As Dan Rather would say, “It is believable.”

But let’s take a step back.

There are between 6,000 and 11,000 nursing home deaths caused by the pandemic. Governor Cuomo’s administration ordered nursing homes to accept coronavirus patients and sent over 6,000 coronavirus patients to nursing homes.

Governor Cuomo’s administration has repeatedly tried to cover up the death toll, stonewalled, spewed outright lies, released a nonsensical whitewash which claimed that sending coronavirus patients to nursing homes didn’t cause nursing home deaths, and tried to block a DOJ investigation. As did some of his fellow Democrats.

The Justice Department on Wednesday sent letters to the governors of New York and three other Democratic-led states, seeking data on whether they violated federal law by ordering public nursing homes to accept recovering COVID-19 patients from hospitals — actions that have been criticized for potentially fueling the spread of the virus.

The New York order issued March 25, for example, specifically told homes they could not refuse to accept recovering COVID-19 patients from hospitals as long as the patients were “medically stable.” The order barred homes from even testing such patients to see if they still had the virus. Some homes said they feared they would lose their licenses if they didn’t comply.

Cuomo, who said the state was following guidelines from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, reversed the order under pressure May 10, long after New York’s death toll in care homes had climbed to among the nation’s highest.

Again, Cuomo is lying. Federal guidelines did wrongly tell homes they could accept coronavirus patients, it did not tell Cuomo to forces homes to do so.

It also cited federal data showing New York, with nearly 32,600 dead, leads the nation in COVID-19 deaths, and is second only to New Jersey in the number of deaths per population.

The Justice Department’s civil rights division said it is evaluating whether to initiate investigations under a federal law called the Civil Rights of Institutionalized Persons Act that protects the rights of people in nursing homes and other facilities.

So Cuomo, predictably, threw a hysterical fit at one of the fawning press conferences that the media regularly holds on his behalf.

“Donald Trump caused the COVID outbreak in New York,” the governor, whose actions killed thousands of people intoned. “Donald Trump caused the COVID outbreak in New York.”

“That is a fact he admitted,” Cuomo falsely claimed, while on screen what appeared to be a fake paper called The Daily Fact, had a headline blaming President Trump.

 “The China virus, the China virus, the China virus. It was not the China virus. It was the European virus that came to New York. They missed it. They missed it,” Cuomo continued ranting.

Now if Trump or one of his people had put on a show like this, you can imagine the media coverage. But the media keeps blowing air kisses to Cuomo over all the bodies.

Cuomo has plenty of reasons to be worried. The DOJ investigation is serious and his mishandling of the virus, his constant gaslighting and lies can only hold together for so long. His administration has spent a lot of time and money turning the pandemic into a platform for a future presidential bid. Cuomo has put on a show with no basis in reality from his ridiculous prison hand sanitizer stunt to selling a poster touting his own track record on a government site. He kept reassuring New Yorkers that the situation was under control until the virus had burned through much of the vulnerable population, and now he wants to collect his trophy.

Andrew Cuomo caused the COVID outbreak in New York nursing homes.