Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Tuesday morning that he doesn’t plan to engage President Donald Trump in a political debate over the authority of the federal government, but that he’ll challenge the president in court if New York is ordered to reopen businesses before it’s ready.
But Cuomo, who’s butt heads with Trump more than most public officials in the last four years, said he hopes it won’t come to that, and that the pair can come to an agreement.
“It takes two to tango. It takes two to get into a fight. It takes two people to get into a litigation,” Cuomo said. “I am not interested in fighting with the president, and I can’t be more clear in that.”
Cuomo and Trump have been at odds in recent days over whose decision it will be to reopen schools and businesses in New York.
Trump, at a press briefing Monday, said the decision would be up to him, and that he could, theoretically, order states to open schools and businesses at any time, even if states resisted the move. On that issue, he said his “authority is total” over states.
“The president of the United States calls the shots,” Trump said. “They can’t do anything without the approval of the president of the United States.”
Cuomo, in a round of media interviews Tuesday morning and again during his daily press briefing in Albany, disagreed. He traced his position back more than two centuries, saying the country’s founders didn’t envision a president to have such power over states.
"That is not an accurate statement, in my opinion,” Cuomo said. “This is basic federalism — the role of the states and the role of the federal government.”
“We don't have a king in this country. We didn’t want a king. So, we have a constitution and we elect a president,” he continued.
Cuomo said earlier Tuesday, during an interview on CNN, that if it came down to it, New York would bring Trump to court if an order was issued by the federal government to reopen businesses before the state believed it was ready.
"We would have a constitutional challenge between the state and the federal government, and that would go into the courts,” Cuomo said.
When asked by New York NOW later Tuesday what the legal argument would be for challenging the president, Cuomo said it would be based on New York’s sovereign powers as a state. His position, in other words, is that New York has exclusive authority over reopening businesses.
Earlier Tuesday, during a different television interview, he warned that such a legal challenge would have dire consequences, both politically for Trump and for the country as a whole.
“It would be terrible for this country, and it would be terrible for this president,” Cuomo said.
Later Tuesday, he appeared to strike a different tone. He accused Trump of “spoiling for a fight” with him over the conflict, but said he wouldn’t take the bait.
"The president is clearly spoiling for a right on this issue. The worst thing we can do on all this is to start with political division,” Cuomo said. "The president will have no fight with me. I will not engage him."
Cuomo’s previously praised Trump for his cooperation with New York during the COVID-19 pandemic. Trump, among other things, allowed the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to build temporary hospitals in New York and sent a medical naval ship to increase hospital capacity.
As of Tuesday morning, New York was reporting 18,697 people hospitalized with COVID-19, a net decrease of 128 from Monday’s numbers. Of those, 4,414 were intubated, which was also a net decrease from Monday. There were 1,134 new discharges from the hospital Monday.
The number of people testing positive for the disease passed a new milestone Tuesday, with 202,208 people confirmed to have contracted COVID-19 in New York. That’s the first time the number has surpassed 200,000.
The number of deaths from the disease reached 10,834 on Tuesday, according to state data. That’s an increase of 778 over Monday’s numbers, but still within what the state is considering a plateau of fatalities, Cuomo said.
