Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - February 22, 2021


Ep 373 ｜ Uncovering Andrew Cuomo's COVID Corruption ｜ Guest： Janice Dean


Episode Stats

Length

47 minutes

Words per Minute

170.25505

Word Count

8,137

Sentence Count

452


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Hey guys, welcome to Relatable. Happy Monday. Hope everyone had a wonderful weekend. I am
00:00:14.860 back in the studio. It should sound better if you're watching on YouTube. It should look
00:00:20.080 better. We had crazy weather last week as you guys know and as we have talked about,
00:00:26.600 but now it's all good. It's all good. It's beautiful weather here now and I get to be back
00:00:31.720 in the studio talking to you guys and a much better set than the one that I had last week.
00:00:36.920 So I'm so excited about today's episode. I know I say that all the time and I really am excited
00:00:42.120 about every episode that I do, but today I am talking to a particularly awesome guest and that
00:00:47.620 is Janice Dean. She is the chief meteorologist for Fox News and she typically doesn't wade into
00:00:53.200 politics. But over the past year, she has been speaking out against the corruption of Andrew
00:00:58.260 Cuomo and how his corruption has negatively affected the elderly population in New York
00:01:04.320 because of the COVID policies that he put in place that put them more at risk. And she personally
00:01:09.940 has suffered. Unfortunately, her family has suffered from some of his mandates and she has been
00:01:18.020 beating this drum so consistently over the past year. And I'm just so thankful and admiring of
00:01:26.280 her bravery. And so we're going to have a conversation with her at the last half or the last
00:01:32.220 bit of this episode. She has an amazing story. She's so articulate and she's so passionate about this.
00:01:38.980 And you're also going to leave that conversation feeling uplifted and encouraged because that's just
00:01:43.620 who she is. That's what she does. Before we start that conversation, though, I'm going to kind of set
00:01:49.140 us up. I want to talk about what's been happening in New York and some of these policies by Andrew
00:01:54.760 Cuomo, the media coverage of it, and then compare and contrast that to the media coverage of Ron
00:02:00.860 DeSantis. And this is important because as thinking people, and in particular as Christians who care
00:02:06.920 about the truth and who care about things like bias, who care about, for example, the sin of
00:02:12.180 partiality and who want to try to elevate the truth and seek the truth as much as we can as fallible
00:02:19.520 human beings, we need to care about media bias. Really, whether it goes one way or another. You
00:02:25.420 guys know I've said many times, I am a conservative. I'm a conservative Christian. And so I'm going to always
00:02:30.580 come from that perspective. You usually know kind of what conclusions I am going to come to.
00:02:36.200 And I don't hide that from you guys. I don't pretend to be this middle-of-the-road journalist
00:02:41.280 who is never going to tell you my opinion. This is an opinion commentary show. There seems to be
00:02:47.240 some confusion sometimes in the reviews that I get. It literally says in the description that I have a
00:02:53.100 Christian conservative worldview, which means that I'm never going to try to hide the truth from you,
00:02:58.540 or I'm never going to try to be hypocritical or have double standards or be duplicitous or deceitful
00:03:05.160 or anything like that. But it does mean that I have a particular perspective that is going to color
00:03:10.440 my commentary. Now, when it comes to the news, when it comes to journalism, they purport to be,
00:03:16.280 they pretend to be unbiased. They say that they're just bringing us the facts, that it has nothing to
00:03:22.420 do with their political leanings, that they really are these middle-of-the-road people. But I think we've
00:03:26.720 all kind of had a good laugh at that, especially over the past few years. I have no problem with bias.
00:03:32.740 I have no problem with opinions, as long as you are honest about that, as long as you say,
00:03:38.680 this is the perspective that I'm coming from. And as far as I know, every fact that I am giving you is
00:03:43.900 absolutely true, but my conclusions are colored by a particular perspective. I have nothing wrong with
00:03:48.880 that. But it's when the media pretend to be our arbiters of truth or the fact checkers on Facebook,
00:03:54.580 these big tech companies, pretend to be our arbiters of truth, pretend to be the prison through
00:04:01.780 which all reality or all experiences, all events must go for us to be able to draw or see right
00:04:11.080 conclusions. That's when I have a problem, when I see such gross and disturbing bias from them in a way
00:04:19.180 that completely obscures reality and the truth. And then it's up to people like me and you to dig
00:04:24.200 through a million different stories to try to find what is actually real. And if you want to talk
00:04:29.920 about why, one of the reasons why we're so polarized, there are many reasons, but one of the reasons why
00:04:35.540 we're so polarized today is because it's just easier to read outlets and to watch people and to listen to
00:04:44.300 people that affirm our biases. Because when we go to the other side, it's not like we're getting just
00:04:49.620 a challenging perspective. We're getting what we feel like is an obscuring of the truth. So when I
00:04:56.940 read MSNBC or when I watch MSNBC, it's not just that my opinions are challenged. It's that I feel
00:05:02.700 that they are not telling the whole story. And I'm sure people feel that about outlets on the
00:05:07.740 conservative side as well. So it can just get very difficult and people decide I'm not going to wade
00:05:12.260 through the facts. I'm not going to dig through all the details. I am just going to believe every
00:05:16.480 headline that comes my way that confirms my bias. And that's a problem. It takes a lot of work for
00:05:21.540 us to kind of dig through everything to figure out what's going on. I'm going to try my best to do
00:05:25.380 that today with Andrew Cuomo because there has not been fair media coverage of him because he's a
00:05:29.980 Democrat and people like Andrew Cuomo. And he was kind of the foil to President Trump while President
00:05:34.840 Trump was in office. President Trump was supposed to be like this jester or simultaneously a jester
00:05:43.660 and, you know, the joker, I guess, this this evil, corrupt genius that was purposely trying to kill
00:05:51.520 people of coronavirus while at the same time the media depicted him as this like clumsy fool who
00:05:56.580 could never get anything right. And then we were supposed to look at Andrew Cuomo, the governor of
00:06:00.180 New York, and see confidence, confidence. And we were supposed to see success. This is how you handle
00:06:08.200 things. This is how you handle the virus. So he kind of just became Trump's arch nemesis. And he
00:06:14.280 became the guy that the media looked to, to kind of, you know, set up on this platform or idolizes the
00:06:22.440 hero of COVID response. And really, nothing could be further from the truth. And that's what we're going
00:06:29.220 to talk about today in pursuit of reality and pursuit of the truth and pursuit of clarity, because
00:06:36.160 that is always important. So let's do a little timeline. Let's back up a little bit. Start of
00:06:41.680 COVID. It's almost been a year. We've almost had like a year anniversary to the start of COVID. I
00:06:47.440 remember my last speaking engagement was March 6th before all of it happened. I went to LA and I
00:06:53.600 remember being like mildly worried about shaking people's hands and hugging and things like that.
