President Donald Trump and New York Governor Andrew Cuomo buried their public feud on Wednesday with a phone call and warm public words about the other.
Both men adopted a more conciliatory tone after they traded verbal barbs earlier this week on the number of ventilators sent to New York to help the state – which has the highest infection rate in the nation – combat the coronavirus.
‘I am working very hard to help New York City & State. Dealing with both Mayor & Governor and producing tremendously for them, including four new medical centers and four new hospitals. Fake News that I won’t help them because I don’t like Cuomo (I do). Just sent 4000 ventilators!,’ President Trump wrote on Twitter.
‘The four hospitals that we (FEMA) are building in NYC at the Javits Convention Center are moving along very well, ahead of schedule. Many additional ventilators also delivered. Good conversation with Governor Cuomo!,’ he added later in the morning.
President Donald Trump and New York Governor Andrew Cuomo buried their public feud
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has been universally praised for his handling of the coronavirus crisis in New York
Javits Convention Center, which in the next few weeks will become a hospital to combat coronavirus cases in New York City
Cuomo, meanwhile, confirmed the Wednesday morning call with Trump.
He noted he’s spoken with the president several times and also to White House senior adviser Jared Kushner, who is Trump’s son-in-law and former resident of New York City.
‘What we’re working on is a common challenge. No one has these ventilators, and no one ever anticipated a situation where you would need this number of ventilators to deal with a public health emergency,’ Cuomo said at his daily press briefing. ‘So we have purchased everything that can be purchased. We’re now in a situation that we’re trying to accelerate production of these ventilators, and a ventilator is a complicated piece of equipment.’
He praised the administration for using the Defense Production Act – which gives the president the power to direct a business to produce a needed product during a national emergency – as a carrot-and-stick approach with companies.
‘The president and his team, I think, are using the DPA well because it’s basically a leverage tool when you’re dealing with private companies. Right. We need your help. We can demand your help or you could agree to help and we need you to step up and increase production,’ Cuomo said.
He added that he promised the White House any medical supplies and equipment sent to New York would be passed on to the next hot spot when the crisis in the Big Apple has passed.
‘I said to the White House, send us the equipment that we need. Send us the personnel. As soon as we get past our critical moment, we will redeploy that equipment and personnel to the next hot spot. And I will personally guarantee it and personally manage it. So if you send us 15,000 ventilators, and then after our curve, Los Angeles needs 15,000 ventilators, we can take the equipment from here, we can take the personnel from here, we can take the lessons from here,’ he said.
‘I said to the president, I’ll be part of going to the next hot spot with our team. We’re asking the country to help us. We will return the favor. And we are all in this together. And we’re asking for their help, and their consideration, and we will repay it with dividends,’ Cuomo added.
The bickering between the two men began Tuesday when Cuomo said he needed 30,000 ventilators but only received 400 from FEMA.
‘What am I meant to do with 400? You want a pat on the back for that?’ the governor said Tuesday before an additional 4,000 ventilators arrived.
‘What am I going to do with 400 ventilators when I need 30,000?’ he noted. ‘You pick the 26,000 people who are going to die because you only sent 400 ventilators.’
Trump shot back Cuomo could have bought his own ventilators if he needed them.
Cuomo has been universally praised for his handling of the crisis in New York, where he’s given daily updates and shut down the state to stop the spread, which has infected more than 26,000 people. Some people online have taken to calling him President Cuomo.
The latest in New York’s battle against coronavirus:
- There are more than 26,000 cases of coronavirus in the state of New York: 271 people have died
- That includes 14,904 in New York City. On Tuesday afternoon de Blasio said 131 people in the city had died.
- The White House said Tuesday anyone who has recently been to New York should self quarantine for 14 days.
- Governor Andrew Cuomo has warned the situation will peak in ’14 to 21 days’ as he begged Trump for help
- Mayor Bill de Blasio said he is also considering closing the city’s parks and playgrounds
Trump, on Tuesday, waged a full-scale political attack on the governor, complete with opposition research, as he pointed out that Cuomo could have bought more ventilators five years ago to protect his state against a pandemic.
Trump, during his appearance in a Fox News virtual town hall from the White House Rose Garden, handed anchor Bill Hemmer an article and noted: ‘It says New York Gov. Cuomo rejected buying recommended 16,000 ventilators in 2015 for the pandemic, for a pandemic, establish death panels and lotteries instead.’
‘So he had a chance to buy in 2015, 16,000 ventilators at a very low price and he turned it down,’ Trump reiterated. ‘I’m not blaming him or anything else, but he shouldn’t be talking about us – he’s supposed to be buying his own ventilators.’
