New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said he had a “productive” conversation with President Trump on Tuesday as he pressed the administration to take a bigger role in coronavirus testing.
“We need help from the federal government to make the supply chain work,” Mr. Cuomo told MSNBC after the two biggest egos in the pandemic fight met in the Oval Office.
Mr. Cuomo described the conversation as “very functional and effective.”
He also said Mr. Trump did not pressure him to open the New York economy on a faster timeline.
For days Mr. Cuomo, a Democrat, said he was ready to lead on testing but needed the federal government to step in and wring chemicals, swabs and other supplies from the global supply chain.
He says it doesn’t make sense for governors like Larry Hogan of Maryland to resort to importing tests directly from South Korea.
“Let’s just coordinate who does what. What do the states do, what does the federal government do? What do you do, and what do I do?” Mr. Cuomo said at his COVID-19 briefing in Buffalo, New York. “I’m going to ask him to take this piece of the national manufacturers getting the test kits and the vials and the cotton swabs and the chemicals.”
Governors say the lack of supplies is the main sticking point in achieving the type of testing regime necessary to pivot from “social distancing” to a more targeted plan that allows states to detect hotspots and isolate infections.
Mr. Trump and Mr. Cuomo are the two most prominent figures in the U.S. response to the coronavirus, which has infected over 800,000 and killed over 43,000 across the country.
Mr. Trump addresses the nation every night around dinnertime, briefing reporters on federal efforts, guidelines and modeling and scolding the media for failing to give him enough credit for his administration’s efforts.
The governor runs the hardest-hit state — over 40% of U.S. deaths occurred in New York — and holds a closely-watched briefing each morning in which he mixes hard facts with anecdotes about how his family is dealing with the virus.
Mr. Cuomo said Mr. Trump was “deferential” to the needs of his hard-hit state and recognized that different states — or even regions within each state — have varying needs and levels of transmission.
“He was inquisitive about what we thought and what we needed,” Mr. Cuomo said.
The governor said Mr. Trump, a native New Yorker, spoke about how he’s never seen New York City so empty and upended.
• Tom Howell Jr. can be reached at thowell@washingtontimes.com.
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