Fox News meteorologist Janice Dean became one of the first major media figures to criticize former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s policy of ...
Fox News meteorologist Janice Dean became one of the first major media figures to criticize former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s policy of sending COVID-infected individuals back into nursing homes and covering up the death toll after she lost both her mother- and father-in-law in 2020.
According to a report in Friday’s New York Post, Chris Cuomo — ever the dutiful brother — referred to Dean as “that Fox weather b****” in a text and tried to dig up dirt on her.
Both Cuomo brothers are now blessedly unemployed, but it’s not difficult to remember when both were the toast of the liberal establishment.
The Post’s report cited an unnamed source with knowledge of texts between Chris Cuomo and one of his brother’s staffers after Dean started publicly calling for Andrew Cuomo to take responsibility for nursing home deaths.
The meteorologist said on air that the then-governor “needs to go to jail” after she lost Michael and Dolores Newman, her husband’s parents, to COVID-19 in March and April of 2020.
Thusly did Chris Cuomo ask his brother’s staffer how he could attack Dean: “this Fox weather b****……Any help painting her as a far right crazy?”
As a meteorologist, Dean doesn’t typically get involved in matters political — unless, of course, the New York governor’s policies may have contributed to the deaths of two of her relatives.
According to an August report from The New York Times, the Empire State led the nation in nursing home deaths from COVID-19, with roughly 15,000 of them as of Andrew Cuomo’s resignation.
Not only did the then-governor force nursing homes to take patients released from hospitals after they were treated for COVID-19, but his administration performed numerical prestidigitation to ensure the reported deaths were nowhere near the actual total.
A January report from New York Attorney General Letitia James said deaths “may have been undercounted by as much as 50 percent.” Not only did the Cuomo administration refuse to release the numbers publicly, but it also wouldn’t provide them to state legislators.
Top Cuomo aide Melissa DeRosa told state Democrats that the administration “froze” after the U.S. Department of Justice asked for its nursing home statistics in the summer of 2020.
Speaking of DeRosa, the Post also reported that Chris Cuomo participated in calls with gubernatorial staff about discrediting Dean. These calls included DeRosa, Andrew Cuomo’s capo during the coronavirus pandemic.
The calls reportedly focused on trying to hit Dean on her political views — presumably by painting her as a “far right crazy,” to use the erudite language employed by “Fredo” Cuomo.
The smear job apparently didn’t happen, but it’s likely not for lack of trying. It was the disclosure of the text messages between Chris Cuomo and DeRosa, released by the New York attorney general’s office last week, that was the downfall of the Cuomo brother still gainfully employed.
On air, Chris Cuomo assured viewers that he hadn’t acted as an adviser to the governor, only a brother. However, the CNN host begged to be let in on the PR prep for his brother’s defense against sexual misconduct charges and was willing to find intel on the investigation from his media sources.
After a woman named Anna Ruch accused Andrew Cuomo of harassing her at a wedding in 2019, Chris Cuomo texted DeRosa with this message: “I have a lead on the wedding girl being put up to it.”
And now, if sources are to be believed, he was seeking dirt on Janice Dean while referring to her as “that Fox weather b****.”
(By the way, remember how Chris Cuomo was upset when people called him “Fredo” because he said it was a slur against Italians? Perhaps he should try calling the women in his life “that [insert obnoxious, deprecatory descriptor here] b****” and then ask them if they consider it a slur. I mean, after he picks himself up off the floor and puts some ice on the side of his head the slap landed on.)
Virtually no one from the Cuomo camp was willing to comment directly on the report, either to the Post or Fox News. The only person willing to go on the record was Rich Azzopardi, Andrew Cuomo’s spokesman/professional dissembler.
“I have no knowledge of this ever happening, and you must ask, why then did the attorney general not put anything about it in her report or ask any of the relevant people about it?” Azzopardi said.
It’s not just that Azzopardi couldn’t be bothered to lie for team Cuomo regarding the report, it’s that he couldn’t even muster a non-denial denial that sounded like he meant it.
As for Dean, she said in a statement to the Post that “this was never about politics.
“I watched first-hand how the governor’s office treated grieving families trying to get answers about the March 25th 2020 executive order to admit over 9,000 COVID positive patients into nursing homes.
“Instead of addressing our concerns or expressing their condolences, Cuomo’s spokesperson Rich Azzopardi called us a ‘death cult,'” she continued. “Over the last year and a half I have seen victims of Andrew Cuomo and those demanding accountability demeaned and smeared in the press and on social media.
“And now, with the release of texts and testimony from the AG report, we have seen black and white proof of both Azzopardi and Melissa DeRosa spending many hours of their days in office trying to smear Cuomo’s victims and retaliating against them instead of working hard to help New Yorkers and their families during a once in a lifetime pandemic.”
Well, now both Cuomos and their cronies have all the time in the world to smear whomever they want. The only problem is there’s no one left who’s going to listen to their lies.
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