Tuesday's terror attack in New York City claimed eight lives, but Gov. Andrew Cuomo said he wants to let people know that it did not disrupt the city and what it believes in.
"There was a terror attack that cost eight lives, which is a terrible tragedy, but which ultimately failed because the attack was about trying to create mayhem and terror and disrupt New York, our lifestyle and what we believe in," the Democratic governor told MSNBC's "Morning Joe" program.
"That failed. We had a Halloween parade last night that I went out and marched in. Not because I had a great costume, but because it was about showing up and not being disrupted."
However, Cuomo pointed out that the country is now seeing an evolution in tactics jihadists are using, and that was evidenced by Tuesday's attack, during which a Uzbekistan national, Sayfullo Habibullaevic Saipov, drove a rented truck onto a Manhattan bike trail, killing eight and injuring several others.
Even with the best policing on the globe, he continued, "at the end of the day, this is going to happen. It's happened in Germany, France. It's a global phenomenon."
Terrorists must not be allowed to win, though, said Cuomo.
"You can't let them win," the governor said. "You can't let them disrupt who you are, what you believe. We have a special burden as New Yorkers. We have a statue in our harbor that holds the torch of freedom and democracy, which is everything they oppose.
"So we're a natural target. But they're not going to beat us. They didn't beat us in 1993 with the World Trade Center. They didn't beat us on 9/11, and they didn't beat us yesterday."
President Donald Trump has posted several tweets about the attacks, including messages blaming New York Sen. Chuck Schumer for policies on immigrants that allowed Saipov to enter the country. Rather than characterizing the tweets as either helpful or hurtful, Cuomo said the first question is to determine if they are factual.
"I don't think this is the time to get political," he said. "We had a policy, immigration policy in place in the '90s. It was a bipartisan policy, signed by a Republican president. There's no doubt that we have to be smarter and have more intelligence, but there's also no doubt that this is not the time to play politics. This is not the time to foment hate."
The governor also said he believes the evolution of the internet also has enabled terrorism attacks, as it allows potential terrorists to train from wherever they are.
"They have a very simple playbook, right?" he said. "Rent a car, rent a truck, and drive into a crowd. Let's not overstate the case either. We had one of the first terrorist attacks in New York, the 1993 World Trade center bombing, which was just a car driven into the basement of the World Trade Center with explosives, and it killed six people. That was 35 years ago."
It is also very hard to police such terrorists, as they often don't have a lot of social media contacts or associations who would put them on a radar screen, said Cuomo, so it's important to make sure to gather the best intelligence available by working together.
"They want to instill terror," Cuomo said. "Only you can give them that power. We lost eight people. We're sad. We cry. But you didn't instill terror. You failed. We got up. We went about our business. We had a Halloween parade. We're going to school today. We're going to work today. You failed. That is the ultimate vindication."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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