00:06:58.120 And the people at the event that I that I was speaking at thought that I was like crazy, but I just
00:07:03.520 didn't know at that point. I thought this had like a 25% death rate. And I was worried that if I shook
00:07:09.200 everyone's hand or hugged people that I would get sick. It was actually in LA. Then I came home,
00:07:14.260 everything shut down. It's almost been a year since then, which is just crazy. But at the start of
00:07:19.460 COVID, March 25th, 2020, the Cuomo administration in New York, quote, barred nursing homes from refusing
00:07:25.500 people just because they have COVID-19. So at the rollout of his response to COVID, we knew by the
00:07:33.540 way that the most vulnerable community, the most vulnerable people to coronavirus and the most
00:07:39.660 likely to end up in the hospital and the most likely die. We knew that that was the elderly
00:07:44.040 population. The Cuomo administration, I don't know the reasoning. I don't understand the logic behind it,
00:07:51.240 but they decided that they were going to allow COVID positive nursing home patients back into
00:07:58.000 nursing homes. Then in July 2020, Cuomo's office conducted an internal report that found that this
00:08:04.820 March 25th order sent thousands of recovering coronavirus patients into nursing homes. That was
00:08:11.120 and that was not a significant factor in the outbreak. Of course, this report that came out
00:08:17.880 that Cuomo's office issued obviously got a lot of scrutiny and a lot of criticism because of flawed
00:08:24.020 methodology. And there were selective stats that sidestepped the actual impact of the March 25th order,
00:08:30.780 which actually uttered or ushered, we thought, in July 2020, more than 6,300 recovering virus patients
00:08:38.140 into nursing homes at the height of the pandemic while they were still contagious. So Cuomo's office
00:08:42.940 comes out in July 2020, says, oh, yeah, we did this, but it's, you know, it's not a big deal. It didn't
00:08:47.580 really have an effect on anything. August 2020, Cuomo announced that he would be releasing a book
00:08:52.880 in which he reflected on his experience with the pandemic so far and offered leadership advice
00:08:58.680 and a glimpse into his relationship with then President Donald Trump. So he is just making the
00:09:04.160 most of the popularity that he had gained in this pandemic and because of his response.
00:09:13.200 Then in November 2020, there was an announcement that Cuomo would receive an international Emmy
00:09:18.040 for his once-daily televised COVID-19 briefings, which informed and calmed the public, we were told.
00:09:24.420 And then in January of 2021, Attorney General of New York, Letitia James, released a report
00:09:30.900 describing how the governor's office actually undercounted the number of COVID-linked nursing
00:09:36.300 home deaths by more than 50 percent. And, you know, we knew this. Janice Dean had been talking
00:09:41.660 about this for a long time. We knew about the March order, even though Cuomo's office said
00:09:46.540 in July, hey, this March order had nothing to do with anything. He became really defensive about it.
00:09:51.180 He said, no, we're doing really well with nursing home deaths. We knew on the conservative side,
00:09:55.840 this was a lie. We had been talking about this. We had been tweeting about this. We talked about this
00:10:00.360 on this podcast, I think last April, how Cuomo had failed in his leadership in COVID response and the
00:10:07.820 media was just completely gaslighting all of us. I mean, they were just completely brushing over any
00:10:13.580 of his failures in order to present him as the competent leader in contrast with their arch enemy,
00:10:20.300 President Trump. The New York Post reported that, quote, Cuomo's top aide, Melissa DeRosso,
00:10:25.080 admitted during a conference call with Democratic leaders that the administration
00:10:28.060 hid unfavorable information about the state's nursing home COVID-19 deaths out of concern that it
00:10:34.720 was going to be used against them. According to a Thursday report from the Associated Press,
00:10:40.720 more than 9,000 recovering COVID patients in the Empire State were released from hospitals
00:10:45.960 into nursing homes early in the pandemic under a controversial directive from Cuomo's administration.
