they
can only accept people who they can care for.
The law of the state of New York says they have to do a
full diagnosis before a person comes in. If they have a
communicable disease, they have to have a written letter saying
the person is not infectious or an infection plan in place.
So, every law in the state of New York governing nursing
homes was in effect, sir.
Dr. Wenstrup. Well, Governor, there might be a lot of
lawyers who disagree with you.
Using the words--using the----
Mr. Cuomo. The Attorney General----
Dr. Wenstrup. It's my--excuse me. Using the words ``shall''
and ``must,'' these words are right here in the directive. This
was not advisory or guidance. It wasn't.
You have also claimed that the directive followed CMS and
CDC guidance. Did you ever speak with anyone at CMS or CDC
about the directive beforehand?
Mr. Cuomo. The Attorney General said it follows CMS
guidance and is consistent with CMS guidance.
When you talk about attorneys, yes, I'm an attorney. Yes,
I'm the former Attorney General of New York. But the law is
interpreted by the current Attorney General.
That is how she interpreted the law. That is the law that
was in place. That was the law that was in place during the
pandemic. She has sued nursing homes for misconduct during the
pandemic based on that law.
Dr. Wenstrup. Thank you, Governor.
My question was, did you ever speak with anyone--you,
Governor Cuomo--did you ever speak with anyone at CMS or at CDC
about the directive beforehand--you, Governor Cuomo?
Mr. Cuomo. I--you asked that question, and I answered the
question, and I said no.
Dr. Wenstrup. Did you or not?
Mr. Cuomo. I said no. I answered the question no.
Dr. Wenstrup. OK. Thank you.
Not even after, correct?
Mr. Cuomo. I said--yes, and they never called me after. You
would think if they had a problem with the directive they would
have called. If it was so outrageous----
Dr. Wenstrup. You didn't--you didn't even call to----
Mr. Cuomo [continuing]. They would have called.
Dr. Wenstrup. You didn't even call to ensure that you
were--what you were declaring was accurate. Yes or no?
Mr. Cuomo. I don't know if the Department of Health
issued----
Dr. Wenstrup. Did you, Governor Cuomo--right now I'm
talking to you, Governor Cuomo.
Mr. Cuomo. Yes.
Dr. Wenstrup. Did you even attempt to ensure that what you
were declaring was accurate? I'm asking you.
Mr. Cuomo. Yes, I understand.
Dr. Wenstrup. I don't want to hear about anyone else.
Mr. Cuomo. OK. Department of Health issued 400 advisories,
several per day. I did not speak----
Dr. Wenstrup. Thank you.
Mr. Cuomo [continuing]. To CMS about 400 advisories.
Dr. Wenstrup. Thank you.
In fact, no one we interviewed said they consulted with
them to ensure the applicable science was being followed.
Former White House Coronavirus Coordinator Dr. Deborah
Birx, she was in charge of all Federal guidance in 2020, she
testified that your order absolutely violated CMS guidance.
Is it your position that Dr. Birx lied.
Mr. Cuomo. You misrepresented the facts to Dr. Birx.
Dr. Wenstrup. I'm asking you the question. I'm stating what
she said. I'm not misrepresenting anything. Because this is
what she said, and I just want you--I'm asking you if Dr. Birx
lied. That's my question.
Mr. Cuomo. Dr. Birx said that the March 25 advisory, which
you read to her in your words, didn't have appropriate
infection control procedures. That was by your representation.
The Attorney General's representation is the law of the
state of New York was in effect, which has an infection control
plan, mandates they only accept people who they can handle,
mandates that if the person has a communicable disease that
it's treated before they accept a person or they don't.
So, the infection-based control precautions were in place.
The question to Dr. Birx was: Would you allow admission if
there were no transmission-based precautions? And she said no.
And I would agree. But they were in place.
Dr. Wenstrup. So many states reversed course. And I
surmise, because it doesn't take a doctor to realize that this
is a dangerous, misguided plan taking place in New York.
Nevertheless, Governor, you maintain, testified to us since
the pandemic, that your directive was based on and consistent
with CMS and CDC guidelines. And you're a lawyer, so you know
the difference between permissive versus prescriptive language,
I assume. Are the words ``shall'' and ``must'' permissive or
prescriptive?
Mr. Cuomo. It's not my lawyer. It's the Attorney General of
the state of New York who interprets the law. That's how the
law works, sir.
Dr. Wenstrup. I now recognize the ranking member, Dr. Ruiz
from California, for 5 minutes of questions.
Dr. Ruiz. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Something I believe every member of the Select Subcommittee
would agree on is the obligation that every public official has
to be transparent with the American people, especially during a
public health crisis.
Transparency, including with public health data, is
necessary for public trust, and it's expected of those who hold
elected office.
What's more, accurate and comprehensive data is critical to
develop forward-looking policies to prevent and prepare for
future pandemics.
As an emergency physician, I know firsthand that when
dealing with a new and evolving public health crisis, every
piece of data can help build a better picture of what we are
facing and inform better decisions.
Governor Cuomo, I appreciate your voluntary participation
in today's hearing, as well as your cooperation with the Select
Subcommittee in recent months.
After reviewing nearly 200,000 pages of documents and
conducting ten closed-door interviews, questions still remain
regarding the extent of which your administration was
transparent in reporting nursing home fatality data, both with
respect to the daily numbers and the numbers included in the
July 6, 2020, New York State Department of Health report.
As an initial matter, let's talk generally about your
administration's public reporting of COVID-19-related deaths.
So, Governor Cuomo, your administration publicly reported
COVID-related deaths with a fatality tracker available on a
public website, correct?
Mr. Cuomo. Yes, sir.
Dr. Ruiz. OK. The New York State Department of Health also
posted a daily report specific to nursing home deaths on a
publicly available web page, right?
Mr. Cuomo. I don't know specifically what the Department of
Health had separately.
Dr. Ruiz. OK. Initially, the nursing home fatality data
included deaths both in facility and out of facility, meaning
in the nursing homes or nursing home patients who were moved
out of the facility to a hospital, for instance.
However, in early May 2020, this reporting changed to only
in-facility deaths. Was this change your decision?
Mr. Cuomo. No, sir.
Dr. Ruiz. Whose decision was it?
Mr. Cuomo. I don't know.
Dr. Ruiz. This change obviously made the reported number of
nursing home-related deaths lower.
Do you know if that was the reason for changing the
reporting?
Mr. Cuomo. No. If I may, Doctor, every day I personally did
a daily briefing and reported the number of deaths. The surest
place with the most certainty. The most certainty was this is
the place where they died.
Every night we got a census from the hospitals. Every night
we got a census from the nursing homes. Total nursing home
deaths. Total hospital deaths. I had confidence in those
numbers.
As the Republicans started this nursing home scandal
theory, there were more requests for more subcategories. At-
home deaths. Probable deaths. Presumed deaths. In-facility.
Out-of-facility.
And dealing with those subcategories, the numbers were less
than certain. And they were highly problematic, because you
were calling up a nursing home and basically asking them to do
a forensic audit in the middle of a pandemic. Please track this
patient. They went from the nursing home to home and what
happened? They went from the nursing home to the hospital; can
you find out what happened?
The confidence level in the out-of-facility deaths or
presumed deaths was very weak and very low. It was very
important to me that whatever I said I knew was accurate.
They asked for out-of-facility deaths. They asked for
presumed deaths. I said when we have accurate numbers I will
release them, but I'm not going to release numbers that I don't
believe and we have reason to believe were false. And there was
a lot of double counting and a lot of mistakes in those
numbers.
And, Doctor, my briefings attracted people because they got
the truth. And whereas President Trump would say a different
thing every day, I only said what I knew to be a fact. And I
was not going to put out a number unless I knew it was true. I
said I was not putting out the out-of-facility deaths until I
knew they were true.
But the total number was unchanged. In other words, the
out-of-facility deaths would have just reallocated deaths from
hospitals to nursing homes and reduce the hospital number. But
the total death number was exactly the same.
Dr. Ruiz. So, the daily reporting was not the only way the
New York State Department of Health shared nursing home
fatality deaths with this public. There was a report released
on July 6, 2020, that purported to be an in-depth analysis of
nursing home data.
During the past several months of transcribed interviews,
Select Subcommittee staff heard from multiple witnesses that
this report started off as a data-driven scholarly article with
work from several Department of Health employees.
But prior to its release, decisions were made by members of
your Executive Chamber, who were not public health experts, to
change the numbers in this report. Again, the changes made
lowered the number of nursing home-related fatalities included
in the report.
So, were you aware of the fact that there were seemingly
two versions of what was released as the July 6, 2020, New York
State Department of Health report?
Mr. Cuomo. There were--the purpose of the July 6 report was
not to do a scholarly article for a medical journal. We're in
the middle of a pandemic. And there may have been people who
wanted to do a scholarly article for a medical journal. But
this had a much more practical purpose. We're in the middle of
a pandemic. How was COVID getting into the nursing homes? That
was the question. How was COVID getting into the nursing homes?
And that was the purpose of the report.
There were multiple sets of numbers, because the numbers
kept changing, because the nursing homes were under tremendous
pressure, and this was a tremendous accounting task that we
were asking them to do.
The report used the verified numbers. And I said--because
this was a question every day, Doctor, this was not like
surreptitious--I said when we have the out-of-facility numbers
that we believe are accurate, we will release them. They were
not in the July 6 report.
The health commissioner said he had the verified numbers.
There were unverified numbers. They both backed the same
conclusion in the report. So, he decided to use the verified
numbers. And we said when we audit the unverified numbers, we
will release them.
So, it was always--everyone was always clear. Here's the
total deaths. Here are the subcategories that we feel confident
about. Here is what we don't feel confident about.
Also, this was very political at the time. President Trump
was accusing me of overcounting the number. He said I was
inflating the number to make him look bad, that there were
actually fewer deaths, and I was inflating the number.
So, it's ironic that now the accusation is, ``Oh, no, you
were undercounting the number,'' right? You have to pick it at
one point.
Dr. Ruiz. So let me just ask you directly. And let me
remind that you are under oath, Governor.
Did you direct your staff to make the number of nursing
home-related fatalities lower than they actually were?
