Ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s much-criticized record on nursing homes in the coronavirus pandemic became a flashpoint during Thursday’s mayoral debate – and he still refused to apologize.
The still-controversial issue arose after Cuomo admitted Thursday that he not only saw a controversial report on nursing home COVID-19 deaths while he was governor, but may have had a hand in doctoring the document.
City Comptroller Lander pounced on the issue by inviting Peter Arbeeny, whose father died from COVID-19 shortly after a rehab stint at a local nursing home, as a guest.
“Andrew, this is Peter Arbeeny,” Lander said to cheers from the crowd.
“His father Norman died because of your disastrous order to send people with COVID into nursing homes. Then, as you admitted this week, you hid the real death toll and lied to families about it for five years,” Lander continued.
“So tonight, will you finally apologize to Peter and other grieving New Yorkers?” he said, pausing for applause.
“Or will you just keep gaslighting them, with more blather about what a great job you claim you did?”
Cuomo tried to dodge by dinging Lander as supposedly being an inauthentic New Yorker.
“Maybe where you come from in St. Louis facts don’t matter, but here they do,” Cuomo said.
He then apologized to Arbeeny, but pointedly didn’t offer a mea culpa for anything else.
“Mr. Arbeeny lost a father,” Cuomo said.
“I am very, very sorry for that.”
Cuomo noted Arbeeny sued the state in a case and contended legal papers in the case found no COVID-positive person was sent from a hospital to a nursing home.
“So, it is factually impossible, Brad,” he said, sarcastically emphasizing his opponent’s name, “that he got COVID, OK, from someone coming from a hospital.”
Arbeeny’s brother Daniel led a class-action federal lawsuit against Cuomo, which was dismissed by a Brooklyn federal judge.
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