First of all, how refreshing is it that the actual president of the United States is at war with our nation’s governors during the worst health crisis in a century?
Hey, you’re doing a heckuva job, Clownie.
Today, Donald Trump tweeted this at the governor of one of our insufficiently American blue states:
I could ask why a supposed genius still doesn’t know how to use quotation marks, but that would be burying the lede. A better question is, why is he fighting with his own home state while thousands of its residents are dying? Answer: He’s an asshole who doesn’t care about anything but himself and Chicken McNuggets.
Well, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo got wind of this and wasn’t having it.
When made aware of Trump's tweet, Cuomo sought to fact-check the president, saying that 800 of the 2,500 available beds at Javits have been used. He then accused Trump of discounting 800 people and being “disrespectful.”
Cuomo added that the initial projections that said anywhere from 100,000 to 240,000 Americans could die from the virus came from the White House's coronavirus task force.
“They were your projections, Mr. President,” a perturbed Cuomo said.
Cuomo also showed his frustration with Trump’s pathological need for ego stroking, saying, “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do — send a bouquet of flowers? Thank you again, Mr. President, for the Javits. Thank you for the U.S. Navy ship Comfort, which is just doing your job as president. It’s not really thank you like you wrote a check yourself, but thank you.”
Meanwhile, New York still faces the same obstacle to reopening its economy that every state is facing — a lack of testing.
Mr. Cuomo said at his briefing in Albany that New York could not fully reopen its economy without more widespread testing, which would require both supplies and an operational capacity that the health system did not currently have.
“We cannot do it without federal help,” the governor said. He said that expecting states to reopen without giving them money to do so amounted to “passing the buck without passing the bucks.”
And who’s to blame for the lack of testing? Trump wants to fob the responsibility off on the states, but …
— Rep. Mark Pocan (@repmarkpocan) April 17, 2020
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