New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Thursday morning eviscerated his Republican counterpart in Florida, Ron Desantis, as well as other GOP chief executives in states where COVID-19 is now surging.
Cuomo, a Democrat, appeared on CNN's New Day to discuss the mandatory 14-day quarantine for people traveling to New York from Florida, Arizona, Texas and other virus hotspots.
After playing a clip of DeSantis gloating about the quarantine he imposed on visitors from New York back in March, host Alisyn Camerota asked Cuomo what he would say to the Florida governor now. On Wednesday, Florida reported 5,508 new coronavirus cases, shattering the state's previous daily high for the second time in a week.
“I say to them all: Look at the numbers,” Cuomo said. “You played politics with this virus and you lost. You told the people of your state, and you told the people of this country, White House, ‘Don't worry about it. Just open up, go about your business, this is all Democratic hyperbole.' Oh, really? Now you see 27 states with the numbers going up. You see the death projections going up. You see the economy going down. It was never politics. It was always science. And they were in denial, and denial is not a life strategy.
“Now they're saying, ‘Well, don't worry, it's not really that the virus is going up, just the testing numbers are going up.' I don't even know what that means mathematically. And forget that, your hospital beds are filling up. You know what that means when your hospital beds fill up? It means more people are getting sick. That's what's happening,” Cuomo said, adding that New York now has its lowest hospitalization rate since the pandemic began.
“This is after three months, Alisyn, of everyone working hard and doing the right thing and taking this seriously,” he said. “I got lambasted by everyone saying: ‘Just open up the economy, you're overreacting, don't listen to all these scientists who are saying the virus could go up. That's just fear mongering.' It wasn't. They were facts, and facts are facts, even in this crazy political environment, even at this crazy political time. And the people who played politics now are causing this nation great havoc. You're seeing it all across the country. You're seeing the death numbers go up. We'll lose tens of thousands more Americans. It's a real American tragedy that we're living through right now.”
More of the interview below.
