President Trump seethed during Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s daily coronavirus press conference Friday, tweeting that the New York leader needed to spend less time complaining and more time doing his job.
“Governor Cuomo should spend more time ‘doing’ and less time ‘complaining.’ Get out there and get the job done. Stop talking!” Trump wrote during Cuomo’s televised coronavirus address, which he appeared to be watching and live tweeting from the White House.
Trump’s social media response came after Cuomo told reporters the federal government needed to help states with coronavirus testing, saying the administration “cannot wipe their hands of this and say the states are responsible.”
Trump accused Cuomo of being ungrateful for the resources given to the hard-hit Empire State, which include the USNS Comfort, the FEMA-assembled hospital at the Javits Center, and thousands of ventilators.
“We built you thousands of hospital beds that you didn’t need or use, gave large numbers of ventilators that you should have had, and helped you with testing that you should be doing,” Trump wrote.
“We have given New York far more money, help and equipment than any other state, by far, & these great men & women who did the job never hear you say thanks. Your numbers are not good. Less talk and more action!” he added.
The fight spilled over in real time when a Post reporter asked Cuomo about the president’s tweets during his press conference.
“If he’s sitting home watching TV, maybe he should get up and go to work,” the governor said, adding that he had already thanked Trump countless times.
“What am I supposed to do, send a bouquet of flowers? I said thank you, thank you, thank you,” he continued.
“They were very helpful on Javits, they were very helpful in sending the Navy Ship Comfort, they were very helpful in intervening with China, and getting PPE equipment out of China, they were very helpful in helping us find ventilators. I said: thank you — thank you, thank you, thank you,” Cuomo continued.
“So, thank you again, Mr. President for the Javits, thank you for the U.S. Navy ship Comfort — which, by the way, is just doing your job as president, it’s not really thank you, like you wrote a check yourself — but thank you for that, we’re not out of the woods, we have to go forward, we need help on testing and we need funding.
“Now, going forward, we’re still in the midst of it. The president doesn’t want to help on testing. I said 11 times, I said the one issue we need help with is testing. He said, 11 times, ‘I don’t want to get involved with testing, it’s too complicated, it’s too hard.’ I know it’s too complicated, it’s too hard. That’s why we need you to help. I can’t do an international supply chain.
“He wants to say well, ‘I did enough.’ Yeah, none of us have done enough, because it’s not over. So yes, thank you for the Javits, thank you for the US Navy ship Comfort, but it’s not over. We have a lot more to do, and no one can just take the posture: ‘Well, just say thank you for what I’ve done, and I’m now out, I’m not doing anything else, I’ve done my part.’
“What if I said to the people of my state: ‘okay, I’m done, by the way I saved 100s of 1000s of lives, I flattened the curve, I created more hospital beds than anyone ever imagined, I coordinated the entire state. I’m done. I’m done, I’m going home. I’m gonna go see my mother, spend time with my kids, and go fishing in Connecticut because their marinas are open. That’s it, I’m done.’ When have I said that? That’s what he’s saying: ‘I’m done. I don’t want to help out on testing, and testing is too hard.’”
The tweets appeared to set off Cuomo, who threw the president’s own projections back at him, having his staff pull up slides that showed the White House coronavirus task force’s prediction that up to 2 million Americans could die without proper mitigation.
“They were the president’s projections, so for him to say, ‘You relied on the projections and the projections were wrong,’ they were your projections, Mr. President,” Cuomo said.
“So were we foolish for relying on your projections Mr. President? CDC? Coronavirus White House Task Force. That’s YOU. We relied on your projections,” he added.
The governor was initially about new federal guidelines released Thursday which puts states in charge of testing — something Cuomo said was impossible without federal funding and Trump’s help.
“I don’t care about his politics, but if we don’t have federal help on testing, that’s a real problem,” he said.
The Democrat continued unloading on Trump, going so far as to suggest he should fire his staff while mocking his previous career as host of the reality TV series “The Apprentice.”
“If he wants to blame someone for the projections blame the CDC, Peter Navarro and whoever’s on the coronavirus task force, ’cause it’s their projections,” Cuomo railed.
“Peter Navarro, and the head of the White House Coronavirus task force — fire them all. That’s what I say, fire them,” Cuomo said, referring to Trump’s equipment czar Navarro.
“You know the show where the president did, ‘You’re fired?’ You want to fire someone for projections? Retake his TV career now — those are the three! Document it,” the governor added.
Trump’s tweets kept coming as Cuomo went off for a good half-hour, blasting the Empire State leader for his desperate requests for ventilators as ‘ridiculous.’
“Cuomo ridiculously wanted “40 thousand ventilators.” We gave him a small fraction of that number and it was plenty. State should have had them in stockpile” he wrote.
Trump has repeatedly blasted Cuomo for not buying ventilators years before the crisis and this week accused him of inflating the numbers of COVID-19 dead in the state — a claim Cuomo dubbed “bizarre.”
The barrage of angry tweets is the latest turn in the pair’s complicated relationship during the COVID-19 crisis, with both leaders oscillating between praising and condemning the other’s response to the pandemic.