00:10:51.840 Now, we talked about, I think back in April, the possibility of why they decided to release these
00:10:58.740 elderly patients early while they were still positive, while they were still contagious,
00:11:02.720 back into nursing homes, thereby spreading this disease that is deadly for this population,
00:11:08.860 like wildfire. And it probably has to do with Medicare reimbursements for hospitals, hospitals
00:11:14.240 making sure that they are getting the reimbursements and the money they need. And the crazy thing is,
00:11:21.240 is the policies that led up to this, the Medicare, Medicaid cuts that Cuomo was responsible for,
00:11:28.360 I think, in November of 2019 also had something to do with this particular order and making sure that
00:11:36.340 hospitals could get the reimbursements that they want. I'll make sure to link to that past episode
00:11:40.980 because we have detailed just all of the incompetence and the failures of Andrew Cuomo that led up to his
00:11:47.060 continued failures after after the pandemic started. Quote, the new number of 9056 recovering patients
00:11:55.500 sent to hundreds of nursing homes is more than 40 percent higher than what the state health department
00:12:00.080 previously released. And it raises new questions as to whether a March 25th directive from Governor
00:12:05.320 Andrew Cuomo's administration helped spread sickness and death among residents, a charge the state
00:12:10.440 of the state. Now, Trump had started tweeting about the mishandling by governors like Newsom,
00:12:17.580 like Whitmer, like Phil Murphy, including Andrew Cuomo. And apparently Cuomo's office got very nervous
00:12:24.140 about this. And that is why Melissa DeRosso, who works for Cuomo, said to the New York lawmakers on that
00:12:32.980 conference call that, hey, we're worried about this. And look, this is why we misreported this stuff,
00:12:39.460 or this is why we're not saying the truth about how many nursing home deaths there were, because
00:12:43.700 we're worried about being scrutinized. She said, we weren't sure if there was going to be an
00:12:49.320 investigation. And so Cuomo and his staff allegedly lied. The Washington Times asks a really good
00:12:55.980 question. Why didn't Cuomo send these patients to the USNS Comfort or the Javits Center, which were set
00:13:04.960 up by President Trump specifically to help New York, because it was thought that New York was going to
00:13:10.520 have an overload of cases. And so you'll remember that giant ship that was off the coast of New York
00:13:15.380 that President Trump made sure was there to help with the overflow. And also, Andrew Cuomo, as we
00:13:21.460 talked about in a previous episode, had shut down a few hospitals in predominantly minority and
00:13:29.340 predominantly poor areas in New York before any of this happened, which was part of why President
00:13:34.500 Trump needed to send the ship. And so why didn't Andrew Cuomo, who said that they didn't even need
00:13:39.120 the ship, send those COVID-positive patients to that ship rather than back into the nursing homes
00:13:44.180 because he didn't want to give Trump credit? And the media didn't care either because they didn't
00:13:48.080 want to give Trump credit. So for everyone on the left that calls anyone on the right a grandma killer
00:13:53.360 because, hey, we care about businesses and we care about restaurants and we want people to be able
00:13:58.880 to safely live their lives so they don't die by suicide and loneliness and poverty. Everyone on
00:14:04.580 the left who has been pointing to the right is heartless. What did you have to say about any of
00:14:08.320 this? Most people, nothing. Most of the people who call everyone on the right grandma killers had
00:14:14.600 nothing to say about any of this when it was going on, just pointed fingers at President Trump as if all of
00:14:20.580 this was within his jurisdiction rather than these state leaders. As you guys probably know, the New
00:14:27.620 York state lockdown strategy was to basically close everything down. Andrew Cuomo was sued by
00:14:35.340 a couple synagogues and I think Catholic dioceses in New York. We've talked about this on a previous
00:14:43.360 episode, too. They won their case because he was discriminatory. The Supreme Court found
00:14:48.920 in shutting down and restricting these religious institutions in various parts of the state in
00:14:56.780 a way that he did not restrict other businesses. And so he has been very restrictive in closing down
00:15:04.020 businesses and closing down the economy and making sure that schools stay shut down. Of course,
00:15:10.300 there's been a struggle between state leaders and teachers unions who want to keep the schools shut
00:15:17.700 down. But he has been as restrictive as possible. And yet there have been 46,346 deaths as of right
00:15:24.380 now, according to The New York Times. And now let's compare that to a state like Florida, who is led by
00:15:30.300 a Republican that the media just happens to absolutely hate. Florida has had 29,905 deaths and Florida has
00:15:39.400 2 million more people than New York does and a bigger elderly population. And yet the restaurants have been
00:15:47.300 mostly open. The schools have been mostly open. The businesses have been mostly open. People in Florida have
00:15:52.480 pretty much been able to lead regular lives. California also has a lower per capita death rate than New York.
00:15:59.940 And we can go through the highest death rates in the country. Number one, New York. Number two,
00:16:05.780 or sorry, number one, New Jersey. Number two, New York. Number three, Massachusetts. Number four,
00:16:10.360 Rhode Island. Way down the list, Texas. And then way down the list more. Number 28 is Florida. And yet,
00:16:17.020 if you read the news, you would think that Florida is leading the country, nay, leading the world in deaths
00:16:24.360 and hospitalizations. And that's just not true. New York has the second highest number of hospitalizations,
00:16:29.640 according to the Atlantic, just looking at the raw number after California, which again,
00:16:34.960 California has millions of more people than New York. And so it makes sense that their hospitalization
00:16:40.500 number would be higher. But New York still has the second highest number of hospitalizations more than
00:16:46.600 Florida, which again has more people than New York. And yet the press coverage for Andrew Cuomo,
00:16:52.680 after all of this corruption, after the quantified incompetence that we have seen from his
00:16:59.100 leadership, we have gotten headlines like this over the past year. This is from
00:17:03.800 our good friend, Jennifer Rubin at the Washington Post. No one does it like Andrew Cuomo.
