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Former Rep. and Former Gov. Mark Sanford (R-SC) Discusses Whether the GOP Will Bow to Conspiracies; NY Gov. Cuomo Accused of Undercounting COVID Nursing Home Deaths. Aired 1:30-2p ET
Aired January 29, 2021 - 13:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[13:30:00]
MARK SANFORD, (R), FORMER SOUTH CAROLINA CONGRESSMAN & FORMER SOUTH CAROLINA GOVERNOR: And that's the case with a number of other Republican representatives, not from across the country, but from right there in Georgia.
BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: Three weeks after the siege of the capitol, we see Kevin McCarthy, the House Republican leader, travel to Florida to visit with Donald Trump and try to smooth things over.
What is your assessment of what that means about where the party is?
SANFORD: I don't think that's an assessment of the party. I think that's an assessment of Kevin McCarthy.
Kevin McCarthy, with due respect, wants to be loved by too many people. At times, politics means taking a stand. And some people are going to love you for it and some people are going to hate you for it, but you've got to take a stand.
I think Kevin is a very convincing guy, and he's got great social graces. But he too much tries to straddle the fence and he too much tries to be in the Trump camp.
And yet, prior to the siege there at the capitol, he was saying it's crazy but then he backs away from it. Just pick a flavor and stick with it.
KEILAR: Both of these congresswomen that I mentioned, who trafficked in conspiracy theories, are facing a lot of pressure to resign right now.
There's Democrats in the House that want to expel them for some of their past comments. Do you think Greene and Boebert should be removed?
SANFORD: No, I think that's open to voter decision. You can have different members of Congress that are going to say stupid things on occasion, on regular occasion. And that's true on both sides of the aisle. The ultimate in expulsion is being by the voter. I think it's the
voters' call.
It's not a peer-group call. You don't work for somebody in Washington. You work for people in your district.
And I think that authority ultimately rests with the voters back home. It's my hope that, come next primary season, you'll see these two folks disappear.
KEILAR: But Greene, for instance, supported the possible execution of the speaker of the House. Isn't that something different?
SANFORD: Again, it is. I've not followed the inside of what's going on with Washington of late. I've been in Charleston at our family farm about an hour south.
I haven't watched every tweet or every social message, so I don't know what she has or hasn't said.
KEILAR: I mean, this is what was -- this is what she said, actually, before she ran for Congress, and it was just uncovered this week. But that's what it is.
I mean, you have members of Congress -- and you can certainly relate having been one --
SANFORD: She said exactly what? What did she say exactly?
KEILAR: In her social media activity, there was a question about -- or there was someone suggesting an execution of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. And she responded certainly not in the negative, I will put it that way.
She talked about -- I'm paraphrasing here. I don't have the quote direct until front of me. But it was about things being in place.
So I mean, it was bad. Let me just characterize it --
(CROSSTALK)
KEILAR: -- so you can trust that it was very bad.
But when you have a situation like that --
SANFORD: Sure.
KEILAR: I mean, imagine going back to being in Congress and having one of your colleagues be someone who is talked about -- let's say you're in the majority -- having talked about or seeming to support the possible execution of the speaker.
SANFORD: I mean, wrong, period. Let me be clear. I'm not on the side of people saying crazy. And there's been way too much crazy out of D.C. for the last four years.
KEILAR: But I guess my question, so that's up to --
(CROSSTALK)
KEILAR: That's up to voters, in your estimation? It's not up to something that maybe should be dealt with in the House? That's really my question.
SANFORD: Well, Nancy Pelosi could bring proceedings forward, you know, if she wanted to do so. Ultimately, that's a Nancy call, not a Mark call.
The House can cleanse itself, certainly. And there are things by which they can do so.
But that ultimately would be driven by the speaker of the House and the majority leadership on both sides. And I've heard nothing on that front. Again, it's their call.
And I have no problem with self-regulation and self-cleansing if things get too far afield. But ultimately, the real field is cleaned by the voter.
KEILAR: Yes, I see what you mean there, sir.
Thank you so much, Governor Mark Sanford, for being with us today.
SANFORD: Yes, ma'am.
