CNN continues to rewrite history and inflate Governor Andrew Cuomo's ego despite his horrible handling of the coronavirus as it raged through his state of New York. On Friday afternoon, the Democrat governor was treated to yet another CNN cleanup act, this time from anchor John King on CNN Newsroom.
King even had the audacity to ask Cuomo to tell other (mostly red) state governors how they should be handling the pandemic.
After throwing the Democrat several softballs so he could attack the Trump administration, King left the tail end of the interview to actually ask Cuomo about coronavirus. Except the CNN journalist didn't press Cuomo on the disastrous decision he made to shuffle COVID-positive patients into nursing homes that resulted in thousands of deaths. King didn't ask Cuomo about violating his own state's "travel ban" this week. He didn't even press the Democrat on being caught not wearing a face mask in public, also this week, despite CNN's affinity for being the mask police. No, instead he actually asked Cuomo to tell other states experiencing spikes right now what to do:
Governor, I have your time and I want to use your experience. As I mentioned, the country has watched New York go up the hill first and I believe our viewers can see now. We can put on the screen New York’s path up the hill and down the hill with the coronavirus. I'm sure you can't see the graphic, Governor, but I also know that it's seared in your memory of going up this hill and coming down this hill. The coming down part, it is — fascinates me. It’s a bad word but because even as you start to come down, you had more cases on the downward side, you had more deaths on the downward side. You’re watching right now Florida, 12,000 cases plus today. They have been around 10,000 or 12,000. Texas, Arizona, California. As you watch this play out now in other states, nationally the positivity rate is eight percent. In Arizona it is above 20 percent. In Florida, it's been around 19. You're below one percent in the State of New York now. What is your advice to these governors --- most of them Republicans, but Gavin Newsom out in California, a Democrat --- as they go through what you have lived?
Like he always does, Cuomo blamed his state's virus woes on the Trump administration not enacting the European travel ban fast enough. And of course King let him deflect blame to avoid taking personal responsibility for his own inept leadership.
CNN is so committed to covering for Cuomo the network will throw its own anchors under the bus if they dare say a word critical of the media's beloved "Homecoming King."
Unfortunately it's not just CNN hacks rewriting history. Just a few days ago, "NBC participated in a political stunt by New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, sending a reporter along as the Democrat flew down to Georgia to lecture others on their handling of the coronavirus," analyst Kyle Drennen noted.
If you want to tell CNN's advertisers how you feel about this segment, contact Colonial Penn or Ensure.
You can read the transcript, below:
CNN Newsroom
07/24/20
12:35:19 p.m.
JOHN KING: Trump administration standing down or backing down in the fight with New York. The administration lifting a ban on New Yorkers using the government's trusted traveler problem and the government admitting it made false statements in a lawsuit over this issue. The governor commenting Abo it moments ago.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: They got caught. It was all politics, all the time. It was all exploitation all the time. And they hurt this state because of it. You cannot use government for political exploitation.
KING: New York Governor Cuomo with us now live. Thank you so much for your time. Good to see you, sir. Let's start with right there. You say you cannot use the government for exploitation. They lied. We often sugar coat words when they talk about things but they lied in a court filing and they came back and said, you know what? We have to fix this. You think there's criminal liability. Explain that.
GOVERNOR ANDREW CUOMO (D-NY): Yeah. Look. John, thanks for having me. I was a cabinet secretary. You take an oath when you're a cabinet secretary, even just an acting cabinet secretary or deputy secretary. You have a constitutional obligation and you have an ethical and legal obligation. You cannot use federal resources to play politics and that's all they did here. It was very clear. They were resonating the president's political message which is we're against undocumented people and they said to New York that passed what's called the green light law where we have driver's licenses for undocumented people, they wanted to make an example out of New York and wanted to make an example out of having a driver's license law for undocumented people. And they retaliated. They stopped this program called the trusted traveler program which had nothing to do with undocumented driver's license. It started back in February. I said it was pure politics. I said there were about 15 states that had undocumented driver's licenses. What is unique about New York? Except you want to play politics. The Republican states that had undocumented driver's licenses. But they were just playing politics and they got caught. They lied and they got caught and I want to see what Department of Justice really does now. Attorney General Barr, let's let him look at his oath and see what he does. I think Congress should be all over this, John.
KING: The Congress part maybe you might get help from your democratic friends in the House but you haven't been in a cave for six months because I have been here as you brief people on television and can't assume you have a reasonable expectation that this President's Attorney General is going to listen to a word you just said.
CUOMO: Well, look. If you're Attorney General Barr, you have to look in the mirror sooner or later. Right? You're right. There's no way he'll go down in the book of distinguished Attorneys General in my opinion. But you have to have a modicum of self respect somewhere when you know that you have a cabinet Department, Homeland Security, that was a political ploy that lied about it, that got caught. At one point don't you have to do something, John, that has something to do with justice when you're the head of the Department of Justice?