Mr. Cuomo. No. We said these are the numbers without the
out-of-facility death numbers, which we will add when they're
accurate, which will reduce the hospital count number, but the
total death number stays exactly the same.
It was an allocation question. Do you allocate the death to
the nursing home or do you allocate to it to the hospital? But
the total death number was the same.
And the only reason the Republicans were asking these
questions about nursing home deaths was to further their
conspiracy theory that there were massive deaths in nursing
homes, which in my opinion was a pure diversion from the
Federal malpractice that was going on. Because everybody knows
that COVID did not get into nursing homes from admissions or
readmissions, it came in from community spread.
And the reason why you had so many infected staff workers
going to work was because the Federal Government had no PPE, no
masks, no equipment, no warning, no preparation. We had a
President who lied to us from day one.
Dr. Ruiz. As ranking member of the Select Subcommittee, I
am committed to following the facts for an objective analysis
of how COVID-19 impacted our communities across the country,
all with the goal of putting us on stronger footing to prevent
and prepare for future pandemics.
As I said, accurate and complete data is vital to ensuring
that we as a country are as prepared as possible to handle the
next pandemic better than the last.
And with that, I yield back.
Dr. Wenstrup. I now recognize the Chairman of the full
committee, Mr. Comer from Kentucky, for 5 minutes of questions.
Mr. Comer. Thank you.
Governor Cuomo, do you stand by the March 25, 2020,
directive?
Mr. Cuomo. The March 25 directive was based on the CDC/CMS
guidance.
Mr. Comer. Do you stand by it?
Mr. Cuomo. They both do the same thing. Both CMS and CDC--
--
Mr. Comer. You had said that--excuse me. You had said that
the directive followed CDC and CMS guidance.
Are you aware of anyone in your office that asked CDC or
CMS about the policies in the directive?
Mr. Cuomo. The Attorney General opined legally they were
the same and said the March 25 order was consistent with the
Federal guidance, and that's how it was enforced.
Mr. Comer. OK. So, you stand by it. And you say it followed
Federal guidance.
Then why did it need to be superseded by executive order?
Was this because you were getting----
Mr. Cuomo. It was superseded later on--I'm sorry. I didn't
mean to interrupt you.
It was superseded later on because we then got to a
position in May, I believe, where we had enough testing
capacity, and we mandated testing for nursing home staff.
Mr. Comer. So, it had nothing to do with public relations
or----
Mr. Cuomo. And also, the--this political--this was all
politics, all the time.
Mr. Comer. OK.
Mr. Cuomo. And it bothered and scared people because they
didn't know who to believe.
Mr. Comer. OK. OK.
On June 7, 2020, your executive assistant sent this email,
writing, and I quote:
``This is going to be the great debacle in the history
books. The longer it lasts, the harder to correct. We have a
better argument than we made. Get a report on the facts because
this legacy will overwhelm any positive accomplishment.
``Also, how many COVID people were returned to the nursing
homes in that period? How many nursing homes? Don't you see how
bad this is? Or do we admit error and give up.''
Ms. Benton is your executive assistant. I believe she's
sitting behind you. Did she write this email on your behalf?
Mr. Cuomo. Yes.
Mr. Comer. Governor, did you have an email account while
you were Governor?
Mr. Cuomo. No. Well, I may have had one, but I didn't use
it.
Mr. Comer. OK. Is there a reason?
Mr. Cuomo. I haven't used it in years.
Mr. Comer. Did you communicate in other ways with your
staff, text messages or BlackBerry messages?
Mr. Cuomo. Yes.
Mr. Comer. You did.
You just said that you stood by the directive, but this
email asks if it was time to admit error and give up.
Was the March 25 directive an error?
Mr. Cuomo. No. This was tongue--that--the last line, sir,
was tongue in cheek. This was an ongoing, raging political
debate where the Republicans were saying March 25 caused
deaths. So, I said----
Mr. Comer. I understand.
Governor, you testified that you were not aware of the
directive until April 20, 2020, almost a month after it had
been issued.
When you were asked about it at a press conference, after
you learned of the order, did you have any concerns about the
directive?
Mr. Cuomo. When I was asked about it at the press
conference, I was not aware of it. If I had been aware of it,
my answer would have been very simple. I would have said: It
follows--Ask Donald Trump. It follows----
Mr. Comer. Did you ask questions after you learned about
the directive?
Mr. Cuomo. After I learned about it, yes, I asked
questions.
Mr. Comer. Give me some examples.
Mr. Cuomo. I was debriefed by the commissioner of health
who said this is the theory of CMS and CDC and DOH, that these
people are no longer infectious.
Mr. Comer. Did you ever discuss terminating or amending the
directive after you learned of it?
Mr. Cuomo. When it was described to me that CDC, CMS, and
DOH all thought this was a good idea, and they had a medical
theory behind it, that these were noninfectious people, et
cetera.
Mr. Comer. So, for time's sake, Governor, to return to the
email, why did you direct your staff to get a report on the
facts?
Mr. Cuomo. Well, just to counter the newspaper story.
Mr. Comer. So, on July 6, 2020, the Department of Health
issued the report you requested.
Was this report peer reviewed?
Mr. Cuomo. I don't know.
Mr. Comer. It was not.
Was this report in a medical journal?
Mr. Cuomo. It was not. It was a government report.
Mr. Comer. It was not.
Was the----
Mr. Cuomo. It was not from a medical journal.
Mr. Comer. Was the Executive Chamber involved in the
drafting and editing of the report?
Mr. Cuomo. I'm sure the Executive Chamber was involved.
Mr. Comer. It was.
So, you requested a report on the facts, and you got a
report that was not peer reviewed, not in a medical journal,
and drafted and edited by the very body accused of wrongdoing.
So, Governor, do you stand by the July 6 report?
Mr. Cuomo. So, this is in real time we're acting. An agency
is taking an action. You ask the agency for a report on the
action.
Mr. Comer. Governor, my time has expired.
Mr. Chairman, what's clear is the Governor was desperate to
change the narrative to dispel of the notion that his
Administration failed nursing home residents, that he failed to
ask any questions.
And, Governor, I believe you failed to follow the facts.
And it's now clear that you should have done what your
assistant suggested in the email, and that was admitted error
and given up.
Mr. Cuomo. If you believe the CMS and CDC were wrong, then
that would be your position.
Dr. Wenstrup. I now recognize the Ranking Member of the
full committee, Mr. Raskin from Maryland, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Raskin. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much.
And, Dr. Ruiz, thank you.
Thank you for your testimony, Governor Cuomo.
The allegations that have been brought against you today
are obviously serious. And because we on the Oversight
Committee believe in accountability for all public officials, I
appreciate your willingness to participate voluntarily in
today's hearing and to answer every question coming at you and
to address what the majority is saying.
[Chart.]
Mr. Raskin. But I confess, Mr. Chairman, that I'm appalled
by the majority's decision to evade and bypass the central
events of the epidemic for totally political reasons.
The broader and authentic context for this hearing is, of
course, the spectacular failure of Donald Trump's reckless and
incompetent pandemic response, a failure which led to the
unnecessary deaths of tens or hundreds of thousands of American
citizens, according to Trump's own officials.
In fact, Donald Trump's knowing and willful lies cost
America at least tens of thousands of deaths, according to his
own White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator Dr. Deborah
Birx, who the Chairman just cited as a decisive professional
and medical authority. And she told the Select Subcommittee
that more than 130,000 lives would have been saved during the
Trump Administration if basic and proven public health measures
had been implemented instead of disregarded.
On January 22, 2020, when America identified its first case
of COVID-19, Trump stated, quote, ``We have it totally under
control.'' He goes on to say, ``One day, it's like a miracle.
It will disappear. It is going away.''
He then proceeded to abdicate any responsibility for our
pandemic response and said, quote, ``I don't take any
responsibility at all.''
When he systemically failed to supply the states with
critical medical equipment and PPE he set off an interstate
death match for medical supplies, telling Governors simply to,
quote, ``Try getting it yourselves.''
Donald Trump said about the virus, ``I always wanted to
play it down.'' Despite privately acknowledging that COVID-19
was deadly stuff, he deceived America, assuring everyone the
virus was, quote, ``just a little like the regular flu.''
And he embraced the herd immunity theory that some of his
advisers were promoting, which was again a dangerous and
destructive thing to do.
After watching the bodies pile up outside hospitals and
morgues, Trump then announced he had magical cures. He gave
quack advice that hydroxychloroquine or disinfectant might be
effective treatments for COVID. And he predicted the virus
would, quote, ``like a miracle, disappear by Easter.''
Despite advice from Dr. Fauci, Trump touted
hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin as, quote, ``game
changers'' to be put in use ``immediately.''
This is the context within which we are discussing a very
serious and yet nonetheless state-based detail of one policy
that's being controverted.
And I appreciate the fact that Governor Cuomo has appeared
voluntarily to answer the questions. Where is Donald Trump to
answer the questions about his horrific negligence as
identified by his own COVID-19 adviser?
Mr. Raskin. Governor Cuomo, New York was one of the states
hit first and hit hardest by the pandemic. And I'm sure you
have some regrets about the decisions that were made in the
Federal Government, at the state level including in New York,
at the local level.
But do you have any doubt that Donald Trump's lies about
the virus and his deliberate failure to develop a national
policy to help the states made it more difficult for New York
and other states to manage their pandemic response?
Mr. Cuomo. Congressman, I lived this like few others. I
have little doubt that the problem here was what happened with
the Federal Government.
They want to blame the states. They want to focus on New
York. I understand why; it's a blue state, et cetera. New York
was the 29th lowest in nursing home deaths. Most Republican
states had many more deaths. It----
Mr. Raskin. Is that per capita or hard numbers you're
talking about?
Mr. Cuomo. That is pro rata, so per 1,000 nursing home
deaths. So, the state of New York, for example, had 70 deaths
per 1,000 in nursing homes in 2020. Ohio, for example, had 97
deaths. You don't see Ohio here today, or any of the other
Republican states. It's just a diversion.
What happened here and the number that matters is 1.2
million died, more than any country on the globe. How do you
explain that the United States lost more people than China that
has four times the population?
