Gov. Andrew Cuomo during a press briefing about the coronavirus crisis...

Gov. Andrew Cuomo during a press briefing about the coronavirus crisis on Friday in Albany. Credit: Getty Images/Matthew Cavanaugh

It took one presidential tweet for the gubernatorial gloves to come off.

In a fiery 15-minute monologue directed at President Donald Trump, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo stared into the camera Friday and threw verbal punch after verbal punch, veering from “thanks” laced with sarcasm to pointed criticism of the federal response to the coronavirus pandemic.

Cuomo’s comments were a real-time response to Trump, who clearly was sitting in the White House watching the governor’s daily COVID-19 briefing.

“Governor Cuomo should spend more time ‘doing’ and less time ‘complaining’,” Trump tweeted, also noting that the federal government had built beds “you didn’t need or use,” provided ventilators, and helped with virus testing for the state. “Get out there and get the job done. Stop talking!” 

A hint of Trump’s frustration with Cuomo also was evident in the president’s Thursday evening briefing, although he didn’t mention the governor by name.

Trump wrote Friday: “These great men & women who did the job never hear you say thanks! Your numbers are not good! Less talk and more action!” 

During the briefing, Cuomo was asked to respond.

And respond he did.

“First of all, if he’s sitting home watching TV, maybe he should get up and go to work, right?” Cuomo began.

Cuomo noted that the additional beds were built in light of projections from the White House’s coronavirus task force and from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 

And then Cuomo turned his commentary directly to Trump. 

“They’re your projections, Mr. President. So, were we foolish for relying on your projections, Mr. President? CDC, Coronavirus White House Task Force … That’s you,” Cuomo said.

Later in the 15-minute-plus heated response, Cuomo came back to that theme.

“If you don’t agree with your projections, fire the head of the CDC, fire the White House Coronavirus Task Force people because they did the projections,” Cuomo said. 

He added that the beds at the Jacob Javits Convention Center were built “because we listened to you, Mr. President. And if we were foolish for listening to you, then shame on us. But read your own report next time before you criticize.”

Cuomo noted that he has thanked Trump for the Javits Center beds, and for the U.S. Navy ship that contains additional hospital capacity. But, he noted, providing those beds “is just doing your job as president. It’s not really thank you, like you wrote a check yourself.”

“What am I supposed to do, send a bouquet of flowers?” Cuomo asked.

Cuomo noted that he still needs federal help, particularly on ramping up testing, and on getting money to the states that now have to handle the process of reopening.

“He wants to say, ‘Well, I did enough.’ Well, none of us have done enough. We haven’t, because it’s not over,” Cuomo said. “So, yes, thank you for the Javits. Thank you for the U.S. Navy ship Comfort. But it’s not over. We have a lot more to do. And no one can take the posture, ‘Well, just say thank you for what I’ve done and I’m now out. I’m not doing anything else.’ ”

Noting that New York and other states need money, Cuomo said to Trump, “Why don’t you show as much consideration for states as you did to your big businesses and your airlines?” 

Cuomo also criticized Trump for initially suggesting that the federal government could handle reopening and then doing “a graceful 180” and handing the decision to the governors.

“What, are you going to grant me what the Constitution gave me before you were born?” Cuomo said. “I didn’t need the president of the United States to tell me the powers of a state … He’s doing nothing.”

Cuomo, who earlier had expressed frustration that Trump was not being criticized for his strategy to blame the governors if reopening goes badly but take credit himself if it works, continued: “All he’s doing is walking in front of the parade, but he has nothing to do with the timing of the parade.”

And it didn’t stop there.

“You want me to say thank you? Thank you, for doing your job in helping build Javits and sending the U.S. Navy ship Comfort. Thank you, for participating in a modicum of federal responsibility in a national crisis … Thank you, for having the federal government participate in a federal emergency.”

Trump waited until Cuomo’s COVID-19 briefing was over to respond, first with a tweet saying that the “States have to step up their TESTING!” and then pointing to Cuomo’s request for ventilators, saying the state didn’t need as many as it asked for – and “should have had them in stockpile.”

It’s been quiet since.

Cuomo took a moment during his verbal onslaught to repeat the notion that he’s “not running for anything.” Clearly, Trump thinks he is.

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