On Tuesday, I will be appearing before the Congressional Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, a body that according to the resolution creating it, is, among other areas, supposed to investigate “executive branch policies, deliberations, decisions, activities, and internal and external communications related to the coronavirus crisis.”

In practice it has been used to pursue MAGA conspiracies and has focused on validating right-wing obsessions, culminating in a surreal exchange between Dr. Tony Fauci and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), an apparent one-person medical board who tried to take away the decades-long director of the National Institute of Infectious Diseases’ medical license.

I expect much of the same when I address the committee on New York’s response to the pandemic.

Cuomo was one of the key faces of the early days of the pandemic when it hit New York hard. Now he is to be questioned by the COVID Select Committee—but, he writes for the Daily Beast, it has focused on conspiracy theories and ignored the role of then Pres. Donald Trump.

The American people deserve better, but remember what this is for the Republicans: an election-year block-and-tackle operation to protect Donald Trump and deflect from his leadership failures throughout COVID. During the once-in-a-century pandemic not only did then-President Trump fail to lead, he fell under the weight of his own deception, obfuscation, and incompetence. To date 1.2 million Americans have lost their lives to COVID, more than any other country on the globe.

While this committee doesn’t appear sincerely interested in getting to the bottom of that, let’s not forget what we already learned so it can never happen again.

COVID hit the public conscience in January........

© The Daily Beast