And we know why we lost--why this happened: because the
President denied it for months, the CDC had no tests, there was
no PPE. And we lost 3 months before the President woke up and
realized that there was a virus, and it was too late because
the infection had spread and you're not going to catch up.
Mr. Raskin. Well, did you have a problem with then-
President Trump repeatedly praising President Xi for the
pandemic response in China and saying that he was doing a
marvelous job?
Mr. Cuomo. The President's response was horrific and the
major cause the--the major cause why the virus spread and why
it became out of control. And that's why----
Dr. Wenstrup. The gentleman's time has expired.
So, I now recognize Ms. Stefanik from New York for 5
minutes of questions.
Ms. Stefanik. Thank you, Chairman Wenstrup.
Today is long overdue. And just as a reminder for the
public tuning in, we are here today on behalf of the over
15,000 vulnerable seniors in nursing homes who died because of
Governor Cuomo's fatal executive order on March 25 damning them
to this horrible fate, including constituents in my district
and every congressional district in New York State.
I also want to recognize the families and advocates who
have been working tirelessly on behalf of their loved ones
amidst this grief, who have been smeared, attacked, and
denigrated by Governor Cuomo and his most senior aides.
Let me begin, first, after months of inquiry and
investigation, we now know irrefutably what New Yorkers have
known for years: that Governor Cuomo himself and his most
senior aides ordered, directed, and executed this deadly
executive order counter to CMS and CDC guidance.
Our investigation also reveals--a bipartisan
investigation--that the disgraced former Governor and his top
aides were caught covering up their culpability and guilt to
selfishly save their shredded reputations.
I want to start with the March 25 directive. Isn't it
correct, former Governor, that Dr. Zucker served as your
commissioner of health during the COVID crisis?
Mr. Cuomo. Yes.
Ms. Stefanik. And you have stated and shared that you have
great respect for Dr. Zucker's work and professionalism. You
have said that in the past. Is that correct?
Mr. Cuomo. I don't know if I've used those words, but I'll
take your word for it.
Ms. Stefanik. Do you have respect for Dr. Zucker and his
professionalism?
Mr. Cuomo. Yes.
Ms. Stefanik. Are you aware that Dr. Zucker testified that
the March directive was prompted by a direct request to you,
former Governor Cuomo, from the Greater New York Hospital
Association? Are you aware of that fact?
Mr. Cuomo. I'm not aware of his testimony, no.
Ms. Stefanik. Well, that was what he testified to this
committee.
Dr. Zucker also went on to say, quote, ``Greater New York
Hospital Association called the Governor and the team. We were
all there in a conversation,'' end quote.
I also want to add, are you aware that another staffer at
the Department of Health testified that the March 25 order did
receive signoff from the Executive Chamber? Are you aware of
that fact?
Mr. Cuomo. No. I'm aware of the testimony to the exact
opposite that you received.
Ms. Stefanik. That is incorrect. He said, ``Yes,
absolutely.''
Mr. Cuomo. That's not the testimony that I have before me.
Ms. Stefanik. The testimony I have before me, when he was
asked whether the March 25 order was signed off by the
Executive Chamber, the answer was, ``Yes, absolutely.''
And on top of that, Dr. Zucker testified that, quote,
``everything goes through the Governor's office.''
And, by the way, Governor, you and I both know that under
your terrible leadership in New York everything does go through
the Governor's office.
My followup is, it wasn't just the directive itself,
Governor; it was the cover-up. This investigation found that
you, former Governor, and your most senior aides made a
deliberate decision to exclude certain COVID-19-related nursing
home deaths to hide and undercount the actual mortality rate in
nursing homes.
And for the public, Governor Cuomo changed the methodology
of counting nursing home fatalities to exclude out-of-facility
deaths, to undercount those.
I want to ask you, what period of time were you negotiating
for your book deal?
Mr. Cuomo. Congresswoman, if there was a fact in what you
said----
Ms. Stefanik. No, I'm asking you a question. I'm asking you
a question. What dates----
Mr. Cuomo. Well----
Ms. Stefanik [continuing]. Did you negotiate for your book
deal? That is the question before you today.
Mr. Cuomo. I'm answering the question that you asked.
Ms. Stefanik. No, no, no. The question that I asked----
Mr. Cuomo. My testimony says, ``During that time, did you
have any discussions with the Executive Chamber regarding the
need for guidance?''
Ms. Stefanik. That's not the testimony I'm referring to.
Mr. Cuomo. ``Not that I recall.''
Ms. Stefanik. ``Absolutely'' was the answer.
Mr. Cuomo. ``Not that I recall.''
Ms. Stefanik. Governor, ``Absolutely''--you're throwing
your staff----
Mr. Cuomo. Also----
Ms. Stefanik [continuing]. Under the bus. You are culpable
for this. My question to you is----
Mr. Cuomo. Also----
Ms. Stefanik [continuing]. When were you negotiating for
your multimillion-dollar advance deals for your book as seniors
were dying in nursing homes?
Mr. Cuomo. Also----
Ms. Stefanik. That is the question in front of you.
Mr. Cuomo [continuing]. You can't make up facts,
Congresswoman.
Ms. Stefanik. You're the one making up facts.
Mr. Cuomo. I'm----
Ms. Stefanik. You're the one who undercounted nursing----
Mr. Cuomo. The attorney general----
Ms. Stefanik [continuing]. Home deaths. You're the one who
I want to ask right now----
Mr. Cuomo. The attorney general said the exact opposite.
Ms. Stefanik [continuing]. You apologized today, but there
are families sitting here. I want you to turn around, look them
in the eye, and apologize----
Mr. Cuomo. This is not----
Ms. Stefanik [continuing]. Which you have failed to do.
Mr. Cuomo. Congresswoman----
Ms. Stefanik. Will you do it?
Mr. Cuomo [continuing]. This is not about political
theater; it's about----
Ms. Stefanik. No, this is about accountability.
Mr. Cuomo [continuing]. Giving answers. Why did 1.2 million
Americans die? Why did more----
Ms. Stefanik. Why are you----
Mr. Cuomo [continuing]. Americans die than any----
Ms. Stefanik. No, no, no, no, no.
Mr. Cuomo [continuing]. Country on the globe?
Ms. Stefanik. You're the former Governor----
Mr. Cuomo. Why did you let the President----
Ms. Stefanik [continuing]. Disgraced, under oath----
Mr. Cuomo [continuing]. Lie----
Ms. Stefanik. This executive order----
Mr. Cuomo [continuing]. To the people of the United States?
Ms. Stefanik [continuing]. Was under your name. It was
counter to CDC and CMS----
Mr. Cuomo. Why did you let President Trump lie?
Ms. Stefanik. This is about those seniors, Governor. They--
--
Mr. Cuomo. I understand you were running for Vice
President----
Ms. Stefanik [continuing]. Deserve to hear from you, in the
eye----
Mr. Cuomo [continuing]. But you should've stood up for the
constituents first.
Ms. Stefanik [continuing]. That you apologize that you were
negotiating for a multimillion-dollar book deal.
It is a disgrace. There is a reason why you are the former
Governor of New York State, and you will never hold elected
office again.
I yield back.
[Applause.]
Dr. Wenstrup. I now recognize Mrs. Dingell from Michigan, 5
minutes.
Mr. Mfume. Mr. Chairman, I have a point of order.
I believe the rules of decorum prohibit applause and boos
and other expressions during a hearing.
Dr. Wenstrup. The audience will please refrain from
applause or other voices of concern from the audience.
I now recognize Mrs. Dingell from Michigan for 5 minutes of
questioning.
Mrs. Dingell. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Governor Cuomo, thank you for appearing before the Select
Subcommittee today.
As you are hearing and you are aware, your Administration
has faced allegations that it did not transparently report
nursing home deaths. I want to give you the opportunity to
respond to those allegations in a calm way.
On July 6, 2020, the New York State Department of Health
released a report related to nursing home COVID-19 deaths. That
report has since been criticized, and we've been discussing,
for undercounting deaths by excluding those deaths that
occurred outside of the facility--for example, at the hospital.
How do you respond to that criticism, shortly--briefly?
Mr. Cuomo. Congresswoman, we were reporting total deaths
every day--the number in hospitals, the number in nursing
homes.
This political dispute started, how many deaths in nursing
homes; let's go count those that were in hospitals, what they
call ``out-of-facility.'' Those numbers, in my opinion, were
very sketchy, and they--depending on the day, they moved around
a lot.
I was not going to report inaccurate information, so we
specifically said, here is the nursing home number without the
out-of-facility number, and when we have it, we will provide
it.
But it didn't change the conclusion of the report. It
specifically said, we do not now have the out-of-facility
number; we will provide it to you once we audit it.
We did audit it. It was wrong, over 20 percent, and then it
was corrected.
Mrs. Dingell. OK----
Mr. Cuomo. But the total number of--which was 35,739 total
deaths--that is what never changed.
Congresswoman, I lived this every day----
Mrs. Dingell. OK. I have some more questions for you. Thank
you.
Mr. Cuomo. OK.
Mrs. Dingell. At your transcribed interview, you told us
that Dr. Howard Zucker, the head of your Department of Health,
decided what numbers to put in the July 6 report. But for his
part, Dr. Zucker testified that he does not know how that
decision was made.
A member of your COVID-19 task force told us that Melissa
DeRosa made the decision to remove the out-of-facility deaths
from the July 6 report. Other members of your COVID-19 task
force testified similarly.
In your transcribed interview--and you've heard it referred
to here--you said, ``Let's say there's a 3,000 differential,
2,500. Who cares? What difference does it make in any dimension
to anyone about anything?''
I want to say, Governor Cuomo, I care. Every member of this
committee cares. And, more importantly, every family member who
lost a family member cared. So, let's be very clear about that.
With that said, can you help us reconcile the contradiction
between your testimony and the testimony offered by individuals
you handpicked for your COVID-19 task force?
Mr. Cuomo. Congresswoman, there were a number of
subcategories: in-facility, out-of-facility, presumed,
hospital, at-home deaths. And those categories, yes, as data
points, are going to be important.
