Fox News meteorologist Janice Dean, whose husband's parents died of COVID-19 in the assisted-living facilities where they had lived, slammed New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo for his plans to accept an International Emmy Award being given to him for his coronavirus leadership and announcements.
"To hear the governor going on a sort of another self-congratulatory awards show after his self-congratulatory book tour, to accept an award for his quote, unquote, leadership where over 34,000 New Yorkers died, including my husband's parents, it's just more grief," Dean said on Fox News' "Fox & Friends." "Every time we see this governor celebrating himself on television, it's just a reminder of the people that we lost, partly because of his leadership ... while he accepts his award, many of us just accepted caskets and urns of our loved ones."
Last week, the International Emmy Awards announced that Cuomo is getting an award for his "masterful use of television to inform and calm people around the world" during the COVID-19 health crisis.
The award comes while Cuomo is under criticism for the numbers of people who died in New York's nursing homes, as well as for his book tour and school closings as the state's coronavirus case numbers climb again.
Dean has often criticized Cuomo over his March 25 order sending thousands of recovering COVID-19 patients from hospitals into nursing homes at the height of the pandemic in New York.
On Monday, she said that she wants Cuomo to know that when he "accepts his award for leadership skills, we are going to be mourning them and missing them this Thanksgiving season," and accused him of wanting to be "a celebrity."
"I heard that to get an Emmy award you have to send a videotape of yourself to the board members," she said. "To think that the governor was going through some of his TV appearances talking about deaths in New York and submitting those videos to the Emmy folks really makes me physically sick."
She added that when Cuomo accepts his award, he should start his speech by saying he's sorry for New Yorkers' losses.
"That's something we have never heard from this governor at any of his meetings or his PowerPoint presentations," said Dean, adding later that Cuomo missed several Zoom meetings with the White House because he was on a book tour.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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