New York Governor Andrew Cuomo appeared on NBC’s “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon” on Monday in an episode that aired at 30 Rock studios for the first time in nearly four months due to the coronavirus pandemic.
“New York is really open now that you’re doing your show again,” Cuomo said through Zoom.
Cuomo praised New Yorkers for “taming the beast” as the state’s COVID-19 infection rates went from being the worst in the country to the best.
“We are concerned that infections are coming from other states now, back to New York, and that would be a tragedy,” Cuomo said, noting how other parts of the US such as Texas, Florida and Louisiana are seeing spike cases. .
Cuomo condemned President Trump’s handling of the outbreak: “He played politics with him,” Cuomo said. “You had other states rush to reopen as if there was no problem, but there was a problem, there was a virus, and you can’t deal with a virus politically.”
The governor said the key to containing the virus is to stay home, lock up, and wear a mask.
“It would never work to deny it, to hope that it would magically disappear, or that all these states would reopen without following any science,” Cuomo said.
Fallon is the first of many late night hosts to return to the studio. He, Jimmy Kimmel, Trevor Noah, John Oliver, and Stephen Colbert turned to YouTube for entertainment from home in mid-March.
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