In the middle of the pandemic, in the middle of the frenzy,
when nursing homes are shorthanded and they're working to save
lives, to ask them to go through an accounting process wasn't
the best use of time.
The total number never changed, and that's what was most
important. And we said, when we do an audit of the individual
categories, we will release the individual category numbers.
So that was always clear, that the total death number was
right, but we had to do the allocation within the categories.
Mrs. Dingell. So, we've heard there were concerns about
data errors, particularly during the spring and summer of 2020,
leading your Administration not to publish the out-of-facility
deaths. But it wasn't until February 2021 that your
Administration decided that its nursing home report should
include those deaths.
Why did it take so long for your Administration to include
those out-of-facility deaths in the nursing home reports?
Mr. Cuomo. That's a good question, Congresswoman. Because
we were doing the audits of the numbers. President Trump
started a Department of Justice investigation against New York
and several other Democratic states on nursing home data. It
was a political investigation; that was clear. But the easiest
indictment is if a false number was created. So those numbers--
--
Dr. Wenstrup. I now recognize Ms. Malliotakis from New
York----
Mr. Cuomo [continuing]. Needed to be double-checked and
triple-checked.
Dr. Wenstrup [continuing]. For 5 minutes of questioning.
Your time has expired, gentleman.
Ms. Malliotakis. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Governor Cuomo, I had planned a series of questions, but
after reading your opinion piece in this Sunday's Daily News
and hearing your testimony here today, I'll use my time to
correct the half-truths and lies that insult New Yorkers.
You cite CMS data to claim New York had the 12th-lowest
death rate at the end of 2020. However, CMS began collecting
data in mid-May, so the deaths when your deadly directive was
in full force were not included. Your Administration reported
6,000 deaths. The true toll was 11,400, nearly double.
You assert your March 25 directive never mandated nursing
homes to admit COVID-positive patients. This is false. Your
directive very clearly says no resident shall be denied, and it
prohibited COVID testing before admission.
In your op-ed and again today, you claim that the directive
mirrored CDC guidelines. This is also false. Both CMS and CDC
used permissive language like ``can'' and ``should,'' not
``shall'' and ``must,'' and only if facilities could isolate
and take precautions.
Former CMS Administrator Seema Verma, former White House
Dr. Deborah Birx, both testified that your action violated
those guidelines. CDC and CMS would never recommend prohibiting
testing, yet your directive did--all while you were sending
tests to the Hamptons for your family.
And you also falsely claimed this directive was the
standard across the country, even trying to hide behind
Minnesota Governor Tim Walz's directive, when Minnesota's
guidance actually included caveats, precautions, it didn't
prevent nursing homes from testing patients like your directive
did.
You claimed that the March 25 directive was to protect
hospital capacity. But you had the U.S. Navy Comfort ship and
the Javits Center deployed and--and it remained underutilized.
You said that nursing homes could still have denied entry
to those they could not safely care for under existing law. But
you suspended that very regulation in a March 7, 2020,
executive order stripping nursing homes of that ability to deny
admission.
And on top of all of that, you say New York didn't
undercount nursing home deaths. Yet your chief of staff
directed that the deaths of nursing home residents outside the
facility not be counted.
And, later, exactly 1 month after the New York Attorney
General exposed that you underreported the nursing home deaths
by 50 percent, your chief told Democrat lawmakers in New York
that--she admitted that the true toll was withheld to avoid
attracting prosecutors. That, Governor Cuomo, is a cover-up.
You've tried to blame everyone, including the CDC, the CMS,
nursing home operators, nursing home staff, an unidentified
low-level DOH staffer that supposedly sent out this directive,
and of course President Trump. But the buck stops with you.
You testified that you don't know who signed off on this
March 25 directive, and your DOH commissioner did not either,
you say, despite both of your names--both of your names--being
at the top of the letterhead.
In the closed-door testimony, both you and your chief of
staff told the committee it was some mid-level staffer at the
Department of Health. But the commissioner and the deputy
commissioner of the Department of Health said it was your
Executive Chamber that approved it.
You did not have a name on June 11. Do you have one today?
Who signed off on this directive?
Mr. Cuomo. Well----
Ms. Malliotakis. Was it you?
Mr. Cuomo [continuing]. Let me try to----
Ms. Malliotakis. Was it the Lieutenant Governor, Kathy
Hochul? Was it your----
Mr. Cuomo. Yes, let me----
Ms. Malliotakis [continuing]. Chief of staff, Melissa--no,
it's a ``yes'' or ``no.'' I mean, was it you? Was it Kathy
Hochul? Was it your chief of staff, Melissa DeRosa? Or maybe it
was that communist spy. Maybe it was that communist Chinese
spy, Linda Sun, who worked in your administration.
Mr. Cuomo. Well, maybe----
Ms. Malliotakis. Let me just please finish, and I'll let
you answer at the end.
Because I find it hard to believe, Governor, that the
Governor of the state of New York--you're known to be a
micromanager, right?--who did a briefing every day for 111
straight days. We find it hard to believe that you did not know
that this directive, with such consequences, went out with your
name at the top and that you didn't get to the bottom--right?
Don't you want to get to the bottom of who did issue this,
after all the media attention, the public scrutiny, the deaths
that resulted?
You've shown--I'm sorry, but you've shown no empathy,
you've shown no remorse, you show no responsibility for the
actions of your Administration. And that's simply--that's just
not leadership.
Mr. Cuomo. Yes----
Ms. Malliotakis. And I will say also that Lieutenant--your
lieutenant and successor, Governor Kathy Hochul, is just as
determined to hide the truth from New Yorkers as you were.
In her very first speech as Governor, she promised
transparency, including the release of documents related to
nursing homes in the pandemic, and to this day she has not
fulfilled that promise. And I'm glad that we've issued a
subpoena to get those documents.
So, who issued this executive order, this deadly directive?
Mr. Cuomo. Congresswoman----
Ms. Malliotakis. And why didn't you reverse the directive
when you had alternative facilities like the Javits and South
Beach Psychiatric Center on Staten Island?
Mr. Cuomo. Yes. Congresswoman, quickly, the numbers I cited
are published on the NIH website. It's a study that corrects
for the numbers not received in May.
The--Dr. Birx and Dr. Seema were not presented an honest
account of what the New York law says. It's the attorney
general who said and interprets New York laws. And you were in
the legislature, and you know that the----
Dr. Wenstrup. The time has expired.
Mr. Cuomo [continuing]. Attorney general's interpretation--
--
Dr. Wenstrup. Governor, the time has expired.
Ms. Malliotakis. Can he answer----
Mr. Cuomo. Sorry----
Dr. Wenstrup. I now recognize--yes, maybe for the record
you can answer the question that she actually asked.
Dr. Wenstrup. I now recognize Mr. Mfume from Maryland for 5
minutes of questions.
Mr. Mfume. Mr. Chairman, thank you. I want to thank both
you and Ranking Member Ruiz for calling us together again in
this Select Subcommittee.
I've often, as you know, Mr. Chairman, gone on the record
to vocalize my support for our work on this committee on the
pandemic and the aftermath, because, at its very core, if we do
it correctly, it will better prepare all of us for whatever
comes next. And what comes next just could very well be another
pandemic.
So, my definition of the right way is to kind of leave the
theatrical politics aside and to act in a bipartisan, solution-
oriented manner. It doesn't mean that we agree, doesn't mean
that we're going to disagree. But at the end of the day, we've
got to be driven, I think, by a real effort to peel off the
theatrics and to try to get to where we, in fact, want to go.
I'm glad that on several occasions today both you, Mr.
Chair, and the Governor have expressed your heartfelt
condolences for these families that are left behind with empty
tables to continue, 4 years later, dealing with the aftermath
of this.
I didn't really, coming on this committee, feel that there
was a personal connection except when I first heard the
testimony of our colleague from California, Mr. Garcia, and how
he lost both his mother and his father--not in New York, but
across the Nation, these sort of stories still haunt all of us.
And so that's why I think that this committee's work is
almost sacred in that regard. We've got to find a way to do all
that we can to get information, to build a roadmap, and to try
to limit any further damage.
Governor Cuomo, thank you for appearing here voluntarily
today. A couple of quick questions.
Is it your testimony, sir, that the nursing home deaths
were not caused by CMS, CDC, or DOH policies but, rather, as
you state--that that was, in fact, not the case, but you have
more to say about it. And I want you to take this moment to say
that, if you would.
Mr. Cuomo. Thank you, Congressman.
This is a red herring. I understand it's sensational and
it's been great politics for 4 years and it's a diversion from
Federal responsibility, which is the main goal of this
committee's majority.
But every study says that COVID got into the nursing homes
from infected staff--community spread, infected staff.
Neighborhoods that had higher COVID infection rates had higher
COVID infection rates in their nursing homes. It literally was
walked in by the staff.
Why? Because January, February, March, April, you had no
ability to test nursing home staff, because, between the World
Health Organization and CDC, they never created enough tests
for the nursing home staff.
Mr. Mfume. Uh-huh.
Mr. Cuomo. So good people went home, went out to a
restaurant, got the bug, they brought it to work the next day.
Every study says that. And that has nothing to do with
hospital admissions or readmissions.
Mr. Mfume. And, Governor, is it your testimony that you
told your team only to release information that had been
verified?
Mr. Cuomo. I was not going to release inaccurate
information. I leave that to President Trump.
Mr. Mfume. Is it also your testimony that an error in
judgment was made by you because of an assumption that the CDC
and CMS and other Federal agencies were actually providing
official guidance, only to be counteracted by the GAO, which
made a finding that contradicted that?
Mr. Cuomo. One hundred percent. If there was a mistake,
it's that DOH was relying on CMS and CDC, and that was before
we found out that there was political interference by the
President and mass confusion in the management.
Mr. Mfume. And, Governor, you have taken a moment to
express condolences; to offer, also, the fact that you were not
perfect in these decisions; that, I assume, if you had a chance
to do it all over again, there would be some different
approaches to this.
What do you want this committee to take from your testimony
today, as we juxtapose this against this history that has gone
on now for 4 years?
Mr. Cuomo. Congressman, I think, forget the politics of the
4 years and the rhetoric of the 4 years--because that's all it
was. Look at the facts. How did the virus spread? This is
science. This is medicine.
