Cuomo’s Big Lie

Gov. Cuomo keeps trying to dodge the blame for Health Commissioner Howard Zucker’s deadly nursing-home order by pretending that The Post has created a phony scandal for purely partisan reasons. It’s a big, fat lie — and easily disproven.

At least three times in the last month, he’s pushed his “it’s just all politics, and it’s frankly the New York Post” line, claiming it’s a vendetta by columnists Michael Goodwin and Bob McManus.

Huh. Then why have The Associated Press and Politico reported the same basic facts? Why has PolitiFact (run by the nonprofit Poynter Institute) debunked his claims?

The central issue is Zucker’s March 25 order telling New York nursing homes to admit patients from hospitals without regard to their COVID-19 status — indeed, without testing. That mandate clearly led to thousands of coronavirus fatalities in the state.

Just this week, the distinctly left-leaning ProPublica reported that Rensselaer County Executive Steve McLaughlin told the county-run Van Rensselaer Manor to defy the order and refuse to admit any COVID-positive patients. That 320-bed home hasn’t had a single coronavirus death. Diamond Hill, a private 120-bed nursing home in the same county, obeyed — and saw 18 residents die from the virus.

Yet the gov sticks to his lies — and not just about The Post. This week he repeated his claim that Zucker was simply obeying federal orders, insisting, “Why did the federal government — federal government — give that guidance to states? That’s the only relevant question.”

In fact, the feds never told states they had to dump contagious patients into the midst of their most vulnerable populations — PolitiFact has detailed why the gov’s claim is false.

“Coronavirus in a nursing home is like fire in dry grass,” the governor said early in the crisis. “The only question is how many people will die.”

No, the real question is how many died because of Zucker’s order. And the point of Cuomo’s desperate lies is to stop New Yorkers from asking it.