Fox News Hired the Cuomo Aide Who Admitted on Tape Her COVID Numbers Never Added Up

New York's coronavirus nursing home death count came in thousands short of the real toll for more than a year.

Fox News just hired the senior aide who was at the center of that cover-up.

On a private call, Melissa DeRosa admitted exactly why officials never gave regulators the real numbers.

The Death Toll Cuomo's Office Rewrote Before Publishing It

Melissa DeRosa served as Andrew Cuomo's top aide in Albany throughout the pandemic.

New York State Attorney General Letitia James investigated the nursing home numbers in 2021.

Her report found the state had undercounted COVID deaths in long-term care facilities by as much as 50 percent.

Investigators found the state left out residents who were transferred to hospitals and died there.

The New York State Assembly's impeachment inquiry went further and found Cuomo's office substantially revised the Health Department's report before it ever reached the public.

Thousands of deaths disappeared from that revision.

DeRosa did not stay quiet about why.

On a February 2021 conference call with Democratic state lawmakers, she admitted the administration held back the true figures.

"We were in a position where we weren't sure if what we were going to give to the Department of Justice … was going to be used against us," DeRosa told the lawmakers.

She went further, describing her fear of what President Trump would do with the real numbers.

"He starts tweeting that we killed everyone in nursing homes," she said.

That is not a denial.

That is an admission that the cover-up was strategic.

DeRosa resigned in August 2021, days after New York's attorney general found she had helped discredit the women accusing Cuomo of sexual harassment.

She left Albany with two scandals attached to her name, not one.

https://twitter.com/DiamondandSilk/status/2105075467527037171

Fox News Handed Her A Microphone Instead Of A Subpoena

Fox News announced this week that DeRosa is joining the network as a contributor and co-host of a new podcast called The Girls, debuting October 1, 2026.

The network is paying her to talk.

Nobody at Fox has explained why a woman who told Democratic lawmakers she feared handing real death numbers to the Department of Justice now belongs behind a Fox microphone.

Janice Dean has used her platform on Fox News air for 22 years to demand answers for nursing home families.

"Melissa DeRosa helped smear the women who came forward about Andrew Cuomo's harassment, and played a hand in undercounting nursing home deaths," Dean said, adding that DeRosa "tried to silence my advocacy."

Conservative author Matt Palumbo called the hire "truly disgraceful."

Both reactions came from people who have stood on the same side of this story as Fox's audience for years, and both are furious at the network's own decision.

The timing makes it worse.

In April 2025, the Republican-led House Oversight Committee referred Cuomo himself to the Department of Justice for potential criminal prosecution over false statements tied to the same nursing home report.

Cuomo is still fighting that referral.

His former top aide just picked up a Fox News paycheck instead.

The Same Network That Chased This Story Just Hired Its Subject

Fox built its brand covering Cuomo's nursing home scandal harder than any network in the country.

That history makes the hire harder to explain, not easier.

Networks rehabilitate disgraced politicians all the time, but they usually wait for the investigation to end first.

This one is still open at the Department of Justice, and DeRosa is already on the payroll with a show launching in days.

That is not redemption.

That is amnesia with a production budget, and the families still waiting on answers from Albany are the ones paying for it.

NBC hired former RNC chair Ronna McDaniel as a paid contributor in 2024 and fired her days later after anchors across the network revolted on air over her role in contesting the 2020 election.

Fox hired an aide tied to an open Department of Justice referral over thousands of dead nursing home residents, and not one Fox anchor has said a word about it on the air.

Sources:

• Just the News Staff, "Fox News hires former Cuomo aide who admitted to covering up nursing home deaths during COVID," Just the News, Sept. 28, 2026.
• Daily Caller Staff, "Fox News Hires Ex-Cuomo Aide Who Admitted To Covering Up Nursing Home Deaths," Daily Caller, Sept. 28, 2026.
• Kyle Becker, "Fox News Under Fire for Hiring Cuomo Aide Who Admitted to COVID Nursing Home Cover-Up," RedState, Sept. 28, 2026.
• Fox News Staff, "Andrew Cuomo referred to Justice Department for prosecution by House subcommittee," Fox News, April 2025.
• Fox News Staff, "Rep. Scalise releases timeline of Cuomo's nursing home cover-up," Fox News, 2021.