TRENTON, N.J. – New Jersey’s COVID-19 death rate is one of the nation’s worst. The Murphy Administration’s decision to restrain nursing homes from screen positive admissions killed thousands and is at the center of a nascent DOJ investigation.
Governor Murphy, shameless as ever, is now ready to use Bob Woodward’s nothingburger interview story to blame President Trump for his failures.
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“If we had known this was transmittable airborne at an earlier date, and it sounds like they knew that somewhere in February, the actions that we ultimately took […] we would have taken that much earlier, and it’s inconceivable to me that we wouldn’t have been able to save lives as a result of that,” said Murphy during a Wednesday CNN appearance.
“I can’t tell you, as I sit here, how many we would have saved,” Murphy added. “If we had known that earlier, we would have shut the state meaningfully earlier. We would have gone to a mandatory masking policy meaningfully earlier, we would have had a stay at home mandate put in place.”
Murphy wasn’t always a vocal critic of the Trump Administration’s COVID-19 efforts, telling the president during an April Oval Office meeting that New Jersey “couldn’t be making the progress we’re making without you and your administration.“
Not everyone is buying Murphy’s new excuse for the state’s coronavirus failure.
“The Governor said he would have been more aggressive if Trump had been more forthcoming on COVID information. Murphy is one of only five governors in the nation that forced nursing homes to accept COVID patients, exposing healthcare workers and vulnerable residents to infection. He wants to make the President his scapegoat for his own mistakes,” said state Senator Joe Pennacchio (R-26). “Murphy’s criticism is specious and selective. When the pandemic hit, the Governor granted himself limitless powers during the emergency. There was nothing the Governor asked for that the President didn’t provide, and some of the assistance from Washington was un-utilized and wasted.”
Approximately half of New Jersey’s COVID-19 deaths have occured in long-term care facilities.
“The Administration opened prisons and set inmates free so they could escape the potential infection of the virus while the elderly and frail residents of nursing homes were being exposed to it by irresponsible mandates,” Pennacchio continued. “The resulting loss of more than 7,000 seniors must be owned by the Governor and cannot be attributed to Washington.”
