New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, who faces new criticism for his handling of the coronavirus pandemic that saw his state suffer tens of thousands of deaths in a matter of months, is blaming President Trump for the virus reaching New York. first.
“If the Trump administration had done its job, the virus would not have come here,” Cuomo said on CNN Thursday. “The virus didn’t come here because of what New Yorkers did, it came because the federal government missed it.”
CUOMO FIRED ON CNN’S JAKE TAPPER SET FOR HITTING THE NYC COVID RESPONSE POSTER
The number of deaths at the Empire State is over 30,000, dwarfing the number of deaths in other states. Cuomo has been particularly criticized for a now reversed policy that sent COVID patients to nursing homes.
CNN presenter Jake Tapper rejected this week in a Twitter thread against Cuomo’s “singing” about handling the virus in New York. He also highlighted a poster Cuomo had posted declaring “New York Tough” and President Trump. Tapper noticed what was missing from the poster.
“There are no illustrations, however, of the more than 32,000 New Yorkers killed, the highest death toll in any state. There is no representation on that poster of criticism that Governor Cuomo ignored the warnings, nor a description of the study. He could have had thousands of lives saved if he and Mayor De Blasio had acted earlier, no painting of his order rescinded that nursing homes receive all infected patients, “continued the CNN presenter.
Cuomo was interviewed on CNN Thursday and denied that he was “celebrating” with the poster, and he moved to a CDC study that found the virus was in New York City before Trump’s decision to impose a ban on traveling to Europe on March 13.
“Tapper’s point, as you just heard in the CDC report, Tapper should say that Trump is to blame for the virus that comes to New York because that is the fact,” he said. “That’s what the CDC just said.”
Cuomo’s office said Friday that hospitalizations have dropped to the lowest level since March 19, and that there were 10 deaths in New York State on Thursday from the virus.
Meanwhile, Trump said Tuesday that his administration’s response to the virus “made many governors look fantastic.”
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“What we did in New York was one of the most incredible things: 2,800 beds at the Javits Center, but the Governor used very few of them, unfortunately,” he said. “Then we moved on our big hospital ships.”
He then attacked Cuomo’s nursing home policy and its handling of the virus in general.
“Thousands of people in New York died because of the governor’s mismanagement,” said Trump. “And it is very sad to see and very sad to see and very sad to see those statistics.”
Fox News’ Joseph News Wulfsohn contributed to this report.
