Cuomo aides hid nursing home death totals for months: Report
The New York Times reports aides to the New York governor spent five months hiding death data; Bryan Llenas reports.
CNN star Jake Tapper has gone two straight days without addressing the latest developments in the nursing home scandal plaguing Democratic New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo despite acknowledging the controversy on Twitter.
On Wednesday, The New York Times outlined damning details of the Cuomo administration's effort to deliberately block the release of data on COVID nursing home deaths, which the paper tied to the release of the governor's memoir "American Crisis." The book, which came out in October 2020, prematurely touted the Democrat's "leadership" during the early months of the pandemic.
CNN didn't address the controversy until early Thursday and the Times report wasn't mentioned after the 8 a.m. ET hour during the network's daytime programming.
Tapper had retweeted the Times report to his three million followers Wednesday, but kept viewers of his CNN show, "The Lead," in the dark about its contents.
Tapper, who was rewarded with a second hour of "The Lead" as part of CNN's programming shakeup, instead spent his allotted four hours of programming Wednesday and Thursday hyping President Biden's address to a joint session of Congress Wednesday night, covering the FBI raid of Trump ally Rudy Giuliani's home and law office, and discussing the Biden administration's infrastructure and economic plans as well as the coronavirus pandemic.
ABC, CBS, NBC GO FULL DAY WITHOUT MENTIONING LATEST CUOMO NURSING HOME SCANDAL BOMBSHELL
Conservative commentator Stephen Miller, a vocal critic of Tapper on Twitter, previously told Fox News that CNN's star anchor has a "reputation" of retweeting "damning stories of Democrats" and "that's his way of covering it, and then topics on his show are different."
"He plays the role [CNN President] Jeff Zucker wants him to play, like pretty much everyone else at CNN. Pretty simple," Miller said at the time.
Tapper has repeatedly tweeted about Cuomo's scandals while failing to mention them on "The Lead."
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
Last month, Tapper acknowledged the growing number of accusers who came forward with allegations of sexual misconduct against the governor on Twitter, including one staffer who alleged that the Democrat groped her at the executive mansion in Albany late last year. However, there was no mention of the claims on CNN's air.
It is possible that Tapper was simply following orders, since the rest of his CNN colleagues spent an entire week avoiding Cuomo stories that emerged within days of one another. Those included a ninth sexual misconduct accuser, the book controversy and the alleged prioritizing COVID tests for the governor's family members, including little brother Chris Cuomo, anchor of CNN's "Cuomo Prime Time."