00:17:10.820 Quote, remarkable success in lowering the rates of infection, hospitalization, and deaths in New York
00:17:15.000 meant an end to Democratic Governor Andrew M. Cuomo's daily news conferences, which are really
00:17:19.700 tutorials on managing the crisis, sprinkled with philosophical observations and tales from the
00:17:23.720 Cuomo family. How cute. U.S. News, how coronavirus made Andrew Cuomo America's governor. New York's
00:17:32.640 brash leader has risen to the occasion as the nation looks for a comforting leader during the public
00:17:37.560 health crisis brought on by coronavirus. And then in May, CNN says Andrew Cuomo may be the single most
00:17:44.080 popular politician in America right now. And sadly, that was probably true. A lot of people are duped by
00:17:49.500 what they see in the media. Rolling Stone said in April, Andrew Cuomo takes charge. The governor of
00:17:54.920 New York found himself at the center of a deadly crisis. His response has helped guide the nation.
00:18:00.040 The Philadelphia Inquirer, Andrew Cuomo for president? Joe Biden should make it happen. What?
00:18:06.960 Newsday, DNC should go with Cuomo for president. He is the only elected official in the United States
00:18:13.440 today who has fully demonstrated the leadership, toughness, management, skill,
00:18:17.560 and humanity than meeting the coronavirus pandemic demands. Think about, think about all of the
00:18:24.220 statistics, all of the facts that I just shared with you about his leadership and his decisions
00:18:28.380 and what has happened in New York. And remember these headlines also when you listen to my conversation
00:18:33.960 with Janice Dean and some of just the disturbing details that have been revealed about Cuomo as a person
00:18:39.980 and his leadership. Now, let's compare that glowing coverage that we have seen of Cuomo despite
00:18:47.060 all of the craziness that has come out from his office. Compare that coverage to the coverage
00:18:54.140 of Ron DeSantis, who is the Republican governor of Florida. Washington Post in December, even by
00:19:00.880 Florida standards, Governor Ron DeSantis is a COVID-19 catastrophe. CNN, putting politics in front of
00:19:07.220 lives. DeSantis faces criticism over Florida's COVID-19 response. Miami Herald, to what depths has
00:19:13.200 Governor DeSantis sunk to please President Trump's secrecy, deception, and even arrayed Tampa Bay
00:19:19.480 Times. DeSantis has betrayed the people he serves. And now listen to this recent article in MSNBC
00:19:24.900 that describes Ron DeSantis' vaccine rollout, distribution, and also just his leadership during
00:19:34.140 the time of COVID in general. Governor Ron DeSantis, a Republican, ignored federal guidelines and
00:19:39.320 prioritized getting senior citizens, one of Florida's most potent voting blocs, vaccinated
00:19:44.740 first. Okay, let me read that again. Governor Ron DeSantis, a Republican, ignored federal guidelines
00:19:51.560 and prioritized getting senior citizens, the gall, one of Florida's most potent voting blocs, vaccinated
00:19:59.560 first. It also happens to be the population most likely to die from coronavirus. How dare Ron DeSantis?
00:20:10.220 When Holocaust survivors and Cuban survivors of the Bay of Pigs debacle, revered members of two other
00:20:16.280 key Florida voting blocs, got their first shots. DeSantis made sure he was there for the news conferences,
00:20:22.320 says MSNBC. And now the governor stands accused of using the COVID-19 vaccine to reward powerful
00:20:28.300 political supporters and developers by setting up pop-up vaccination sites in plant communities they
00:20:34.840 developed and where GOP voters predominate. So the media narrative has been that Ron DeSantis is
00:20:43.340 sliding specifically minority communities, poor communities in favor of affluent white communities
00:20:50.460 in getting the vaccines so he can reward them for their support and ensure their vote next go around.
00:20:57.660 Now there is absolutely no evidence of that whatsoever. And by the way, let us remember
00:21:03.360 that the numbers do not show in any way that Ron DeSantis has had any kind of worse response to this
00:21:10.440 than someone like Andrew Cuomo. There's no numerical evidence of that whatsoever. And yet the media wants
00:21:17.100 to jump up this outrage. They're worried about Ron DeSantis running in 2024. They're worried about how
00:21:22.600 popular he is among Republicans. They're worried about showing GOP leadership as something that can be
00:21:28.640 competent, something that can be good, something that can be compassionate. And so they are trying their
00:21:33.520 darndest to bring him down. National Review wrote about this, and I thought that they did a really good
00:21:43.180 uncovering of what's actually happening in Florida. So let me read you an excerpt from this article.
00:21:48.840 The efforts to vaccinate people in underserved Florida communities were largely ignored by most
00:21:54.180 mainstream media outlets this past week. During the three-day pop-up event, so that was an event that
00:22:00.560 Governor DeSantis organized, he has been organizing these vaccination events around the state,
00:22:06.880 3,000 doses of vaccine were administered in a planned community with a large number of seniors
00:22:11.300 called Lakewood Ranch in Manatee County, just south of St. Petersburg. Democrats charged that DeSantis
00:22:17.140 was playing politics with vaccine distribution and favoring white, wealthy Republicans. State
00:22:22.080 Representative Michelle Rayner accused the governor of prioritizing affluent neighborhoods
00:22:27.280 over our underserved population. But that's not actually true. This article goes on to say,
00:22:33.240 in early February, DeSantis teamed with former NFL star in Kwan Bolden to distribute vaccines in Bolden's
00:22:40.180 hometown of Pahokee, an impoverished farming community. More than 60% of Pahokee's population
00:22:48.740 is black, according to the U.S. Census reports. Because the city is about 30 miles from the nearest
00:22:54.020 Publix grocery store and one of the state's primary vaccination distributors, most of the area's
00:22:58.600 seniors had little access to the vaccine, according to a report by the Palm Beach Post. And so DeSantis
00:23:04.780 made sure that this predominantly minority community who doesn't typically have access
00:23:09.920 to vaccine distribution, that they were able to get the vaccine when and how they needed to get it.