KING: Well, we'll watch that play out. Maybe that's something to do with correcting the lie, the mistake in the filing but we'll see as it plays out but to that point Mr. Barr with the president at the moment are involved if you would ask the Portland mayor he says it's reckless, using federal agents, the president said he's going to send them to Chicago and says he's looking at other democratic cities, as well. What would the Governor of New York say if the president decided in New York or somewhere else in your state that you needed federal agents because he sees a threat to courthouses or to statutes or federal property, anarchy the president calls it?
CUOMO: Yeah. I spoke to the president about it because if you remember, John, he mentioned New York City in the litany of cities and I understand the politics of the day and I understand the political statement he is making. But I had a conversation with the president on the phone about New York City. There is no justification in New York City. I said are there any federal properties that you are worried about? Because if you have a concern, let me know, the state stands ready, willing and able to take care of any bonafide need so there's no reason for the federal government to come in. And I did have a good conversation with the president and we left it that he was not going to come into New York City. If anything changed, he would speak to me first. But you are right. The legal rationale would have to be endangering federal property and he thought it was necessary to bring in federal agents to protect federal property. That's the best legal ground. It doesn't exist in New York. I don't know if you have a bonafide case it existed in Portland. The federal government doesn't have a police force. It is not in the Constitution. That is left to the states.
KING: Yeah, as well, as the same Department of Homeland Security, you’re talking about here that has its officers out in these places. We shall see how that goes. Governor, I have your time and I want to use your experience. As I mentioned, the country has watched New York go up the hill first and I believe our viewers can see now. We can put on the screen New York’s path up the hill and down the hill with the coronavirus. I'm sure you can't see the graphic, Governor, but I also know that it's seared in your memory of going up this hill and coming down this hill. The coming down part, it is — fascinates me. It’s a bad word but because even as you start to come down, you had more cases on the downward side, you had more deaths on the downward side. You’re watching right now Florida, 12,000 cases plus today. They have been around 10,000 or 12,000. Texas, Arizona, California. As you watch this play out now in other states, nationally the positivity rate is eight percent. In Arizona it is above 20 percent. In Florida, it's been around 19. You're below one percent in the State of New York now. What is your advice to these governors --- most of them Republicans, but Gavin Newsom out in California, a Democrat --- as they go through what you have lived?"
CUOMO: Yeah. First, John, when they write the history book on this one it's going to be ugly. You want to talk about a national tragedy? None of this had to be. How can we be in this position? Five months ago we knew what was coming and we're still flat footed. What happened in New York City is going to be another chapter in the book. What happened in New York is the virus came from Europe. And the federal government totally missed it. We didn't find out until it was too late that the virus went from China to Europe and then from Europe was coming to New York. The European travel ban that the federal government did much too late to stop it so we had a spike. We had to get those cases down. And we were ambushed by the virus. That didn't happen anywhere else in the country. They didn't have a spike. They just had to make sure it didn't increase. That's all they were dealing with but there's two points. You have people who are in denial is the first issue. That is compounded by this division across the count lack of unity. And then you have secondarily government incompetence. It is both factors. In New York we had to get the people to understand the facts and how serious it was. We had to put aside the politics. I had them focus on the facts, on the science. I did it every day. And New Yorkers got it. They understood it. They didn't think that it was political and they knew what they had to do and then the government stepped up. You have to get testing in place. I'm talking to these local governments. They still don't have testing, still don't have tracing. Talking about ten days to get test results. You talk about running out of hospital space. You know? Five months ago we knew what operations had to be performed by government. How are we still where we are today?
KING: Let me jump in there. When you say there's government incompetence in the here and now as you watch this play out across the country, you're saying the governor of Florida is incompetent? The governor of Texas is incompetent? The governor of California is incompetent? Or is this all a federal thing for you?
CUOMO: You know, I think it's all across the board on different levels. Right? And the history books will decide or the voters of a state will tell you. The people of New York will tell you what they thought of the job I did. The people in Florida will determine what their governor did. I think the federal government was no doubt slow. I don't even get this whole leave it to the states, you know? Every state has a crisis but it's not a federal crisis? I'm not sure how that works. And then you have certain states that I think have acted adequately and certain states that have not but you know when you talk about the operations, John, just what are the problems we're asking? Ask yourself how can this be five months later? How can we still have issues setting up testing? You know New York, we had to get the testing set up in two weeks. Here we have had five months. So I think it's both those factors. You had a nation in denial, a nation that played politics with it. And then government competence.
KING: Agree with you on that last point. Every day I go through these numbers and look through the maps and how can we be here five months later is a question everybody should ask. Whether a Democrat, a Republican, and independent, whatever your politics are. How, how could we be here five months later? Governor Andrew Cuomo, Democrat Governor of New York, sir, appreciate your time today.
CUOMO: Thanks, John. Good to be with you.
KING; Thank you.
