“People across the district, across the state, are saying ‘you need to take a look at this.’ I’m humbled by that, but I’m also energized by it,” Rep. Tom Reed (R-N.Y.) said on “Fox Across America.”
“Given an opportunity to do my part to serve and try to change the direction of the state, we are definitely looking at it,” Reed added.
Cuomo, a Democrat, has been governor since 2011. He last secured re-election in 2018, earning nearly 60 percent of the vote, to the 36 percent the GOP’s Marc Molinaro earned.
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Cuomo has stayed popular among New Yorkers over the years but is facing increasing scrutiny because of the way his administration has handled the COVID-19 pandemic.
State officials in March 2020 issued a memorandum mandating nursing home directors to take back residents, even if they’d tested positive for COVID-19. Critics say that policy led to many deaths before it was changed several months later.
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Officials also kept until last month the number of nursing home residents who died with COVID-19 after being redirected to hospitals, after New York Attorney General Letitia James reported officials were undercounting deaths among the vulnerable people.
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“A larger number of nursing home residents died from COVID-19 than [Department of Health] data reflected,” her office’s preliminary investigative report stated.
New York State Health Commissioner Howard Zucker admitted in response that nearly 4,000 residents died in hospitals, a number that had not been publicized beforehand.
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Cuomo’s endeavors to repel criticism got more troublesome when one of his top aides, Melissa DeRosa, told state lawmakers during a call that the administration withheld the number of deaths among nursing home residents because they worried the numbers would “be used against us” by the federal government.
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Top Democrats from the state like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) are joining calls from Republicans to review what happened. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio has also excoriated Cuomo.
Two candidates have officially declared for the 2022 New York gubernatorial race, apart from Cuomo. They are Mike Carpinelli, sheriff for Lewis County, and businessman Derrick Gibson.
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Like Reed, Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-N.Y.) is considering a run.
Other rumored possible candidates include Molinaro, Dutchess County’s executive, and Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.).
“I’ve been asked by many people for months now to consider this because I believe in New York and one party control in New York is killing us,” Reed told Fox. “And Governor Cuomo needs to be taken down.”