00:23:16.740 According to the Post, DeSantis was contacted about Pahokee by the state's lottery secretary,
00:23:22.720 John Davis, another former Pahokee football standout who had been talking with Bolden. Among the 51 churches
00:23:31.140 and recreation centers where the state has had vaccination events are Holy Temple Missionary
00:23:36.080 Baptist Church, in a poor majority black city in Miami-Dade County, a recreation center in
00:23:43.000 downtown Fort Myers, and at least two churches in the overwhelmingly Hispanic city of Hialeah in
00:23:49.180 Miami-Dade. Last week, the Division of Emergency Management established a state-supported vaccination
00:23:55.680 site at the historically black Florida A&M University in Tallahassee, the state capital.
00:24:00.320 DeSantis' administration has also launched a program to deliver vaccines to homebound seniors,
00:24:06.440 starting with Holocaust survivors and World War II and Korean War veterans. But apparently that's bad.
00:24:13.620 People are very angry at DeSantis for going to these events, for taking press photos,
00:24:19.120 for thanking these veterans, even though this is far in a way a better plan and a more efficient and
00:24:26.620 effective rollout and a more effective and efficient way to reach these predominantly minority
00:24:32.840 communities than what we're seeing in blue states. And the Spectator actually, there's an article in
00:24:38.920 the Spectator that is detailing this and is making that very argument that red states are doing better
00:24:44.920 with vaccine rollout than Democratic states are. This is what the Spectator says. West Virginia has one
00:24:50.220 of the lowest per capita incomes in the United States, along with some of the highest levels of
00:24:54.000 chronic illnesses. But it has been among the most prolific in protecting its residents against
00:24:58.960 the novel coronavirus. The governor has closely managed the process of determining who gets priority
00:25:04.020 while giving counties far less leeway than in other states to make their own rules. That ethos has helped
00:25:09.300 propel his state to a position that much wealthier and healthier states can only envy. West Virginia,
00:25:16.140 the article says, is no outlier. As of this writing, the CDC reports that under the leadership of
00:25:21.000 Republican Governor Ron DeSantis, Florida has delivered more full vaccines than have perennial
00:25:26.480 blue states like New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, Washington, Oregon,
00:25:33.600 and of course, California. Only three blue states have managed to outpace Florida on vaccine
00:25:38.640 distribution per 100,000 residents, New Mexico, Connecticut, and Vermont. Despite the obvious
00:25:44.660 success of Florida's program, Democrats and the media have relentlessly criticized Governor DeSantis for his
00:25:49.340 handling of the vaccinations. The Sunshine State is home to a large percentage of people over 65,
00:25:54.680 yet his critics insist that his policy of prioritizing seniors is politically motivated.
00:25:59.860 The real problem, of course, is that his state is outperforming blue states, and that is correct.
00:26:06.120 And they also point out how Alaska really has done the best when it comes to vaccine distribution,
00:26:11.980 even though there are a lot of topographical challenges when it comes to Alaska. So it says
00:26:20.400 this, bigger than Texas, California, and Montana combined, Alaska is a vast, sparsely populated,
00:26:26.320 and largely roadless state with only a handful of main arteries. To distribute vaccines, doctors and nurses
00:26:32.900 statewide have had to rely on a wide range of transportation modes. Alaska's vaccine process is
00:26:38.580 distinct from other states in that it is built on an existing immunization program. So that means
00:26:44.020 that they were prepared. They already had a program in place, and all they had to do is build on it.
00:26:48.280 And yet, we are not getting, we are not seeing praise for these red states. Instead, we are being told
00:26:55.540 that DeSantis should be called Death Santis. And we have been told for the past year that we need to
00:27:00.840 be hailing Andrew Cuomo as a hero. Only recently has the media decided, you know what, okay, Trump lost,
00:27:07.200 and so it's okay for us to kind of criticize him for these things. AOC finally came out and said,
00:27:13.140 yeah, you know, I support an investigation. Okay. Well, AOC apparently has been too busy going down
00:27:20.180 to Texas and raising money for Texas to care about her own constituents for the past year,
00:27:28.800 who have no doubt been negatively affected by Cuomo's lack of leadership and the corruption that has been
00:27:36.360 obvious to most people for months now. She didn't say anything about that. She could have been calling
00:27:42.180 for an investigation or resignation a long time ago. But now, when it's okay to do so, like when
00:27:48.320 Democrats have the White House, when they have Congress, that's when the Democratic media, that's
00:27:53.840 when Democratic politicians now feel safe to be able to come out and to criticize people like Andrew
00:28:01.080 Cuomo. And look, I'm glad that people are criticizing him. I'm glad that there are some in the media that are
00:28:06.100 writing about his corruption. I'm glad that there are Democratic politicians calling him out.
00:28:10.780 I did hear a theory the other day that I thought was an interesting theory, that the Democratic
00:28:15.500 establishment, and this is just a theory, and I don't have any, I don't say this on any authority
00:28:21.320 whatsoever. I just thought it was interesting, something that I heard on another podcast,
00:28:25.080 that apparently the Democratic establishment really wants Kamala for president in 2024. And they want to
00:28:31.760 ensure that she will win that election and that she will not lose a primary, considering she failed
00:28:37.520 so miserably in the Democratic primary last time, never polled above 1%. Like even in her own state,
00:28:44.540 she was struggling. So they know that she doesn't have widespread popularity, but they really want her
00:28:50.060 to become president because they believe that she is going to be able to, or she will be willing to push
00:28:54.920 through whatever policy, whatever agenda the Democratic establishment has. And so apparently
00:29:00.580 they want Kamala Harris to win in 2024. They don't want any strong contenders. And so they are trying
00:29:08.800 to elbow out people like Cuomo. They're trying to elbow out Gavin Newsom, anyone who might have their
00:29:15.820 sights set on the White House in 2024. I am hearing that the Democratic establishment may be trying to push
00:29:22.840 those contenders out so it will be easy for Kamala Harris to win in 2024. Who knows if that's true?
