By Nicole Silverio
News host and meteorologist Janice Dean fired back on Monday at media and a reported plot to smear her due to vocal criticism of former Democratic New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s nursing home scandal.
Recent reports revealed that Cuomo, along with his brother Chris and top-aide Melissa DeRosa, attempted to discredit Dean as a “right-wing commentator” for criticizing Cuomo’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.
During an appearance on “The Megyn Kelly Show,” host Megyn Kelly asked Dean for her reaction to former CNN anchor Chris Cuomo’s text to DeRosa calling Dean a “Fox News weather b*tch,” and attempting to depict her as “a far-right crazy.” Dean said the alleged discrediting is the media’s “go-to” because she is employed at Fox News.
“Instead of the main focus being a meteorologist who had a terrible atrocity happen within her family,” Dean said. “Two family members close to her dying in New York nursing homes and her trying to find answers and accountability, it’s always ‘but she works at Fox News, so she must’ve voted for Trump.’”
‘”So let’s go dive into her Twitter feed and all the articles that she’s ever written to try to discredit her because she’s probably a right-wing looney … I think to myself, Megyn, what if I worked at another channel? What if I worked over at CNN and we found out that Tucker Carlson was trying to do research on me and trying to find out who I voted for?”
Dean said she believes the media “did a deep dive” on her and ignored her attempts to call out New York’s handling of the nursing home deaths in 2020.
Dean became a major critic of Cuomo’s administration after the death of both her in-laws, Mickey and Dolores, in a New York elder-care facility. The Daily Caller News Foundation first broke the news in May of last year that New York had been largely undercounting the number of nursing home deaths by discounting the patients that died after being transferred to a hospital.
In March, the New York Department of Health (DOH) ordered that COVID-positive nursing home patients could not be turned away from the facility, despite the age group having the highest fatality rate from the virus. Cuomo rescinded the DOH’s order on May 11 after experts say it led to more deaths.
The DOH was fully aware that nearly 10,000 patients died in nursing home facilities, but top-Cuomo aides convinced the department to report just 6,432 deaths in a July 6 report. The report, repeatedly cited by Cuomo, revealed that only 21% of COVID deaths took place in nursing homes. The number jumped to 33% when including the 4,o00 fatalities excluded from the report.
Despite the reports, Cuomo’s spokesperson Rich Azzopardi brushed off Dean’s criticisms by saying she has no credibility, according to CNBC.
“Last I checked she is not a credible source on anything except maybe the weather,” he said in a 2020 statement to the Daily Mail.
Dean previously said that Azzopardi’s comments toward her have been “misogynistic” and that he called critics of the nursing home scandal “a death cult.” He also reportedly told Dean’s sister in-law to “get a life” after losing her parents.