We know what happened. We know what happens when you have
no testing and no PPE and no vials. We know the science and why
this country did worse than every other country on the globe.
Dr. Wenstrup. Thank you.
Mr. Mfume. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
Dr. Wenstrup. I now recognize Dr. Miller-Meeks from Iowa
for 5 minutes of questions.
Dr. Miller-Meeks. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And thank you, Governor Cuomo, for testifying before the
Select Subcommittee today.
I was hoping that we would see a Governor Cuomo that was
less defensive and that was remorseful over what happened in
New York, but I see that that person has not shown up today.
The COVID-19 pandemic is long behind us. As a matter of
fact, we were already behind it, through it, at the time this
Administration came into office. And an overwhelming majority
of Americans have some form of immunity, whether from prior
infection--which was denied by the current Administration and
CDC, both Dr. Fauci at NIH and Dr. Walensky as testifying
before this committee. And we know more about the virus than
ever before. That is undeniably true.
But because of this Select Subcommittee, we've also had the
opportunity to review policies, guidance, and practices from
the pandemic to determine what worked and what didn't work.
And let me also say, I'm one of the few members that was on
this committee the last term--now my fourth year--as was
Representative Raskin, my colleague on the other side of this
dais, who could've easily asked you to testify when they were
in the majority. However, you were never asked to testify
during that 1921-22 period. And they could've also asked a
former President to testify. So let me just say that that
could've be done.
You know, as a nurse, physician, a veteran, a former
Director of Public Health, I really understand that we need to
have policies going forward that guide us for the next
pandemic.
And there were two aspects of the coronavirus that health
officials understood very clearly from the beginning from the
Chinese Communist Party. One was how contagious it was, and
two, how contagious it was among older people and people that
had medical conditions that were at an increased risk of death
from the infection.
And in February 2021, the Associated Press published an
article outlining how, in New York State, more than 9,000
elderly patients who still had active coronavirus infections
were sent back to nursing homes after being discharged from the
hospital. Despite this clear lack of medical oversight, that
number was 40 percent higher than what the New York Health
Department originally reported.
And in the same report your Administration published, the
overall number of deaths in long-term-care facilities was
underreported by half, regardless of what excuses you present
today to us.
The State Health Commissioner tried shifting the blame by
claiming most nursing home deaths were from asymptomatic staff
who unknowingly transmitted infection. As a former State Public
Health Director, I find it completely appalling and
disrespectful that you tried to conscript your own health
department in covering up your harmful policies.
You prohibited nursing homes from requiring testing. The
CMS guidance allowed you and allowed nursing homes, allowed
states, to have the decision on who got admitted if they had
proper allocation and proper separation in facilities. However,
if you had an infection control program, as you said here today
now, that prohibited someone infectious from being admitted to
a nursing home, why would you tie the hands of nursing homes by
prohibiting testing?
You said, how is COVID getting into nursing homes? How in
the hell would you know if you prohibited testing? Testing was
available. The CDC made mistakes in their testing; we
understand that. But you prohibited nursing homes from testing
individuals coming from hospitals who could've easily had
COVID-19.
Governor Cuomo, despite you clearly understanding the
likelihood of COVID-19 running through nursing homes like fire
through dry grass, as you said to Jared Kushner, your
Administration still required facilities to accept elderly
residents who had active COVID-19 infections and you prohibited
testing. It really is shameful. But yet you want to continue to
deflect the blame.
So, did you advise Governor Newsom of California or
Governor Murphy of New Jersey or Governor Whitmer of Michigan
on what they should do with nursing home admissions?
Mr. Cuomo. All Democrats. What a coincidence.
Dr. Miller-Meeks. Well, I'm going to ask you, did you talk
to Governor Reynolds?
Mr. Cuomo. I was on multiple calls with the Vice President
and the Governors Association. CMS----
Dr. Miller-Meeks. Thank goodness they didn't adopt your
policies.
Mr. Cuomo. CDC----
Dr. Miller-Meeks. Did you talk to Governor Reynolds?
Mr. Cuomo. CDC and CMS allows the transfer of infectious--
COVID-positive infectious people. And New York nursing homes do
have the right----
Dr. Miller-Meeks. Sir, they did not----
Mr. Cuomo [continuing]. To deny anyone.
Dr. Miller-Meeks. They did not--there was specific
guidance. You did not follow the guidance. You did not allow
your own public health officials to follow the guidance that
was given to them.
And in addition to which, we now know some states didn't
adopt 6-feet distancing, nor did they adopt closing schools--
i.e., Iowa did not--despite CMS's guidance, which could have
been altered or adhered to by the directive of a particular
state.
So, I find you complicit in what's occurred. And I find the
fact that you don't take any--you know, any remorse or any
accountability and responsibility for what happened to be
appalling.
Thank you, and I yield back.
Mr. Cuomo. Congresswoman----
Dr. Wenstrup. I now recognize Ms. Ross from North
Carolina----
Mr. Cuomo. Congresswoman, if you----
Dr. Wenstrup [continuing]. Five minutes for questions.
Mr. Cuomo [continuing]. Believe CDC and CMS were wrong----
Dr. Wenstrup. Governor Cuomo----
Mr. Cuomo. Yes?
Dr. Wenstrup [continuing]. Your time has expired. The time
has expired.
Mr. Cuomo. But I would like to respond to----
Mr. Raskin. Mr. Chairman, point of order about this. When a
question----
Dr. Wenstrup. There wasn't a question.
Mr. Raskin. OK, but in general----
Dr. Wenstrup. There wasn't a question.
Mr. Raskin. Well, I've noticed a pattern, Mr. Chairman.
When a question is posed to the witness, does he have the
opportunity to answer it before he moves on? Because,
otherwise----
Dr. Wenstrup. Mr. Raskin----
Mr. Raskin. A point of order.
Dr. Wenstrup. Mr. Raskin, you got an additional, like,
minute and a half. Your----
Mr. Raskin. And the guy before me got 2 minutes.
Dr. Wenstrup [continuing]. Time expired when you asked the
last question. We need to----
Mr. Raskin. OK. You're changing the subject. I'm asking you
a point of order.
Dr. Wenstrup. We need to keep this----
Mr. Raskin. I'm asking you a point of order, which is, if
someone poses him a question with 4 minutes and 59 seconds
expired----
Dr. Wenstrup. He wasn't asked a question.
Mr. Raskin [continuing]. He can answer it? Yes?
Dr. Wenstrup. It's not a valid point of order because it's
now Ms. Ross's time.
Mr. Raskin. So, you're not going to answer the question?
Ms. Ross. Today's hearing raises important questions about
the work the Federal Government must do to protect and advance
the health of our Nation's seniors and nursing home residents.
During our prior hearing on this topic in May of last year,
we heard about the essential role that COVID-19 vaccines played
in turning the tide on the pandemic in nursing homes.
However, the Trump Administration's sluggish and
disorganized roll-out of the COVID-19 vaccine in the final
weeks of 2020 cost us valuable time, at a period when thousands
of Americans were dying every day.
Moreover, families across the country were overwhelmed by
feelings of helplessness as they could not visit their loved
ones or know how they were doing.
During the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, nursing
homes were under extreme pressure, and we've heard about that
today. They faced severe shortages of PPE, staffing issues, and
lacked sufficient infection-control measures. Nursing homes
were hotspots for COVID-19 infections due to the vulnerability
of elderly residents in close living conditions.
By May 2020, over 28,000 nursing home residents and staff
nationwide had died from the virus. By early 2021, my home
state of North Carolina reported that about 6 percent of total
COVID-19 cases occurred in long-term-care facilities, but these
cases accounted for approximately 44 percent of the state's
deaths.
Nursing home administrators, such as Amanda Pack from White
Oak Manor in Charlotte, described the situation as one of the
most terrifying experiences in her decades-long career. Several
facilities faced overwhelming outbreaks, with hundreds of
residents and staff infected.
This was a nationwide problem, not just a New York problem.
Governor Cuomo, what challenges did your state face in
working with the Trump Administration on the COVID-19 vaccine's
roll-outs? And what improvements could've been made to the
vaccine roll-out process that would've saved lives?
Mr. Cuomo. Congresswoman, thank you very much.
The Congressman quoted me as saying ``fire through dry
grass.'' You didn't have to be a genius to understand that this
was going to be a problem in nursing homes. The first
experience was the Kirkland nursing home in Seattle,
Washington, where 30 out of about 100 residents were COVID-
positive. So, we knew exactly where it was going, and nothing
was done.
The first step is testing. You cannot do anything without
testing. And, in this case, the testing--first of all, the CDC
insisted on doing testing themselves. They would not allow our
state laboratory to do testing. Second of all, the CDC refused
to use the WHO, which had already come up with a test that was
developed in Germany and----
Ms. Ross. Governor, I would like you to answer the question
about the vaccines, because I have one more thing----
Mr. Cuomo. I'm sorry.
Ms. Ross [continuing]. To do after you finish.
Mr. Cuomo. The vaccine roll-out was painfully slow. It was
constant mismanagement and delay by the Federal Government.
Ms. Ross. Thank you.
Just last month, the Department of Health and Human
Services' Office of the Inspector General released a report
highlighting the need for strengthened state survey and
oversight activities to ensure that infection-prevention
requirements are appropriately followed.
Mr. Chairman, I'd like to seek unanimous consent to enter
this HHS OIG report into the hearing record.
Dr. Wenstrup. So ordered.
Ms. Ross. I also want to point out that Dr. Ruiz's Safer
Nursing Home Act is about the kind of forward-thinking work
that this committee needs to do. I hope that it's a bipartisan
bill. I hope that we can get it done before the end of this
Congress. Because, going forward, sustained investment in these
types of activities will help ensure that our Nation's nursing
homes are better equipped to respond to future infectious
disease threats, and my hope is that this legislation can be a
starting point.
Thank you, and I yield back.
Dr. Wenstrup. I now recognize Mrs. Lesko from Arizona for 5
minutes of questions.
Mrs. Lesko. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
For the American people, I want to read parts of the
directive from March 25, 2020, that you, Governor Cuomo,
directed.