[13:34:18]
KEILAR: New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is accused of undercounting coronavirus deaths at nursing homes. We will roll the tape. And he just responded to this report by his own attorney general.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KEILAR: In the initial days of the pandemic, as New York braced to become the first major epicenter of coronavirus in the United States, Governor Andrew Cuomo received accolades for his handling of it.
He even wrote a book touting his leadership during the crisis.
His science-based approach during the looming pandemic stood out in comparison to the inaccurate of often times bizarre White House Coronavirus Task Force briefings held by President Trump.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GOV. ANDREW CUOMO (D-NY): People don't know what to believe. And that's why, just the facts, ma'am, as they used to say. Just give me the facts.
Let's just start with the facts.
The worst news of all for us to live with every day, an everyday tragedy. DONALD TRUMP, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: In April, by
theory, when it gets warmer, it miraculously goes away.
It's going to disappear one day. It's like a miracle. It will disappear.
And I see the disinfectant that knocks it out in a minute.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[13:40:02]
KEILAR: Cuomo supporters buzzed about the governor possibly launching a late presidential run or that he might be picked by the Democratic nominee as a running mate.
But there has been a controversy around his leadership during the pandemic in his state that has been difficult for the governor to shake, and that is his handling of coronavirus deaths in nursing homes.
And a new report out from New York's attorney general confirms some of the most serious claims that have been dogging Cuomo and his administration for months.
The state's Department of Health under counted the number of nursing home residents who died of coronavirus by has much as 50 percent, according to these findings from Democratic A.G. Letitia James.
For months, Cuomo fiercely defended those numbers as he tried to swat away criticism of his administration by claiming that New York's nursing home death toll was much better than most states.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CUOMO: We actually have a lower percentage of people who died in nursing homes.
They want to point fingers not at New York. We're number 46. You have 45 other states to point fingers at first.
In New York State, when you look at the percentage of deaths in nursing homes, we're 46 out of 50 states, 46 out of 50 states. So by percentage, our loss was much, much less than other states.
If you look at how many people died in New York nursing homes, New York is number 46 out of 50 states in the percentage of deaths in nursing homes.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KEILAR: But that ranking was skewed. New York was leaving out casualties that many other states were counting.
In its nursing home death toll, New York only counted COVID deaths that occurred inside of nursing homes. The attorney general's report found that the overall number of deaths
did not change.
But it explains that, quote, "Preliminary data analysis obtained from the office of the attorney general inquiries to a portion of nursing homes during the pandemic suggest that many residents died from COVID- 19 in hospitals after being transferred from their nursing homes. And a larger number of nursing home residents died from COVID-19 than public Department of Health data reflected."
In its nursing home death count, the New York Department of Health was not counting the residents who had contracted the virus in a nursing home but were moved to a hospital for treatment only to die there.
The A.G. also found that some nursing homes did not report COVID-19 deaths in nursing homes to the Department of Health.
In fact, one facility alone, according to the A.G., underreported by as many as 29 deaths.
New York State health commissioner, Dr. Howard Zucker, denied that there was an undercount in the overall death total, saying it was clear their numbers were reported based on place of death.
In a written statement Zucker said the department, quote, "has always publicly reported the number of fatalities within hospitals irrespective of the residence of the patient and separately reported the number of fatalities within nursing home facilities and has been clear about the nature of that reporting."
The state health department appeared to acknowledge the accuracy of the report's claim by updating its COVID death count for nursing home residents last night with the caveat that an audit has not been completed.
The DOH says 3,829 nursing home residents confirmed to have COVID-19 died after being transported to a hospital. And that brings the number of suspected and confirmed nursing home deaths to 12,743.
At the heart of this controversy over the incomplete nursing home death count is Governor Cuomo's insistence that other factors, like nursing home staff inadvertently bringing coronavirus into facilities contributed to the deaths of nursing home residents.
And a memo issued by his health commissioner in the early days of New York's outbreak is not to blame.
That March 24th order, specifically for staff at hospitals and nursing homes who are involved with patient admissions, transfers and discharges said, that with a doctor's OK, patients can be returned to nursing homes.
