Fox News just handed a contributor contract to the woman who helped Andrew Cuomo hide 15,000 nursing home deaths.
The reaction from Fox's own conservative audience was immediate and brutal.
The conservatives who spent years demanding accountability for those deaths just watched Fox give her a microphone.
How Melissa DeRosa Helped Andrew Cuomo Hide 15000 COVID Nursing Home Deaths
Melissa DeRosa served as Andrew Cuomo's secretary – the most powerful aide in the governor's office – when New York's COVID nursing home scandal exploded.
Over 15,000 New York nursing home residents died during the pandemic.
Cuomo's administration officially reported 6,432.
They cut the count in half – and DeRosa ran that cover-up.
In 2021, she told Democratic lawmakers behind closed doors that the Cuomo administration had hidden the real death toll, admitting they were afraid the true numbers would "be used against us" – meaning Trump's DOJ would use the actual count to prosecute Cuomo for what he did to those seniors.
They froze the data, altered state health department reports, and went on television to brag about their pandemic response while the real body count sat buried.
The FBI opened a probe into whether Cuomo's aides lied to the Department of Justice.
DeRosa also helped orchestrate a smear campaign against Fox News anchor Janice Dean – who lost her own in-laws inside those nursing homes and spent years fighting for the families left behind.
Chris Cuomo texted a Cuomo staffer asking how to go after "this Fox weather b***h."
DeRosa ran her own strategy sessions to dismiss Dean as merely a right-wing commentator with no credibility.
That is the woman Fox News just put on its contributor payroll.
She is a rotating co-host on The Girls – a new weekly podcast alongside Rachel Campos-Duffy, Harris Faulkner, Kat Timpf, and former ESPN host Samantha Ponder – which launched October 1.
Her on-air debut came on Outnumbered.
Fox News Conservatives Blast Melissa DeRosa Hire as Janice Dean Muzzling Story Resurfaces
Fox posted the announcement on X and conservatives erupted.
"How disgraceful. Slap in the face to the beloved Janice Dean," wrote independent conservative journalist Breanna Morello. "Your audience will never accept this."
New York State Senator Rachel May posted that DeRosa "helped smear the women who came forward about Andrew Cuomo's harassment, and played a hand in undercounting nursing home deaths during COVID."
"One of the reasons why myself and a lot of other people no longer watch Fox," replied one X user.
"Democrat Strategist. Fox Contributor. Covid coverup. What could go wrong?" wrote another.
"And this is why I won't be watching," posted a third. "Shame on you for pretending this is okay."
Longtime Fox loyalists were blunt: this is indefensible.
Janice Dean herself – who retired from Fox on July 12, 2026 as her multiple sclerosis progressed – said nine days later that she had been "banned to talk about Andrew Cuomo" while at the network.
"I felt very betrayed during this time, and admittedly I'm still bitter," she added.
Fox muzzled its own anchor about the nursing home scandal for years, then turned around and hired the woman at the center of it.
Cuomo and DeRosa didn't just make bad decisions during COVID – they showed exactly what happens when Democrats have unchecked power over people who can't fight back.
They locked families out of nursing homes, banned loved ones from saying goodbye, shipped COVID-positive patients back into those facilities, then lied about the body count to protect a governor's political future.
Fox News made its name exposing exactly that kind of Democratic cover-up – the stories CNN and MSNBC buried while Chris Cuomo collected an Emmy Award for his pandemic briefings and yuking it up with his brother.
Fox can put Democrat commentators on all day long – but DeRosa is not just a Democrat.
She admitted to Democratic lawmakers that she deliberately misled them about the deaths of 15,000 seniors, while a federal criminal probe opened over what she had done.
This is not a programming decision – it is a betrayal of every viewer who trusted Fox to stay on the right side of this story.
Fox's audience figured that out the moment the announcement hit.
The executives haven't.
Sources:
- John Loftus, "Former Cuomo Aide Makes Debut On Fox's 'Curvy Couch' And The Reactions Are Brutal," The Daily Caller, October 5, 2026.
- Western Journal Staff, "Fox News Hires Former Top Andrew Cuomo Aide Who Helped Run Major Cover-Up," The Western Journal, September 28, 2026.
- Janice Dean (@JaniceDean), X, July 21, 2026.
- Leon Wolf, "Reports: Disgraced CNN Anchor Chris Cuomo Coordinated with Gov. Andrew Cuomo's Top Aides to Discredit Fox News' Janice Dean," The Blaze, December 2021.
- Fox News Staff, "Cuomo Aide Admits Cover-Up of Nursing Home Death Information," Fox News, February 2021.