President Trump went to political war Tuesday against New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo after the governor complained about Trump being reluctant to use the Defense Production Act to get him more ventilators
During a Rose Garden sit-down with Fox News Channel, President Trump (second from right) told Fox’s Bill Hemmer (right) that Cuomo could have bought 16,000 more ventilators in 2015, but chose not to – and it was the governor’s responsibility to get the machines
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Tuesday that he needed the federal government to up its response to deal with the shortage of ventilators in the New York City area
President Trump (left) handed oppo research about New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo to Fox News Channel’s Bill Hemmer (right) during the course of their interview Tuesday in the White House Rose Garden
Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Tuesday that New York needed 30,000 ventilators to deal with the coronavirus crisis, which has hit New York City especially hard. He’s procured 7,000 ventilators so far
The back-and-forth between the two men came as the Trump administration advised people who have left New York to self-quarantine for 14 days to help stop the spread of the virus.
Cuomo has argued the worst is yet to come.
‘That is a dramatic increase in the rate of infection. We were looking at a freight train – we’re now looking at a bullet train,’ he said.
During his Tuesday press conference, the governor announced the state has procured 7,000 ventilators, but needs at a minimum of 30,000 in the next 14 days.
‘Only the federal government has that power. And not to exercise that power is inexplicable to me,’ said Cuomo, a Democrat. ‘Volunteerism is nice and it is a beautiful thing and it is nice that these companies are coming forward and saying they want to help. That is not going to get us there.’
‘And I do not, for the life of me, understand the reluctance to use the federal Defense Production act,’ Cuomo added, aiming the comments at Trump.
On Sunday, Trump suggested it was his Republican instincts – to keep the federal government away from industry – that was motivating him not to use it.
‘What are you doing? … You’re going to take away companies? You’re going to tell companies what to do?’ Trump said.
On Tuesday, Trump came armed with a March 18 op-ed written by Betsy McCaughey, the lieutenant governor of New York under Republican George Pataki.
McCaughey is also Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross’ ex-wife.
McCaughey points a finger at Cuomo and wrote that after he learned that the state was 16,000 ventilators shy of what it would need in a ‘severe pandemic’ the Democrat chose to ‘assemble a task force and draft rules for rationing the ventilators they already had.’
Though she doesn’t use the words ‘death panels’ as the president charged, she does say that New Yorkers would encounter a ‘death officer,’ who would decide whether or not they’d have access to a ventilator.
A report from November 2015 said that New York stockpiled enough ventilators ‘in the face of a moderate scenario,’ adding there were ‘no current plans to buy enough ventilators for the most severe model’ of a pandemic response.
‘The State’s current approach to stockpiling a limited number of ventilators balances the need to prepare for a potential pandemic against the need to maintain adequate funding for current and ongoing health care expenses,’ the report said.
During the Fox News Channel town hall, Trump said that Cuomo should be grateful that the federal government has stepped in and helped to build New York additional medical facilities.
‘We’re building him hospitals, we’re building him medical centers and he was complaining about – we’re doing probably, definitely more than anybody else – and he was talking about the ventilators,’ Trump said.
President Trump brought up Cuomo again when Dr. Deborah Birx (left) was explaining why New York City was seeing the highest concentration of coronavirus cases
Birx explained that a number of factors were likely involved including people picking it up during subway travel, visitors returning from Asia and Europe and the fact that New York is ‘a big area of world trade and global transit’
He brought up Cuomo again when Dr. Deborah Birx, one of the leaders of the White House’s coronavirus taskforce, was explaining to the Fox News Channel audience why New York is seeing the most cases.
‘Across the country our test rates are under 10 per cent, except for one place – New York City, metro New York, New Jersey close to New York City,’ Birx said. ‘Those rates are coming in the 28 per cent range.’
Hemmer asked her if it was because of urban density.
‘I think part of it is density, part of it is the spread that may have happened on metal surfaces like the subway … part of it may be a large number of people came back after Christmas from Asia that didn’t get caught up in the closure,’ she explained.
Trump then interrupted.
‘Do you blame the governor for that?’ he mused.
Birx continued.
‘And part of it could be the Europeans who have com back subsequently,’ she added.
‘Obviously it is a big area of world trade and global transit,’ the doctor said. ‘So I think the virus was quietly expanding because until it gets into an older population you don’t really see it in the same way.’
On Tuesday morning, Trump had boasted about the ventilators on Twitter, saying: ‘Just got 400 ventilators to NYC!’
New York is now so desperate for the ventilators that doctors have begun experimenting by having two patients share one at the same time.
Gov. Cuomo fumed earlier in the day that he needs 30,000 ventilators but that only 400 have been delivered to the state of New York
Four hundred ventilators will delivered to New York City by FEMA on Tuesday
Cuomo begged for more.