Quote, "No resident shall be denied re-admission or admission to the nursing home solely based on a confirmed or suspected diagnosis of COVID-19. Nursing homes are prohibited from requiring a hospitalized resident who is determined medically stable to be tested for COVID-19 prior to admission or re-admission.
Now, Cuomo faces criticism over this directive and effectively canceled it in May, issuing an executive order requiring hospitals to be sure that patients tested negative before discharging them to nursing homes, and he has defended the March 24th memo.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CUOMO: There was never a directive that said we will send COVID- positive people back to nursing homes. The directive, which was modeled on the federal directive, said you cannot discriminate.
But the state law clearly says a nursing home can't accept a person unless they can treat them.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[13:45:04]
KEILAR: But family members, like Jerry Maldonado, say nursing homes did take the March memo as a directive to bring in COVID-positive patients. Maldonado's mother died of the coronavirus in the spring in a New York nursing home.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JERRY MALDONADO, MOTHER DIED IN NEW YORK NURSING HOME: I'm here today to bear witness on behalf of my mother, who would have celebrated her 82nd birthday today, but whose life was cut short due to a series of reckless public policy decisions.
The COVID crisis in New York's nursing homes was a preventable crisis. It was fueled by poor public policy decisions, like the Department of Health's March 24th directive.
In a cruel twist of fate, while healthy families like mine were locked out of nursing homes and forced to stay away from our loved ones, my mom was locked into a facility with COVID-positive patients released from the hospital.
Worse yet, despite the governor's daily press briefings, families like mine were kept in the dark about this important policy change and actively misled by nursing home officials.
It was only after my mom developed her first COVID symptoms that I confronted the director of nursing and he finally admitted to me that in, quote, "his words, he had been forced to admit COVID patients into the facility by the state and that he couldn't guarantee that my mom had not been exposed to COVID."
I was apoplectic.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KEILAR: Relatives like Maldonado had a right to be, according to the new report from the New York A.G. While the report shows that some nursing homes implemented the March 24th guidance with the understanding that they were only to accept COVID-positive patients if they could provide care, its preliminary findings also state, quote:
"Government guidance requiring the admission of COVID-19 patients into nursing homes may have put residents at increased risk of harm in some facilities and may have obscured the data available to assess that risk."
That conclusion runs counter to what Governor Cuomo has repeatedly insisted, that nursing home staffers were the ones who inadvertently introduced coronavirus into the facilities.
In October, he said this:
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CUOMO: We should have been testing staff before they walked into a nursing home. That is true. And that was back in March when we didn't have any tests.
We were told asymptomatic spread was impossible, that you had to have a symptom. So the nursing home workers without symptoms were allowed in. That was bad information that we received.
What happened in nursing homes is the disease came in with the staff. Early on, before we understood there was something called asymptomatic spread, because the Trump administration said there was no asymptomatic spread --
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KEILAR: But federal health officials, Trump administration officials, had warned of asymptomatic spread.
Dr. Anthony Fauci said, quote, "There's no doubt asymptomatic transmission is occurring." He said that in late January of last year.
And in February:
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DR. ROBERT REDFIELD, FORMER CDC DIRECTOR: What I've learned in the last two weeks, that the spectrum of this illness is much broader than was originally presented. There's much more asymptomatic illness.
A number of the confirmed cases that we have confirmed actually just presented with a little sore throat.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KEILAR: Cuomo also said nursing homes ultimately did not have to accept COVID-positive patients because there never ended up being a shortage of hospital beds in New York that would have led hospitals to follow the directive and move COVID-positive patients back to their nursing homes.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CUOMO: We always had additional beds for COVID-positive people. We had emergency hospital beds, additional hospital capacity. We never forced any nursing home to take them.
We always had additional hospital beds and emergency beds, so no nursing home was forced to take someone.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KEILAR: Forced or not, the report states that nursing homes did take COVID-positive patients in. And 6,326 of them, in fact, were admitted to 310 nursing homes throughout New York State during the six weeks that the Cuomo administration's March 25th order stood.
The order had made clear to nursing home and hospital admissions and discharge staff that they should prepare for a hospital bed shortage.
Quote, "There's an urgent need to expand hospital capacity in New York State to be able to meet the demand for patients with COVID-19 requiring acute care."