It says, quote, ``No resident shall be denied readmission
or admission to the nursing home solely based on a confirmed or
a suspected diagnosis of COVID-19. Nursing homes are prohibited
from requiring a hospitalized resident who is determined
medically stable to be tested for COVID-19 prior to admission
or readmission.''
Today, Governor Cuomo, you claimed that your nursing home
directive was just following Federal guidance. I find that hard
to believe, sir, and let me tell you why.
There was--on October 13, 2021, Dr. Deborah Birx, in a
transcribed interview, was asked this question: ``On the bottom
of page 4 of the CMS guidance, it gives guidance on how to
return a resident diagnosed with COVID-19 back to their nursing
home, and it says it should be done if a facility can follow
CDC guidance for transmission-based precautions. First, what
would those transmission-based precautions have been?''
Her answer: ``So that would require isolation and gowning,
masking, and ensuring no contact with other residents.''
Then the question was: ``Administrator Verma''--the CMS
Administrator Verma--``said under no circumstances should a
hospital discharge a patient to a nursing home that is not
prepared to take care of those patients' needs. Is that
correct?
Her answer: ``Correct.''
Question: ``If we turn now to the New York guidance''--
meaning your directive--``does that have the same qualifier of
'able to take CDC precautions' as the CMS guidance required?''
Her answer: ``No.''
Question: ``So would the March 25 directive have violated
CMS guidance?''
Her answer: ``Yes.''
Then, ``Do you think''--question: ``Do you think admitting
potentially positive COVID-19 nursing home residents back into
the nursing home without the ability to quarantine or isolate
them is dangerous and could lead to unnecessary deaths?''
Her answer: ``Yes. I think that's why the CDC guidance was
very clear about precautions needed to protect them. And I
think that's why CMS Administrator Seema Verma was proactively
working on an infectious control guidance.''
Well, today, you also said it was up to the discretion of
the nursing homes if they admitted COVID sick patients. You
said today that the patients weren't infectious.
So, my question to you, sir: How would the nursing homes
know if the patient was infectious or had COVID-19 if your
directive explicitly--let me quote: ``Nursing homes are
prohibited from requiring a hospitalized resident who is
determined medically stable to be tested for COVID-19 prior to
admission.''
Mr. Cuomo. Congresswoman, I understand the question.
Here's the basic disconnect: This was an advisory. The
Department of Health did 10, 12, 15 advisories a day, 400 in a
couple of weeks. They did not substitute for the existing state
law. And the state law remains in place.
And the state law says on a nursing home: 415.26, you
cannot accept a person who you can't care for; 415.19 says, you
must have an infection control plan in place if the person has
to be quarantined; contact the----
Mrs. Lesko. Let me interrupt, because I have 44 seconds
left.
Sir, how could your directive even then follow the New York
state law if it prohibits--prohibits--it says, nursing homes
are prohibited from testing for COVID.
Mr. Cuomo. Yes.
Mrs. Lesko. How could you even follow your own state law,
CMS guidance, CDC guidance, if your own directive prohibits the
testing?
Mr. Cuomo. Yes. The directive says they have to talk to the
doctor, the person----
Mrs. Lesko. No. No.
Mr. Cuomo [continuing]. Has to be medically stable----
Mrs. Lesko. No. The directive does not say that. This is
exactly what the directive says: ``Nursing homes are prohibited
from requiring a hospitalized resident who is determined
medically stable to be tested for COVID-19 prior to admission
or readmission.''
Sir, I'm sorry, but I find your----
Mr. Cuomo. It says----
Mrs. Lesko [continuing]. Testimony very, very hard to
believe.
Mr. Cuomo. If I could, it says----
Dr. Wenstrup. The gentlelady's----
Mrs. Lesko. I'm over time, and I yield back.
Dr. Wenstrup. The gentlelady's time has expired.
I now recognize Dr. Joyce from Pennsylvania for 5 minutes
of questions.
Dr. Joyce. Thank you, Chairman Wenstrup, for convening this
important hearing.
As this Subcommittee has examined the U.S. response to the
COVID-19 pandemic, a disturbing trend has emerged: public
officials making decisions that were not based on science but,
instead, based on public perception and, even worse, political
concerns.
This became abundantly clear when Dr. Fauci appeared in
front of this committee and testified that the 6-feet social-
distancing rule was not based on scientific evidence.
In another example, in my home state of Pennsylvania,
Pennsylvania Health Secretary Dr. Rachel Levine directed
nursing homes to accept COVID-19 patients even as she moved her
own mother out of a personal care home.
These incidents have fractured the trust between the
American people and public health officials, which will only
hinder our ability to respond to future pandemics.
Governor Cuomo, during the COVID-19 pandemic, you
acknowledged the danger, and you reiterated that today, giving
your quote, for nursing homes, this could be like a fire
through dry grass. This is a very callous and insensitive
remark from anyone and especially insensitive from an elected
official.
And, despite this, a directive was still issued mandating
that COVID-19-positive patients be admitted to nursing homes
and that no testing for COVID-19 be conducted before any
resident was admitted or readmitted. This was an ill-guided
decision, and it led to the death of some of our most
vulnerable citizens--those in nursing homes.
You then pushed for and edited a report that blamed nursing
home employees for the rate of infections and death. You
willfully directed blame toward the health professional working
to care for these individuals. You, sir, you placed that risk.
When reporting deaths from nursing homes, thousands of
deaths were unaccounted for due to a change in reporting
methodologies, which, according to witness testimony, came from
your office. When your decisions contributed to the death of
thousands of elderly Americans, the scale of these deaths was
underreported by more than 30 percent.
And rather than ignoring prevailing public health guidance
and working to hide the human cost of this decision, you
could've instead utilized the tremendous Federal help that was
offered to New York in order to help alleviate the strain on
the hospital system.
Governor Cuomo, rather than sending COVID-19-positive
seniors back to nursing homes, why did you not work to have
more patients directed to the temporary hospital at the Javits
Convention Center?
Mr. Cuomo. Doctor, several quick points.
You'll remember, there were no tests at the time for
residents.
No. 2, the directive said, you will speak to the hospital
and get discharge instructions. The nursing home could say, if
this person is possibly positive, I can't take them. Period. It
was totally in their discretion, because----
Dr. Joyce. But had the Javits Convention Center been
utilized for more nursing home patients to remain hospitalized
rather than being sent back to nursing homes, in effect
ultimately causing those deaths, could you have prevented not
only additional nursing home patient deaths but the transfer of
COVID to the healthcare professionals who ultimately were
responsible for their care?
Mr. Cuomo. Doctor, we had facilities----
Dr. Joyce. Did you transfer patients? Did you authorize
them to be transferred----
Mr. Cuomo. Yes.
Dr. Joyce [continuing]. To the Javits Convention Center?
Mr. Cuomo. Any--we didn't even have to get there, because
any nursing home that said, ``I can't take this person,'' we
had alternative COVID hospital-only facilities. We had them all
through the state.
So, a nursing home could say, ``I can't take this person,
they may have COVID, I can't quarantine them,'' and we had
other facilities for those people. That's why it wasn't just
total discretion by the nursing home----
Dr. Joyce. It was lack of leadership from your office.
During a crisis, the American people deserve leaders who
are empathetic, utilize science, and are honest with them, who
put aside personal and political concerns in order to make
sound, evidence-based decisions.
It is clear from your actions and from what this
Subcommittee has uncovered and from what we've heard today from
you that you have failed to provide that leadership. And
because of your ill-guided decisions, some of our most
vulnerable citizens, those individuals who were in nursing
homes, died.
Mr. Cuomo. Doctor----
Dr. Joyce. And that is on your watch.
Mr. Cuomo. Yes----
Dr. Joyce. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I yield.
Mr. Cuomo. The Federal Government handcuffed the states,
and the President is where the buck stops. Right?
Dr. Wenstrup. The gentleman yields back.
I now recognize Ms. Greene from Georgia for 5 minutes of
questions.
Ms. Greene. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Cuomo, I'd like to remind you that you're under oath.
You've said a lot today. In your opening statement, you
attacked President Trump and his response. I'd also like to
remind you of statements that you've said.
On April 13 of 2020, on ``The Howard Stern Show,'' you
said, and I quote, ``Trump has delivered for New York. He
has.'' And then you talked about Trump sending the ship, the
Comfort ship.
Mind you that the Comfort ship was sent to New York on
March 30 of 2020. That was just a few days after you signed the
directive to put COVID-19 patients into nursing homes on March
25, which led to murdering people's parents, grandparents, and
great-grandparents. Yes, murdering them.
Today, you said--and I'll quote you. You said that high
deaths in nursing homes is a conspiracy theory.
Would you like to turn to the people here in this room
today whose mothers died and their fathers died in these
nursing homes and call them conspiracy theorists? Do you----
Mr. Cuomo. I never said that.
Ms. Greene [continuing]. Have the audacity to do that, Mr.
Cuomo?
Mr. Cuomo. I never said that, Congresswoman.
Ms. Greene. You said that today. You're under----
Mr. Cuomo. I never said that.
Ms. Greene. You're under oath.
Mr. Cuomo. I never said high deaths----
Ms. Greene. There is video----
Mr. Cuomo [continuing]. Are a conspiracy theory.
Ms. Greene. There's video of all of your words today.
Mr. Cuomo. I never said that.
Ms. Greene. You can be fact-checked. We'll do that when
this is over.
Mr. Cuomo. Yes.
Ms. Greene. You also blamed staff for spreading COVID in
nursing homes, not COVID patients. You blamed the staff.
Mr. Cuomo. The staff----
Ms. Greene. But yet on March 25--I didn't ask you a
question. I'm talking to you.
On March 25, you signed a directive to put COVID-19
patients into nursing homes.
On March 30, President Trump sent the Comfort ship, and you
did not put COVID patients in the Comfort ship. You didn't send
them to the Javits Medical Center that President Trump had
built, which was a field hospital. You didn't send them there.
You put them in nursing homes, which is murder.
Mr. Cuomo. That's not----
Ms. Greene. Now, that's murdering people. I'm saying that
right now. And I'm also saying what a lot of people believe
what your actions did.
