President Donald Trump orders Cuomo: ‘stop talking, go to work’

The Governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo, has stated various times that he doesn’t want to start a verbal fight with president Donald Trump during the coronavirus pandemic, but he couldn’t hold back during his press conference on Friday.

Trump had started by criticizing Cuomo for complaining about the lack of federal funds for testing for Covid-19 and for New York facing the challenge of reopening for business after weeks of lockdown to stop the spread of the virus.

So Cuomo responded to the president during his daily press conference on Friday because for days he has insisted that the federal government was failing all of the states of the country, which are facing a massive budget deficit in the midst of the pandemic.

The verbal fight started when the Governor of New York criticized Donald Trump over the federal aid needed to carry out the president’s three-phase plan to reopen the economy in the United States.

“Don’t give them this massive undertaking that has never been done before and then not give them any resources to do it. Don’t ask the states to do this. ... It’s up to the governors, up to the governors, up to the governors. OK. Is there any funding so I can do these things that you want us to do? No. That is passing the buck without passing the bucks,” Cuomo said on Friday.

Off course the president was not going to sit back and take that, and sure enough a few minutes later he used Twitter to reply to Cuomo writing: “Cuomo should spend more time ‘doing’ and less time ‘complaining’.” The president also said that his government has helped New York with thousands of hospital beds that the state didn’t need or use.

During Cuomo’s daily press conference a reporter was able to read what president Donald Trump had just said about him, to which he immediately replied: “all he’s doing is walking in front of the parade, but he has nothing to do with the timing of the parade. How many times do you want to say thank you? And I’m saying thank you for doing your job. This was your role as president.”

Cuomo also added that Donald Trump loves talking about big businesses and airlines getting bailed out, when the state governments still need funding. Cuomo also said that various federal coronavirus relief packages short-changed New York and that a new $500 billion bill was needed that allocated much more money to the state.