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New York is done with President Trump.
So says Governor Andrew Cuomo, who is waging a war of words with Donald Trump over New York City and the Empire State — and the money is on Joe Biden taking the state, Cuomo says.
The president recently told the New York Post that he can win New York by rallying support from upstate voters, lowering taxes and getting tough on crime — even though New York hasn’t swung Republican in a presidential election since voting for Ronald Reagan in 1984.
New York’s governor disagrees, to put it lightly.
“ “Whatever he would like to wager on his winning New York, I would take him up on it. If he’s serious, put your money where your mouth is. How much do you want to wager that you’re going to win New York? He’s going to lose New York. Why? Because those who know the president best like him the least. [And] New Yorkers know him.” ”
The Republican commander-in-chief and the Democratic state leader, who both originally hail from the borough of Queens, have butted heads repeatedly over the course of the coronavirus pandemic and the protests against police violence this summer.
Cuomo has accused the president of putting politics over public health, and criticized the federal government’s COVID-19 response, while the president has said Cuomo complains too much and is ungrateful for what the U.S. government has been “producing tremendously” for New York.
But the political sparring hit fever pitch this week after Trump ordered the federal government to begin the process of defunding “lawless” cities, including New York, Seattle and Washington, D.C., according to a memo reported by the New York Post on Wednesday night.
The president accused leaders in these areas of cutting police budgets and allowing the cities to “deteriorate into lawless zones” in the wake of protests against racial injustice across the country sparked by incidents such as the police killing of George Floyd in Minnesota on Memorial Day, and Kenosha, Wis. officers shooting Jacob Blake in the back seven times on Aug. 23.
Read more:Trump orders federal agencies to review defunding New York, 3 other ‘lawless’ cities
Cuomo responded with an emergency press briefing on Wednesday night by claiming Trump, who switched his official residency from Trump Tower in midtown Manhattan to Florida late last year, “better have an army if he thinks he’s gonna walk down the street in New York” again.
“He can’t have enough bodyguards to walk through New York City,” Cuomo continued. “People don’t want to have anything to do with him.”
A gubernatorial spokesperson later clarified to Politico that Cuomo did not mean that the president would literally need such additional protection, but was rather describing how unwelcome he would be in the city.
Cuomo kept swinging. “It is more of the same from him. It’s political, it is gratuitous. And it’s illegal. But it is another attempt to kill New York City. President Ford said drop dead. President Trump has been actively trying to kill New York City since he’s been elected,” he said, suggesting it’s because the city supported Hillary Clinton over Trump during the 2016 election.
“ “I think it’s because he is from New York City and New York City rejected him, always. He was dismissed as a clown in New York City … Nobody took him seriously, and he was just a tabloid cartoon.” ”
Cuomo also slammed the president’s response to the pandemic. “One thousand people under your leadership are dying currently per day from COVID,” he said. “You have the worst record in the globe in terms of leadership.”
The president countered over Twitter TWTR, -4.74% on Thursday morning that Cuomo has thousands of nursing home deaths on his own hands, however. “11,000 people alone died in Nursing Homes because of his incompetence!” he tweeted.
While Cuomo has been praised for his leadership in flattening the curve of infections in New York, which was the epicenter of the U.S. COVID-19 outbreak earlier in the pandemic, he has been criticized over his handling of nursing homes.
In particular, a controversial March 25 order sent recovering COVID-19 patients from hospitals back into nursing homes to free up hospital beds during the pandemic’s peak. This has been blamed for increasing nursing home outbreaks and deaths. New York’s official nursing home death toll is over 6,600, but the Associated Press reported last month that it could actually be more than 11,000 because New York only counts residents who died on nursing home property in the death toll, and not nursing home residents who were transported to hospitals and died there instead.
Read more:New York’s true nursing home death toll cloaked in secrecy
But America’s overall numbers are also grim, as the country has the highest case load and death toll in the world. More than 6.1 million Americans have tested positive for COVID-19, as of Thursday afternoon, and more than 185,000 have died.
So of course, Cuomo responded to Trump’s tweets during a Thursday press conference. “The president has been tweeting up a storm, as is his way. I believe the president is fundamentally a bully. It doesn’t work well in New York because you can’t bully New Yorkers,” he said.
And he taunted the president by claiming his home state has turned against him. “We watched him as tabloid fodder for years. We know him. Those who know him know he’s unsuited to be president,” Cuomo said.
The latest RealClearPolitics moving average of polls shows Biden leading Trump in New York by just over 26 percentage points.
Cuomo also claimed “Commander Trump” is “losing the world war” against COVID-19, and he questioned the legitimacy of a vaccine being available by election day, even as the CDC told states Wednesday to be ready to distribute coronavirus vaccines by Nov. 1.
Earlier Wednesday, Trump called for CNN to fire Cuomo’s brother, Chris, over allegations that he had been questioned about sexual harassment accusations following a “Tucker Carlson Tonight” segment on Fox News.