Let's also talk about some other things that you've done.
Mr. Cuomo, let's talk about a tweet that you made, because
there's an indictment out on a woman named Linda Sun--Linda
Sun. And I'll read this indictment.
It says, ``On April 4''--April 4--``Politician No. 1''--
Politician No. 1--``publicly thanked PRC Official No. 1, both
in public remarks and in a post on Twitter''--that's this right
here--``for helping arrange the donation, which was scheduled
to arrive at JFK Airport in Queens, New York, that day.''
So, Mr. Cuomo, you were thanking China, the PRC, while you
had a woman named Linda Sun working for you, who has now been
identified as a Chinese spy.
Now, today, you have come before the American people and
our committee, you have insulted many people, including people
in this room and people watching this hearing who lost their
loved ones because of your March 25 directive. And, at the same
time, you were thanking the Chinese Government while you had a
Chinese spy working for you.
So, Mr. Cuomo, I've read a lot about you, including the
fact that 13 women that work for you accused you of sexually
inappropriate behavior--which, thanks to the Democrat DOJ who
helped you out of that.
But I'd like to say this, and I'll ask you: Are you either
the dumbest tool of the Chinese Government or did you know for
a fact that you were being used by the Chinese spy that was
working for you?
Mr. Cuomo. I've read about--a lot about you too,
Congresswoman.
I think this is a very serious matter, about the Linda Sun
matter.
Ms. Greene. It is serious. That's right.
Mr. Cuomo. She was a junior member in my team. I wouldn't
recognize her if she was in this room today. But I think it is
a serious matter. I don't think this was just in New York. I
think there is an infiltration of Chinese, maybe Russian,
operatives----
Ms. Greene. The Democrat Party's definitely had a problem
with Chinese spies, yes, you are right.
I want to remind you, you're under oath.
Mr. Cuomo. Yes. And I think it's a serious issue, and I
think the Federal Government and the state government should
work together on it. State government doesn't really have the
ability to do the international reconnaissance, but the Federal
Government does. And I think they should work together to make
sure they're doing the best they can to do the vetting.
Dr. Wenstrup. The gentle-----
Ms. Greene. Mr. Chairman, for the record, I'd like to enter
the indictment for the record.
Dr. Wenstrup. So ordered.
Ms. Greene. Thank you.
Dr. Wenstrup. I now recognize Dr. Jackson from Texas for 5
minutes of questions.
Dr. Jackson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for holding
this important hearing today and the opportunity to hold former
Governor Cuomo accountable for what I consider his egregious
actions taken during the coronavirus pandemic which led to the
unnecessary deaths of thousands of American citizens.
Mr. Cuomo, what demographic or group of people are at the
greatest risk of death from COVID?
Mr. Cuomo. Immunocompromised, senior citizens, what we saw
at Kirkland Hospital----
Dr. Jackson. That's right.
Mr. Cuomo [continuing]. Seattle, Washington, as the first
experience.
Dr. Jackson. That's right. COVID in particular, it was the
elderly and those with comorbidities--the exact population,
unfortunately, that occupies every nursing home in this
country.
Despite that basic, basic medical reality, your
Administration mandated that nursing homes accept COVID-
positive patients.
And I've heard you say that they didn't mandate it, but
they did. It says, no--it says here--this is the directive. I
have it in my hand. It says, no resident shall be denied
readmission or admission to the nursing home solely based on
confirmed or suspected diagnosis of COVID-19.
So, your assertion that the nursing home had the ability to
turn these patients away is absolutely incorrect based on this.
They did not have the ability to do that. They could not turn
them away.
By doing so--by doing this, you sentenced many of the
residents there to death. Because these residents that were in
the nursing home that didn't have COVID that were
immunocompromised, that had comorbidities, that were elderly
were destined to get COVID at that particular point when you're
bringing known COVID-positive patients into the hospital.
Even if you prohibited patients prior to admission, which
would have been--you didn't allow them to test them. And that
would've been key in deciding who was going to get quarantined
and who wasn't going to get quarantined.
It says in here that they can't be tested prior to
admission. That's crazy. If you're admitting a patient and you
can't test them, you don't know what to do with them when you
get them. It ignores the fact that they were allowed to go
there even if they were known to have COVID.
But I submit to you that your claim that the nursing home
staff brought this into the nursing home is completely false.
You claim that the nursing home staff was responsible for the
deaths, that they brought it into the facilities. Well, perhaps
there weren't instances of that. Maybe there were. But I can
promise you that if you were directing patients with known
COVID to be admitted, you no longer need to be asking the
question of how COVID got into the facility. You introduced it
at that point. It does not matter if staff were bringing it in
or not; if you're allowing and mandating that COVID-positive
patients be admitted to the nursing home, that is how it's
getting in the nursing home, that's how it's spreading, and
that's how it's killing other residents.
Anyone that gave you the advice on this directive should be
held accountable right along beside you, anyone that
participated in that. In particular, Dr. Howard Zucker and
nurse Sally Dreslin, your DOH commissioner and deputy
commissioner, should, in my opinion, have their medical license
taken away and never have anything to do with the practice of
medicine again based on their advice on this letter to you that
the three of you are on the top of this letter having endorsed.
Mr. Cuomo. Doctor, if I may, it said, you cannot solely
refuse a person based on the diagnosis, which is the same thing
the CMS/CDC says----
Dr. Jackson. Who cares? If they're diagnosed with COVID,
what does it matter?
Mr. Cuomo. Well----
Dr. Jackson. You're saying, well, maybe--you can't say it's
because they have diabetes.
Mr. Cuomo. No----
Dr. Jackson. It has to be----
Mr. Cuomo. You can say, ``I can't take care of them.'' ``I
can't take care of them.'' A nursing home had total discretion.
I didn't have----
Dr. Jackson. So, if they had a patient that was coming from
the hospital that was diagnosed as positive for COVID and they
had no other medical issues and they were medically stable--
which, by the way, has nothing to do with whether they're
infectious or not--then the nursing home could turn them away
at that particular point?
That's not what the letter says.
Mr. Cuomo. That's what----
Dr. Jackson. The letter says that they have to take them.
Mr. Cuomo. I know--Doctor, the advisory does not supersede
the law. The law is very clear. The Attorney General said the
law was in place. A nursing home shall only accept people for
whom they can provide adequate care, as determined by the
nursing home.
So, if the nursing home says, ``I can't quarantine this
person who may have COVID,'' that's it. No other discussion.
Dr. Jackson. No, but that's not what it says here. It
says--it specifically says that if they have COVID and that's
all they have, they can't use that as a reason to not admit
them; they have to admit them. That's what this letter says.
Mr. Cuomo. No. It says you can't solely not admit them
because of COVID-19. But you can say, ``I can't take care of
them. I don't have the precautions. I don't have the
quarantine.''
Dr. Jackson. What's the difference? If you can't take care
of them, you can't admit them.
Mr. Cuomo. That's right. And you don't admit them.
Dr. Jackson. But this thing says you can't--you can't not
admit them, you have to admit them. You're saying, no, but if
we can't take care of them, you don't have to admit them.
That's not what it says.
Mr. Cuomo. CMS/CDC says, you can accept a COVID-positive
person if you can take care of them.
Dr. Jackson. That's not what this says.
Mr. Cuomo. This says, you can't--you can't say no just
because they have COVID-19, but you can say, I can't take care
of them, I have no quarantine.
Dr. Jackson. So, what if they say----
Mr. Cuomo. It's totally up to the nursing home.
Dr. Jackson [continuing]. I can't take care of them because
they have COVID-19? They can't do that, according to this
letter.
Mr. Cuomo. Yes, they can----
Dr. Jackson. No, they can't.
Mr. Cuomo [continuing]. Totally.
Dr. Jackson. Look, and I agree with my colleague here, Ms.
Greene, that you had a perfect opportunity to put many of these
patients into a safe environment on the hospital ship that had
a thousand beds that left New York after not being used and
being used less than 190 times. They could've been there. You
could've put them all there, and you could've saved a lot of
lives----
Mr. Cuomo. Yes, except----
Dr. Jackson [continuing]. But you didn't.
Dr. Wenstrup. I now recognize----
Mr. Cuomo. Except, of course, the Comfort----
Dr. Wenstrup. The gentleman's time has expired, and----
Mr. Cuomo [continuing]. Wouldn't accept COVID-positive
people.
Dr. Wenstrup [continuing]. I now recognize Dr. McCormick
from Georgia for 5 minutes of questions.
Mr. Cuomo. Well, that's the fact.
Dr. McCormick. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Appreciate this very
important COVID hearing and your leadership on this topic.
Mr. Cuomo, as you know, I'm an ER physician. Served during
the pandemic, the entire time, seeing patients. I understand
the science. I understand the efforts. I don't think anybody
maliciously wanted to hurt patients or kill anybody. However, I
think we need to learn from our mistakes and admit where we
went wrong.
You just now said ``solely based on the confirmation or
suspected diagnosis of COVID-19.'' But the very next sentence
reads: The nursing homes are prohibited from requiring a
hospitalized resident who is determined medically stable to be
tested.
So, if you're not tested, how would you know if you, quote,
``can't take care of them,'' if you don't know if they're
positive or negative?
Mr. Cuomo. Doctor, I understand exactly what you're saying
from the reading of the advisory. But, again, it was just an
advisory, and the law is in place. And what the advisory----
Dr. McCormick. OK. I'm not a lawyer, sir, but what I know
is, if I admit a patient to the hospital or to observation, I
have to have a COVID test in order to know if I can take care
of them and if I can quarantine them, if I can use PPE, if I'm
going to spread it from one room to another, because I have to
know what I'm dealing with.
If you, as you say, prohibit testing of a patient, you do
not know what you're dealing with, you do not know if you can
take care of them. So, it's a dishonest argument to begin with.
And that's not a question; that's a statement, sir.
Mr. Cuomo. Yes.
Dr. McCormick. So what I will say is this: When you say--
when you basically force people to take tests in order to
travel or to go into restaurants or put a mask on or whatever,
the young non-vulnerable population, but you don't allow a test
on the most vulnerable population to go mix, where they are
going to die--if we can't at least admit that was a mistake, if
we can't--if we can't say in my book that I write about being
the Governor of a state that had some questionable results on
this COVID pandemic, then we're not going to learn from our
lessons.