00:29:29.560 I thought that that was interesting. So that could be why all of the sudden, after the past year of
00:29:35.340 conservatives saying, hey, Cuomo is doing a bad job, many of these Democratic governors that are getting
00:29:40.600 credit are getting credit for no reason. They're doing a bad job. A lot of these Republican governors that are
00:29:46.140 doing really well are getting criticized, getting criticism for no reason. They're doing a good job.
00:29:51.200 We've been saying that for a year. And now you are kind of seeing a little acquiescence,
00:29:56.980 a little agreement from the Democratic media and from Democratic politicians, but only because they
00:30:01.540 believe that their power, at least for now, is safe. And so they can do these things. And maybe it has
00:30:08.180 something to do with 2024 as well. I'm not sure. So I just kind of wanted to give us plenty of context
00:30:14.220 in leading up to my conversation with Janice Dean to let us know what we're dealing with here,
00:30:18.680 the hefty hypocrisy that we're seeing, the deceitfulness and the duplicity coming from our
00:30:27.220 media in regards to this coverage. It just reminds us that we really have to dig if we really want to
00:30:32.160 know what's going on and to never get whipped up just by media headlines that we also and always have
00:30:39.200 to do more work to actually understand what is really going on and what the truth of the matter is.
00:30:45.620 Janice, thank you so much for joining me. I've been so excited to talk to you. Can you tell us,
00:30:56.620 for those who don't know, what has kind of inspired you or motivated you to call out Andrew Cuomo in the
00:31:03.980 way that you have for the past few months? It's been 10 months, almost a year. It's hard to believe it.
00:31:12.240 Um, and I think, you know, as well as most of the viewers on Fox and friends, I'm the meteorologist
00:31:19.660 on Fox news. And I've been that, that person for 17 years and I've never been a political person.
00:31:26.700 People don't know who I voted for. Um, I always say the only red and blue I see on a map for areas of low
00:31:33.580 pressure and high pressure. So to find myself in this, uh, political storm is not comfortable for
00:31:41.240 me, but the reason I am speaking out is because my husband's parents died of COVID, uh, in elder care
00:31:48.440 facilities. They were in separate elder care facilities. And going back in late March, um,
00:31:54.700 we lost his dad first. He was in a nursing home, a rehab center, because we were trying to get him in
00:31:59.940 better shape to join his mom D who was in an assisted living residence close to us here on
00:32:06.260 long Island. And this was a fairly recent move. Um, you know, they lived in a four story walk up in
00:32:12.420 Brooklyn for over 50 years. It was rent controlled. It was hard to get them to move over the last
00:32:18.280 several years and their health was failing them. We had aids that were going up to see them and take
00:32:23.580 care of them, but it was just turning out that we needed 24 hour care, especially with his dad who had
00:32:28.160 dementia. Right. And so his mom went on a tour with my husband to find a nice place close to us where
00:32:35.460 they would be taken care of. They would be in a double room. And, you know, as really just a few
00:32:41.740 months after we got that done, COVID happened and we were in quarantine. Uh, we were only able to really
00:32:51.060 contact them through the phone or talking to somebody that worked at their separate elder care
00:32:56.440 facility. And we didn't even know his dad was ill until late on a Saturday morning, we get a phone
00:33:02.540 call, uh, saying that his dad wasn't feeling well. And then three hours later, we get a phone call
00:33:08.440 saying he was dead. Wow. And we had no idea he was even sick. Um, obviously we knew that COVID was an
00:33:16.600 issue in New York because we were all in quarantine. I was at home. My kids were at home. Um, we didn't know
00:33:24.280 his dad had died from COVID until we saw his death certificate. And looking back, there was a red
00:33:31.880 flag, but we didn't know it at the time. Uh, we got a phone call probably a week or so before his dad
00:33:39.700 passed away saying that they were going to move him to a different floor so that they could allow for more
00:33:46.000 residents to come in. And when I look back now, I think that that was our first sign that there were
00:33:53.080 COVID positive patients being put into his nursing home. We don't know that for certain. Um, I can
00:33:59.120 only assume and hindsight, then his mom got sick two weeks later. And my husband had to tell his mom
00:34:06.880 that her husband had died. And obviously the worst thing he's ever had to do. She was heartbroken.
00:34:14.140 Um, she got sick. She was brought to the hospital and they diagnosed her with COVID two weeks later
00:34:20.240 and she died in the hospital. And my husband wasn't able to see her. Um, he got a call after
00:34:27.600 she passed away saying that he could come see her body through a glass window. Wow. Wow. So what have
00:34:37.000 you learned since then? Obviously I can't even imagine dealing with all of that and not being able to
00:34:43.180 mourn and to grieve and to honor their lives in the way that you typically would be able to in any kind
00:34:49.580 of normal year, but add on top of that kind of what you've learned about the Cuomo administration
00:34:55.440 and some of the, uh, very purposeful steps. It seems like they took to, um, to kind of make this
00:35:04.340 vulnerable population in nursing homes, even more vulnerable. What has it been like dealing with that?
00:35:09.880 What have you, what have you learned? What has that process been like for you?
