Fox News’ Janice Dean scared ex-Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York and his recently unemployed brother Chris so badly because of her work in exposing the New York governor’s mishandling of the COVID-19 crisis that the two allegedly plotted together with the help of Andrew’s aide to “discredit” the Fox News weather anchor, according to CNBC.
On Friday, CNBC reported that according to sources who wished to remain anonymous, the governor’s aide Melissa DeRosa was instructed to work with Chris to smear Dean as nothing more than a “right-wing commentator,” but it’s unclear whether or not they actually did:
Melissa DeRosa, who had served as secretary to the governor, was among the Cuomo aides who ripped Dean behind the scenes and sought to craft a public messaging strategy that would paint the Fox News personality as merely a right-wing commentator, people familiar with the effort told CNBC. Dean’s criticism of Cuomo stemmed mainly from the 2020 deaths of her husband’s parents, whom she said died of Covid in their elder-care facilities.
It remains unclear if DeRosa or Cuomo’s team ever went ahead with initiating such a plan.
Andrew Cuomo himself was present during some of the strategy sessions during which Dean was mentioned, one of the people said. These sessions mainly focused on the governor’s response to Covid.
A spokesperson for the governor named Rich Azzopardi denied these allegations, saying, “We had no ‘strategy sessions’ about Janice Dean and to the extent that the press office had to respond to something she said, it was handled by the press office and did not rise to the level of something the governor would be engaged with.”
Earlier this year, Azzopardi himself tried to “discredit” Dean after being asked about her efforts to expose COVID-19 malpractice in the Empire State. “Last I checked [Dean is] not a credible source on anything except maybe the weather,” he told media.
Dean’s parents-in-law died from COVID-19 after the New York governor forced patients with confirmed cases of the virus to stay within elderly nursing homes. Dean issued a blistering response, slamming the governor, his brother, and his spokesperson:
As I have said from day one, 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” and told my sister in law to “get a life” not long after both her parents died.
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.
In January of this year, Azzopardi was particularly misogynistic by responding to my inquiries and reporting as “not a credible source on anything except maybe the weather.”
So while I am not surprised to hear that the Cuomo’s administration alongside his brother Chris Cuomo were doing the same with me, I am glad these details are coming to light.
As noted by CNBC, New York’s “[S]tate Attorney General released a report earlier this year that said Cuomo’s administration had undercounted by thousands of coronavirus-related deaths of state nursing home residents.”
“Cuomo admitted that their lack of public transparency on nursing home deaths was a mistake,” CNBC added. “He also said his office was concerned about Trump’s Department of Justice possibly initiating a politically biased investigation.”
As The Daily Wire reported, the governor’s brother was fired from CNN last Saturday after the network discovered that their former anchor of “Cuomo Primetime” was more actively involved in the governor’s public relations strategy to discredit women who accused him of sexual harassment than it had realized.
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Source: Dailywire