Trump on Tuesday tweeted proudly about the 400 ventilators he had sent to New York
‘We have procured 7,000 ventilators – we need another 30,000. You cannot find them. You cannot buy them.
‘This is a critical and desperate need.
‘We’re going so far as to trying an experimental procedure where we split the ventilator – you use one ventilator for two patients with two sets of tubes,’ he said.
Cuomo warned that the ‘apex’ of the virus will hit New York in just 14-21 days.
He predicts the state will need 140,000 hospital beds including 40,000 ICU beds and 30,000 ventilators.
And he described New York as the ‘canary in the coal mine’ of the virus pandemic.
‘We have the highest and fastest rate of infection,’ he said, adding that it was not because New Yorkers were any less healthy than other states but that it was the state doing the most testing and therefore producing the highest number of positive cases.
‘We’re just getting there first – deploy the resources here in New York for our apex and then after the apex passes here, once we’re passed the critical point, deploy the ventilators to where they are needed.
Proxima surgical gowns were among the many supplies at the Javits Center, one of several field hospitals that will be set up in Manhattan
There are also a large number of N-95 masks at the center. They are one of the hardest things to source
Boxes of face masks piled high at the Javits Center in anticipation of the wave of patients that is expected in several weeks
‘We are just a test case. That’s how the nation should look at it. Look at us today.
‘Where we are today, you will be in three weeks, four weeks, six weeks – we are your future and what we do here will chart the course for what you do.
‘I’m not asking you to help New York just to help New York. I’m asking you to help New York to help yourselves.
‘Let’s learn how to do it right and right here – act as one nation here and we learn the lesson here, we will save lives in your community, I promise you that,’ he said.
Since yesterday, there are 4,790 new cases of the virus in the state of New York. There are 2,599 new cases in New York City alone.
Cuomo said the peak is coming faster than anticipated.
‘The increase in cases continues unabated. The rate of increase has gone up, it’s doubling every three days.
‘We haven’t flattened the curve. The curve is actually increasing.
‘The anticipated need now is 140,000 hospital beds and approximately 40,000 ICU beds. Those are troubling and astronomical numbers.
‘They project at this time could be 14-21 days away – not only do we have a spike in the increase, when you spike the increase in cases it accelerates the apex.’
‘We’re doing everything we can on every level to slow the spread,’ Cuomo said.
There is an urgent need for hospital beds; the state only currently has 53,000 and Cuomo predicts 140,000 will be needed.
‘I will turn this state upside down to get the number of beds we need.
‘We’re calling all professionals in the healthcare field – we want to enlist as many staff as we can and as many back up staff, because healthcare workers will get sick.’
Dow surges more than 1,500 points as Wall Street bounces back from three-year lows on hope $2tr coronavirus rescue bill is close
US stocks joined a worldwide rally on Tuesday as optimism rose, for one day at least, that government officials and central banks are unleashing enough aid to ease the economic pain caused by the coronavirus outbreak.
The Dow jumped more than 1,500 points and the S&P 500 surged more than 7% in midday trading as a wave of buying interrupted what has been a brutal month of nearly nonstop selling.
Stocks had bounced back from three-year lows with the optimism was born in part out of signs that Congress and the White House are nearing an agreement on close to $2 trillion in aid for the economy.
Top congressional and White House officials said they expect to reach an agreement Tuesday on the relief package, though some issues remain. Investors have been frustrated waiting for the U.S. government to do what it can to help the economy, which is increasingly shutting down by the day, after the Federal Reserve has done nearly all it can.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 1,130.26 points (6.08%), at the open to 19,722.19. The S&P 500 opened higher by 107.04 points (4.78%) at 2,344.44. The Nasdaq Composite gained 335.47 points (4.89%) to 7,196.15 at the opening bell.
The S&P 500 and Dow Jones indexes had closed about 3 percent lower on Monday as a rise in US infections and lockdown in several states overshadowed historic measures by the Federal Reserve to boost credit in the economy.
The market has seen rebounds like this before, only for them to wash out immediately. Since the market began selling off on February 20, the S&P 500 has had six days where it’s risen, and all but one of them were big gains of more than 4%. After every one of them, stocks fell again the next day.
Ultimately, investors say they need to see the number of new infections peak before markets can find a bottom.
The increasing spread is forcing companies to park airplanes, shut hotels and close restaurants to dine-in customers. Altogether, estimates suggest at least 10% of the U.S. economy is shutting down, according to Rob Sharpe, head of investments and group chief investment officer at T. Rowe Price.
