Fox News’ Janice Dean on Monday reaffirmed her longstanding criticism of New York governor Andrew Cuomo’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic, saying his recent Emmy award for his daily briefings made her “physically sick.” Dean’s mother- and father-in-law died of COVID-19 in one of the state’s elder care facilities earlier this year and she has publicly condemned Cuomo for it repeatedly.
“I heard that to get an Emmy Award, you have to send videotape of yourself to the board members,” the channel’s senior meteorologist said during the “Fox & Friends” morning show. “And so 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. He could start his award-winning speech by saying, ‘I’m really sorry for your loss.’ That’s something we have never heard from this governor at any of his meetings or his PowerPoint presentations.”
Dean has been railing against Cuomo’s pandemic decision-making for months. In July, she called for an investigation into his handling of nursing homes amid the coronavirus pandemic crisis.
“This is a hard interview to do because we’re going into Thanksgiving and this is the first Thanksgiving we will have without his parents going into the holiday season,” Dean said Monday of how the upcoming holiday will affect her and her husband. “So to hear the governor going on a sort of another self-congratulatory award 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 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.”
The politician will be awarded with the Founders Award at the International Academy of Television Arts and Sciences’ annual awards show Monday. The award honors individuals or organizations who “cross cultural boundaries to touch our common humanity” and has previously gone to former vice president Al Gore, Oprah Winfrey and Steven Spielberg.
Cuomo is being recognized by the International Academy for his daily TV briefings throughout the early days of the coronavirus pandemic. In its announcement of the prize, the group referred to the briefings as a “masterful use of television to inform and calm people around the world.” Cuomo delivered 111 consecutive daily briefings about the virus starting on March 2, and the clips have collectively drawn a total of 59 million viewers.
Watch Dean above, via Fox News.