And I've just got to--I've just got to wonder, where did
you make--did you make any mistakes?
Mr. Cuomo. Oh, I made plenty of mistakes.
Dr. McCormick. You don't think this was a mistake?
Mr. Cuomo. Looking back, the CMS, CDC, DOH will still
defend this order----
Dr. McCormick. Prohibiting COVID testing before placing
them in a nursing home is going to be defended?
Mr. Cuomo. Well, there were not enough tests. There were no
tests at this time.
Dr. McCormick. But--wait a minute. I understand that you
actually had your family tested. Were those tests not available
for the patients going back into COVID? Those very first tests
that were tested on your family--young, healthy people, I
assume--they weren't available for these people going into the
highest-risk patients?
Mr. Cuomo. Just the way virtually every Governor in this
state--country----
Dr. McCormick. So basically, what you're saying is, we
didn't have enough tests, but we used them for my family
instead of the people who went to the high-risk community.
Mr. Cuomo. No----
Dr. McCormick. And I just want to--I just want to basically
back up what was just said.
Mr. Cuomo. Doctor, that comment is better--you're better
than that comment.
People who I might be in contact with took a test so I
didn't get COVID. Just like when I went to see President Trump
and they gave me a COVID test before I was allowed to see
President Trump or his aides to make sure I didn't infect them.
That was the protocol.
Dr. McCormick. Yes. I just find it a little hypocritical,
when we don't have enough tests, and we're talking about the
highest-risk population not being able to test, knowing that
that's going to literally have an outcome, going to be the most
succinct vector, going into the most vulnerable population, and
we're wasting it on people that literally don't need to be
tested, when we're--and we don't test the very people that are
the highest-risk.
And I would just like to say, we have family members right
here, right now, that lost their relatives because of that
decision, which I think was wrong. I think it's OK to admit
that it was wrong. I think you should admit that it was wrong.
And I think you would come off a lot better to those
families if you'd just turn around and just apologize to those
families and say, I'm sorry, it was a bad decision.
Mr. Cuomo. Doctor, again, the law supersedes the advisory.
The advisory is saying, you talk to the people in the hospital;
if the hospital discharge people say, I think this person might
have COVID, the nursing home says, I won't take the person.
Dr. McCormick. You know, I'm just going to say, I'm sorry.
I'll say it. I am sorry your families were exposed to COVID
because people were put in the nursing homes that weren't
tested because there weren't enough testing facilities or
enough because we were testing young, healthy people instead of
the most vulnerable population getting mixed. I am sorry.
And, with that, I yield.
Dr. Wenstrup. I would now like to yield to Ranking Member
Ruiz for a closing statement if he would like one.
Dr. Ruiz. When the novel coronavirus first reached our
shores, it became immediately clear that our Nation's nursing
homes and seniors would be devastated absent due care. Still,
more than 170,000 nursing home residents have died since the
arrival of the virus. Too many families have lost loved ones,
and many families are still looking for answers. They deserve
those answers.
I understand that we may or may not be satisfied with those
provided by Governor Cuomo. I acknowledge that questions remain
about his Administration's transparency. In assessing those
questions, we must objectively look at the facts.
And when we ask ourselves a question of what we could have
done better to protect nursing homes, we must not allow our
collective memory of the early pandemic to be clouded by a rush
to assign blame.
We must remember that, across the country, public officials
at every level of government were scrambling to make the right
choices to protect people. At that time, the right choices were
difficult to discern. Unfortunately, we could not look to the
then-President Trump for an example of what was right.
In the same way that I called for an objective look at the
facts of Governor Cuomo's Administration, I urge my Republican
colleagues to recognize that we must learn from the failures of
the Trump Administration's pandemic response.
We now know that the driving force behind COVID outbreaks
and deaths in nursing homes were high rates of transmission in
the communities surrounding those facilities.
Dr. Vincent Mor from Brown University shared an article he
published in Health Affairs on July 2024 with the Select
Subcommittee titled, ``Four Years and More Than 200,000 Deaths
Later: Lessons Learned from the COVID-19 Pandemic in U.S.
Nursing Homes.''
Dr. Mor and other experts found that the biggest
determinants of nursing home residents' mortality due to COVID-
19 was whether the facility was located in an area with a high
prevalence of the virus and the size of the facility, which was
largely related to the number of staff members entering the
facility every day since more staff means more exposure from
the local community in which staff lives.
Mr. Chairman, I ask that Dr. Mor's letter and attached
article be entered into the record.
Dr. Wenstrup. Without objection.
Dr. Ruiz. We also know that the Trump Administration
oversaw inexcusable shortages of PPE and delays in creating a
testing protocol that exacerbated spread within communities and
ultimately into nursing homes.
The Biden-Harris Administration lifted our Nation out of
the chaos of the previous Administration and has given us the
opportunity to look back and learn in preparation for future
pandemics.
With that opportunity, I am proud to have announced earlier
in today's hearing legislation that would strengthen infection
control and prevention efforts in our nursing homes.
And I became the Ranking Member of the Select Subcommittee
with the intention to strengthen our Nation's preparedness for
future pandemics and save future lives. There is work--more
work to do, and if we work together, I believe that we can do
it.
With that, I yield back.
Dr. Wenstrup. In closing, I would like to thank former
Governor Cuomo for coming here today to testify.
I have to say, I'm disappointed that before today's hearing
even began, you chose to basically flout the rules of this
committee and only provided your opening statement just before
the start of this proceeding rather than the 24 hours in
advance as required and as every other witness has done.
Today's hearing was held to learn about New York's COVID-19
pandemic response and its nursing home policies for the
betterment of the future, for the betterment of the country.
This whole committee has been dedicated to say, what was--what
did we do right, what did we do wrong, how can we be more
prepared for the next time.
But it seems that you instead prepared for a trial--this
isn't a trial--and declined to participate in discussion of
what happened and how we could do better. That's been my goal,
and you can see that through all the previous hearings that
we've had.
You chose to provide 300 pages basically of excuses just
before you walked in the door and blamed the former President
for your policy failures.
I have not mentioned political party one time through this
entire time with this committee. Not one time. We've talked
about actions taken----
Mr. Cuomo. Yes.
Dr. Wenstrup [continuing]. But we haven't mentioned
political party.
It appears there is to be no soul-searching from you,
Governor--I'm sorry--no self-critique of what could have been
done better and improved upon. Just doubling down, blaming
others.
I said in my opening statement that there's things that I
thought that didn't ring true. I've admitted to them. It's
about looking at those things and how we can get better.
But if your testimony is to be believed, we might have to
just suspend reality. It would require the Governor of New York
not to be responsible for his own state's health department and
for the fault to lie instead with the former President for
policies implemented by the Governor and contrary to Federal
guidance the President released. It's a stunning story.
I'm more concerned about what I heard today. This hearing
was an opportunity to learn about our COVID-19 response and how
we can improve future responses. I want you to understand that.
That is our goal. There's no convictions here. This is about
trying to be better in the future so that some of the people
sitting right here today who lost loved ones in the nursing
homes don't have to experience that again. That's what we're
after.
What was presented this afternoon was biased information
and statements from a Governor who refused to admit he ever did
anything wrong, especially as it relates to the COVID response.
Honesty, clarity, and truth make all the difference. This
is an opportunity to admit to the mistakes that we may have
made, to make sure they don't happen again. You're not on trial
here today.
I thought the virus would dissipate in the summer. Why?
Because most coronaviruses do. They dissipate, especially in
the warmer weather. Experts said that may happen. Afterwards,
they said, well, we were wrong. We admitted we were wrong.
That's how it's supposed to work.
But, see, former Governor, the buck is supposed to stop
with you in your state, and I'm deeply skeptical of the
abdication of responsibility onto others that we have witnessed
not only here but publicly.
No threats and no intimidation tactics will change the
facts. We lost a lot of people in this country. It's not time
to play politics.
Your Department of Health released guidance on March 25,
2020, that nursing homes must comply, that no resident shall be
denied readmission or admission, and that nursing homes are
prohibited from requiring residents to be tested prior to
admission.
You had people tested. You had people tested that were in a
safe environment. You could've isolated yourself to make sure
you don't get COVID. But, instead, you made the most vulnerable
people in America, our elderly, take that risk that you
yourself would not take to make sure that you got tested.
You knew about all the directives. You chose to leave it in
place, even after becoming aware of its existence. And it was
only after pressure mounted and public scrutiny increased that
you realized you needed to change course and cover your tracks.
Much too late. The facts were in. Other people understood it,
recognized it, made changes.
You even admitted that the directive was only rescinded in
response to public criticism and public relations. Wow. Wow.
So, you come up with the July 6 report, you changed how you
counted nursing home deaths, you made a deliberate decision to
exclude certain nursing-home-related COVID-19 deaths from
mortality rates, and you worked on getting your stories
straight, literally. The responsibility was always somebody
else's.
When you're Governor, when you become a celebrity because
of your advice on this matter, it becomes your responsibility.
You were, after all, the ``Love Gov.''
Mr. Cuomo's spokesperson basically claimed that our select
report was cherry-picking testimony and conclusions not
supported by evidence or reality. We've released all the
transcripts, word for word. We're letting Americans see the
facts. I can't say we're getting all the facts out of the New
York government. We're letting Americans see the facts as we've
gathered them.
And no matter how much you and your team attempt to
obfuscate and demean, it does not change the tragic reality of
what happened in New York. We shouldn't need subpoenas to
obtain information that already belongs to the public.
I want to take a moment to apologize to the friends and
family of the victims. Your loved ones will be remembered. And
I'm sorry for what they've endured, especially if it was
preventable. You are brave for continuing to fight. New Yorkers
and America deserve better.
Without objection, all members will have 5 legislative days
within which to submit materials and to submit additional
written questions for the witnesses, which will be forwarded to
the witnesses for their response.
Dr. Wenstrup. If there's no further business, without
objection, the Select Subcommittee stands adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 4:34 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]