Economists are topping each other’s dire forecasts for how much the economy will shrink this spring due to the closures of businesses, and a growing number say a recession seems inevitable.
‘This is going to go on for weeks. We’ll need a back up reserve staff,’ he said.
DRUG TREATMENT TRIALS AND AN ANTI-BODY TEST TO FIND OUT WHO HAS HAD THE VIRUS AND RECOVERED FROM IT
Cuomo has also introduced trials for the anti-malaria drug that President Trump has touted as a potential treatment for the virus.
He also announced a plan for identifying people who had the virus without knowing it by testing their blood for virus anti-bodies.
‘The tests will determine if a person has had the virus and recovered without knowing it. It would allow them to go back to work and restart the economy,’ Cuomo said.
‘Once we get that test, you’re going to find hundreds of thousands of people who have resolved. Once they’ve resolved, let them go back to work.
‘Let the recovered people go back to work. It’s even better for the older, vulnerable people – and then ramp up the economy with those individuals.
‘You’re restarting the economy. Those two can be consistent if done intelligently.
‘Don’t make us choose between a smart health strategy and a smart economic strategy – we can do both and we must do both.
‘It’s restarting the economy and protecting public health,’ he said.
‘This is important for us to know because these are then health care workers who could go back to work and workers who could return back to the private sector,’ Cuomo said Tuesday.
It’s not yet clear when and where exactly the test will be deployed, but Mt Sinai previously said it would begin using the blood test in its clinics.
The new blood test will at least tell those workers when its safe to return to work and may indicate to others that they’ve already been infected without getting seriously ill and are now immune.
‘They may have been infected and resolved and never knew it, but if they had coronavirus and it resolved, now they have an immunity to the coronavirus,’ and most doctors believe it could be for a ‘significantly’ long time, Cuomo said.
Both he and Mt Sinai suggested the tests will first be administered to health professionals, but such testing could also help jump start the economy once it’s available more broadly.
Trump said on Monday that the country would be ‘reopen’ within a matter of days.
He has resisted a national quarantine, saying some states are not as badly affected as others, and is working with business leaders to come up with the huge amounts of equipment needed.
Cuomo said that he was concerned about the vulnerable population who would not be able to self-resolve.
‘Eighty percent are going to self-resolve. Twenty percent are going to need hospitals. It’s not about that. It’s about a very small group of people in this population who are the most vulnerable. They are older, they have compromised immune systems, they are HIV positive, or they have emphysema, or they have an underlying heart condition, or they have bad asthma, or they’re recovering from cancer. Those are the people who are going to be vulnerable to the mortality of this disease, and it is only 1 percent or 2 percent of the population.
‘But then why all of this? Because it’s one percent or 2 percent of the population. It’s lives, it’s grandmothers and grandfathers and sisters and brothers.
‘And you start to see the cases on TV. It’s a 40-year-old woman who recovered from breast cancer but had a compromised immune system and four children at home. That’s what this is about. It’s about a vulnerable population. I called the executive order that I passed Matilda’s law – my mother,’ he said.
Matilda’s Law mandates that anyone over the age of 70 must stay indoors at all times unless they are going to receive medical care.
They can only accept visitors if the visitor stays 6ft away from them and is wearing a mask.
‘It’s about my mother. It’s about my mother. It’s about my mother. It’s about your mother. It’s about your loved one. And we will do anything we can to make sure that they are protected,’ Cuomo said.
Towards the end of the press conference, Cuomo became emotional as he talked about how much he loved the state.
‘We’re going to get through it because we are New York and because we’ve dealt with a lot of things, and because we are smart. You have to be smart to make it in New York. And we are resourceful, and we are showing how resourceful we are. And because we are united, and when you are united, there is nothing you can’t do. And because we are New York tough. We are tough. You have to be tough. This place makes you tough, but it makes you tough in a good way.
‘We’re going to make it because I love New York, and I love New York because New York loves you. New York loves all of you. Black and white and brown and Asian and short and tall and gay and straight. New York loves everyone.
‘That’s why I love New York. It always has, it always will.
‘And at the end of the day, my friends, even if it is a long day, and this is a long day, love wins. Always. And it will win again through this virus,’ he said.
He also urged New Yorkers to give thanks to doctors and nurses if they see them.
‘Our health care workers, who are doing God’s work. They are doing God’s work. Can you imagine the nurses who leave their homes in the morning, who kiss their children goodbye, go to a hospital, put on gowns, deal with people who have the coronavirus?
‘They’re thinking all day long, oh, my God, I hope I don’t get this. Oh my God, I hope I don’t get this and bring it home to my children.
‘You want to talk about extraordinary individuals – extraordinary,’ he said.