New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) said Tuesday at a press conference he understood why President Donald Trump was frustrated by critics of his handling of the coronavirus.
“This is a situation that no matter however you do it, it’s going to be a blame game afterward,” Cuomo said. “I heard the president in his briefing the other day. He’s right.”
The New York governor will travel to the White House on Tuesday to meet with Trump to discuss testing issues during the ongoing fight against the spread of the coronavirus.
“This is one of those thankless tasks. Trust me,” Cuomo said. “It is one of those tasks when you get to the end of it, everybody is going to be able to say you didn’t do enough.”
Cuomo said that Trump was right that states should lead in testing, but he noted that labs were struggling to find enough chemical reagents, swabs, and vials for testing, as many of them were manufactured in China or other countries.
The federal government, he said, could help states fix the supply chain issues without governors competing with each other for foreign resources.
“It is a situation when you need everybody to work together, and you need people to understand quickly who is in a better decision to do what,” Cuomo said.