Now, another argument that Cuomo and his administration makes is that they were following federal guidelines.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CUOMO: We did follow a federal rule that said you can't discriminate against people who have COVID, not in a hospital, not in a nursing home.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KEILAR: This is arguable.
Cuomo's administration has pointed to March 13th guidance from the federal government.
[13:50:01]
In it, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid, which regulates U.S. nursing homes, says, quote, "A nursing home can accept a resident diagnosed with COVID-19 and still, under transmission-based precautions for COVID-19, as long as the facility can follow CDC guidance for transmission-based precautions. If a nursing home cannot, they must wait until these precautions are discontinued.
But the A.G. report says that, quote, "Several nursing homes in all regions of the state failed to plan and take proper infection-control measures, including failing to isolate residents who tested positive for COVID-19 and failing to adequately screen or test employees."
The Cuomo administration agrees with that finding and has issues citations for some offending facilities. The head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid reiterated their
guidance in May.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEEMA VERMA, FORMER ADMINISTRATOR CENTERS FOR MEDICARE AND MEDICAID ADMINISTRATOR (voice-over): Under no circumstances should a hospital discharge a patient to a nursing home that's not prepared to take care of those patients' needs. The federal guidelines are absolutely clear about this.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KEILAR: Also, while most states were dealing with the fog of a novel coronavirus, a fast-moving outbreak and an inept federal response, New York had a real-life warning about the risk to nursing homes.
In Washington State, a facility there had been going through one of the nation's first deadly outbreaks.
A week before Cuomo's order, the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Report recommended, quote, "In the context of rapidly escalating COVID-19 outbreaks in much of the United States, it is critical that long-term care facilities implement active measures to prevent introduction of COVID-19."
And finally, one of Cuomo's defenses against the criticism of his order was that it was all politics.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CUOMO: They have played politics on this from day one.
(voice-over): I think you'd have to be blind to realize it's not political. Just look where it comes from and look at the sources and look at their political affiliation. And look at who wrote the letter in Congress. And look at what publications raised it and what media out -- networks raised it. It's kind of incredible.
(on camera): For the president to create a narrative, which is factually untrue, which causes pain -- I understand his political reason. I mean, he needs some counterattack on COVID.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KEILAR: While true that President Trump and Republicans used the crisis to score political points against a Democratic state and its Democratic governor, the heat came from both sides.
The new A.G. report comes from a Democratic attorney general, Letitia James, who was endorsed by Cuomo in her election, which she won. And Cuomo also fundraised for James.
Democrats, including in New York State politics, have been fiercely critical of Cuomo, including the Democratic chairman of the Assembly Health Care Committee. But most importantly, the criticism comes from grieving family whose
have lost loved ones.
We did invite Governor Cuomo to join us today but he declined.
In a news conference before we went to air, Cuomo said this:
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CUOMO: Where this starts is, frankly, a political attack from the prior federal administration HHS. Their great spokesperson, Michael Caputo, is a Roger Stone protege.
Everyone did the best they could.
Whether a person died in the hospital or died in a nursing home, it's -- the -- people died.
I wish this never happened, Dave. I wish none of it happened. I wish there was no COVID. I wish no old people died.
I wish I didn't have to call out National Guard who got sick, some of whom got sick and died.
I wish I didn't have to ask essential workers to leave their homes, bus drivers, some of whom got sick and died.
I wish I didn't have to ask the nurses and the doctors to work around the clock and deal with hell, some of whom got sick and died.
I wish none of it happened. That's what I wish.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KEILAR: And, again, we welcome Governor Cuomo on the program.
We do have more on our breaking news. We're getting word that the pipe bombs found near the capitol on the day of the insurrection were placed there the night before.
[13:54:41]
Plus, is there a strategy behind the recent media appearances by Vice President Kamala Harris?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK
KEILAR: It is the top of the hour. I'm Brianna Keilar.
And we begin with a major boost in the fight against coronavirus. America on the verge of its first single-dose vaccine as the nation averages more than 150,000 cases a day.
[13:59:57]
The vaccine coming from Johnson & Johnson. And the company says it will apply for emergency use authorization next week.