00:35:13.720 We didn't know there was a mandate, an order to put COVID positive patients into nursing homes until
00:35:20.800 after they died. And I started seeing those reports and not seeing a lot of them. And then finding out
00:35:28.780 that my mother-in-law's number, because she died in the hospital was not counted towards the nursing
00:35:35.780 home deaths. So I started to see these bits and pieces on some of the news. The New York Post was doing
00:35:40.920 great reporting. Um, but certainly the mainstream media outside of Fox news was not reporting on this
00:35:47.140 at all. So in mid may, I talked to my husband about coming forward and talking about our story.
00:35:56.200 And he was, you know, he didn't want me to go public with it. Um, it was too personal. My husband is not
00:36:02.880 an on-air television personality. He's very private, but because we wasn't, we weren't seeing the news
00:36:10.480 reports. And when the governor was on television with his brother on CNN, it was like a joke,
00:36:17.160 right? There were no, there were no, there were no questions about the nursing home mandate that he
00:36:22.320 had in place for 46 days for March 25th to May 10th. Why was he putting COVID positive patients in a
00:36:29.340 nursing home? He knew that was going to be an issue. He was even quoted as saying it was like
00:36:34.540 fire through dry grass. So what were the origins of this March 25th order? So when I saw him on CNN
00:36:41.340 with the big cotton swabs and his brother, I decided it was, it was time to say something.
00:36:46.860 It was time to talk about my family, what happened and how thousands of families were going through the
00:36:53.740 same thing. And we couldn't have wakes their funerals. We couldn't see our loved ones to hold
00:36:58.680 them, to hold their hand. We weren't there. So that's when I decided it was, it was important
00:37:06.180 for me to tell my story and spread the word about what was happening inside nursing homes.
00:37:12.760 And I'm sure at first it, it may have felt like people weren't listening or it wasn't catching on
00:37:17.540 because we saw that he came out with his book in the fall and he was going to talk about, you know,
00:37:22.420 what a wonderful job he did and the importance of his effective leadership. And then he was
00:37:26.680 nominated for an Emmy for his daily updates. And so I'm sure there have been times over the past
00:37:33.300 10 months where you felt like, okay, is it even worth speaking out? Is anyone listening to me? Is
00:37:39.860 that kind of how it felt at least at some points when it seemed like it was just not getting through
00:37:45.000 to people? Absolutely. Every channel other than Fox, I would see him on CBS this morning, the NBC shows,
00:37:55.200 his MSNBC, the CNN program with his brother. I started getting really angry because they would
00:38:02.060 have him on for lengthy interviews and never ask him about the nursing home mandate. And then,
00:38:08.100 as you mentioned, there was this celebration of his leadership while thousands of people were dying in
00:38:13.620 New York. His leadership book, of course, was a New York Times bestseller. He had this really bizarre
00:38:19.740 poster that he came out before that, that he was selling with all of the things he loved about
00:38:24.440 himself. You know, his staff, a daughter's boyfriend hanging off the cliff. This was like,
00:38:30.320 this was a COVID mountain, essentially showing the cases in New York, how they peaked like a mountain,
00:38:37.140 and then how he was making sure that he was helping crush the curve or bring down those total numbers
00:38:44.160 and selling this COVID mountain poster. He also had a paper mache poster he was using in his
00:38:50.360 presentations to show how he had successfully brought that curve down. New York tough, you like
00:38:58.060 to say. And then the Emmy Award, it was just, it was like we were living in this alternate universe
00:39:03.580 that we were going through this grieving process. Thousands of other families were as well,
00:39:09.200 and no one was speaking up. And then there was some hearings here in New York in August to talk about
00:39:16.660 the nursing home issue in Albany. And I originally was asked to speak. Republican Assemblyman Kevin Byrne
00:39:27.020 asked if I would like to tell my family's story because they were talking about the nursing home mandate
00:39:33.160 and what was going on. And they had Howard Zucker, his health commissioner, talking to law
00:39:39.160 makers. And so I was going to tell my family's story. And then all of a sudden, on a Friday night,
00:39:44.180 my invitation must have got lost in the mail. They decided they were uncomfortable with me speaking
00:39:51.880 about my family. And what have you thought about Cuomo's reaction as some of these accusations have
00:39:59.720 been leveled to him in front of him? The press has started to ask him some of these, I'm sure,
00:40:05.320 uncomfortable questions. It seems like he's kind of gotten just a little defensive and shut them
00:40:11.320 down. Well, that's only happened recently. And that began with the AG's report. There have been
00:40:18.980 many investigations into this governor and the fact that he has been giving sort of false numbers in
00:40:26.500 terms of how many elderly died because New York was the only state that wasn't counting those that died
00:40:32.260 in the hospital. So I always sounded the alarm on that, that the statistics he was giving on
00:40:38.200 television when he was being asked about the nursing home issue was, oh, well, we're far behind other
00:40:44.340 states that lost seniors in nursing homes. We did a great job because he wasn't counting those in the
00:40:50.680 hospital. So there were reporters that had investigations through the FOIL Act. There was also a Justice
00:40:57.260 Department investigation through Bill Barr that they wanted to find out about the nursing home
00:41:04.300 issue. And that's when things started to sort of ramp up a little bit because we now know from Melissa
00:41:12.100 DeRosa, one of his top aides, she was apologizing to Democratic lawmakers a couple of weeks ago and
00:41:17.660 basically was on record admitting that they were covering up the numbers because they were afraid of the
00:41:23.780 DOJ investigation. And then more recently, our attorney general in New York, who is a Democrat,
00:41:30.320 Letitia James, conducted her own investigation into the nursing home issue. And I think that's when the
00:41:36.820 dam began to break, that a fellow Democrat, our attorney general here in New York, was doing her own
00:41:44.880 investigation and indeed saying that the numbers were undercounted by the thousands.
