New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo is shifting the blame for the coronavirus outbreak in New York to President Donald Trump.
During a Thursday appearance on CNN's "Newsroom," Cuomo blamed the Trump administration for the virus coming to New York in the first place.
"If Trump's government had done its job, the virus wouldn't have come here," Cuomo said. "The virus didn't come here because of anything New Yorkers did, the virus came here because the federal government missed it."
Cuomo is facing heat for a since-reversed policy that sent coronavirus patients back to nursing homes from hospitals.
Earlier this week, CNN anchor Jake Tapper accused Cuomo of “crowing” about New York’s handling of the virus on Twitter. He also highlighted a poster that Cuomo had put out declaring “New York Tough” and bashing President Trump. Tapper noted what was missing from the poster, the number of New Yorkers who died from the virus.
"There are no illustrations, however, of the more than 32,000 dead New Yorkers, the highest death toll by far of any state. No rendering on that poster of the criticism that Governor Cuomo ignored warnings, no depiction of the study that he could have saved thousands of lives had he and Mayor De Blasio acted sooner, no painting of his rescinded order that nursing homes take all infected patients in," Tapper wrote.
On Thursday, Cuomo denied that he was “celebrating” by putting out the poster. He then referenced a CDC study that found the virus was in New York City before Trump’s decision to impose a travel ban on Europe on March 13.
"Tapper's point, as you just heard from the CDC report, Tapper should say that Trump is to blame for the virus coming to New York because that's the fact,” he told CNN's Kate Bolduan. "That's what the CDC just said."
On Friday, Cuomo’s office reported that hospitalizations have dropped to the lowest since March 19, and that there were 10 deaths in New York state on Thursday from the virus.
Trump has fired back at Cuomo throughout the pandemic. On Tuesday, he said his virus response “made a lot of governors look fantastic," according to Fox News.
“What we did in New York was one of the most incredible things: 2,800 beds in Javits Center, but the governor used very few of them, unfortunately,” he said on Tuesday. “Then we moved in our great hospital ships.”
He also attacked Cuomo’s nursing home policy and his handling of the virus.
“Thousands of people in New York died because of poor management by the governor,” Trump said. "And it’s a very sad thing to see and very sad to watch and very sad to look at those statistics."
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