00:41:50.240 Wow. And what do you think is going to happen and how quickly? I know that you can't know that for
00:41:56.620 sure. And politics, of course, is messy. But do you kind of envision the dam continuing to break? Do you
00:42:03.420 envision the walls continuing to close in on him and him actually being held accountable for these
00:42:07.820 things? I hope so. When he has conducted some of his press conference more recently, he is on the
00:42:17.120 defensive and you can tell it. It looks like he's unraveling. You know, his lies are catching up to
00:42:22.560 him and people are starting to ask the question. And more and more lawmakers like Ron Kim, who is a
00:42:29.240 Democratic assemblyman, who who basically said, yes, I was in on that meeting. She did confess to covering
00:42:35.360 up the numbers and I have been bullied and threatened by this governor. So that has started that trickle down
00:42:41.360 effect that people are feeling a little bit more. Brave to to admit that this governor has been
00:42:49.820 bullying and harassing and threatening, not just for months, but for years. Right. I mean, you know,
00:42:58.400 if Bill de Blasio seems to have the upper hand against someone in conversations about good leadership,
00:43:04.900 then things then things must be really bad. Well, I hope that he's held accountable. Your hope would
00:43:09.920 be that he resigns. Correct. Well, no, I want a full investigation into him because I think a lot of
00:43:18.040 these charges could be criminal. Right. Truly, he he he needs to tell the whole truth and nothing but
00:43:25.040 the truth. So resignation. OK, no, I want an investigation. Yeah. Well, I'm so appreciative of
00:43:33.680 you and your husband. I know that it it could have been a lot easier for you to just say, you know what,
00:43:39.400 this is personal. I don't really want to deal with this publicly, but I know that there are so many
00:43:44.580 families who have gone through the same thing that you have, don't have the same platform that you do and
00:43:49.280 are very thankful for the way that you have pushed this and beat this drum. I, for one, really admire you
00:43:55.480 for your boldness. You've been told to watch your back, correct? And talking about this. Yeah. Early on, I
00:44:02.560 emailed with a person that knows the Cuomo family very well that told me, you know, that my cause is
00:44:12.560 is a good one and that this person was very sorry for my family's loss. But when it comes to Cuomo,
00:44:20.520 that I should watch my back. And I've also been, you know, not necessarily threatened, but talked down to
00:44:28.520 by some of his aides saying, well, she's just the weather girl. Yeah. You know, she's not a credible
00:44:34.280 source on anything except maybe the forecast. So they try to shame you that way and silence you.
00:44:39.900 But that only makes me want to speak louder. Well, good for you. And in the midst of all of this,
00:44:44.360 you have a new book, correct? Can you tell us about it? Oh, my goodness. Yes. The book,
00:44:50.020 I will tell you, it's called Make Your Own Sunshine. It comes out next week. And I am so proud of this
00:44:55.400 book. It's not about Cuomo. Yeah. It is about people being light in a time of darkness and writing
00:45:06.160 this book during the pandemic when we lost my husband's parents. It really did give me something
00:45:12.900 to look forward to and some some people to connect with during this really challenging moment. And so
00:45:19.480 when I started writing the book, I didn't realize I would be writing most of it during a pandemic.
00:45:23.640 Right. But I but I feel like it came into my life for a reason. And all of the chapters are about
00:45:30.920 just ordinary everyday people doing wonderful things for other people without really even wanting
00:45:38.380 to have that appreciation back to them. Just, you know, doing kind deeds, some of them just as simple as
00:45:47.440 paying for someone's coffee and the lineup to wonderful moments that are actually like a ripple
00:45:54.640 effect. It makes inspires others to do sort of the same thing or pass it along to someone else.
00:46:00.180 And that's what I call making your own sunshine, because sometimes in those very dark moments,
00:46:04.680 it's the people that come into your life and spread kindness that really shines a light. And and,
00:46:12.660 you know, you don't necessarily need that sunshine to have that that bright light in your in your life.
00:46:19.360 It could be just be someone trying to do something good.
00:46:23.400 Yes. Well, that sounds like the book that people need right now. I know a lot of people are feeling
00:46:27.480 burnt out with politics and the news and they just want some positivity and a reminder that we have
00:46:33.860 more in common than we don't. And so it sounds like this is the kind of book that people would
00:46:39.320 love and need to read right now. So I'm guessing you can get it anywhere books are sold starting next
00:46:44.880 week, correct? Yes, absolutely. You can preorder it. And, you know, certainly I, I would love to come
00:46:52.320 on and talk about it again and highlight some of these beautiful people that for sure that I was
00:46:56.360 able to talk about during in the book. And they certainly helped me get it get through a very dark
00:47:02.360 time in my life. So I'm so appreciative. Well, wonderful. Thank you so much. You are someone who
00:47:07.080 spreads sunshine, even when you were talking about all the craziness that's gone on in the last year,
00:47:13.320 even as you have been grieving, you have shared a lot of sunshine for a lot of people, not just this
00:47:18.480 past year, but over the many years that you have had this platform. So I'm very thankful. I know that
00:47:23.540 I will be praying for you in the midst of all of this. And I know my audience will be too. So
00:47:27.540 thank you so much for taking the time to come on. Well, thank you. And thank you to your audience. And I
00:47:33.800 have felt your love and prayers throughout this whole ordeal. And so I thank you personally for
00:47:40.660 spreading my message as well and giving me all that love and support. I feel it.
00:47:45.980 Of course. Well, thank you so much.