Cuomo says Trump ‘incompetent’ and ‘irrelevant’ after vaccine threat

NEW YORK – Gov. Andrew Cuomo hit back Friday night against President Donald Trump after threatening to withhold an upcoming Covid-19 vaccine from New Yorkers, calling the president incompetent, delusional and retaliatory.

“The president lost New York State in the election by a huge margin. You have New York prosecutors investigating the president for tax evasion, ”Cuomo told MSNBC’s Katy Tur. “It’s his problem. It is his credibility problem. It is the fear that he has politicized the health process of this nation, which is a well-founded fear.

More than 50% of Americans in various polls said they were concerned about the effectiveness of a Covid-19 vaccine rushed under the Trump administration, which Cuomo says has intimidated scientists and other public health officials .

“Who’s going to put a needle in his arm if you don’t trust the vaccine approval process?” Cuomo told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer.

New York is one of the few states to institute committees to review FDA protocol as vaccines become public. Once vaccine candidates can be independently verified for safety, Cuomo – along with governors of states such as California, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington – will “build people’s confidence” to get vaccinated against the new vaccine. coronavirus.

“We are ready to distribute it,” he told CNN. “The only problem might be if a scientific panel in my state or one of the other states looked at the FDA approval process and said something was wrong.”

Despite these concerns in other states, Trump singled out Cuomo during his press briefing on Friday. Cuomo, a personal friend of President-elect Joe Biden, has become increasingly vituperative in his attacks on Trump in recent months and the president has responded in kind.

“As of April, the vaccine will be available to the general population, with the exception of places like New York State where, for political reasons, the governor decided to say – I don’t think it is good politically, I think it’s very bad from a health point of view – he wants to take his time with the vaccine, ”Trump said in his first public remarks since his loss. “He doesn’t trust the source of the vaccine.”

Cuomo said the president was targeting him because of personal and political conflicts they had had over the past four years, such as disagreements over immigration policy and the federal government’s refusal to fund infrastructure projects. essential in the region.

“This has been his MO,” Cuomo said. “Everything is personal with this president. There can be no disagreement in principle and he retaliates. He uses the government as a tool for retaliation. That’s what he does.

New York Attorney General Tish James also weighed in on Trump’s threat with an assertion from him, vowing to sue the federal government if New York was somehow left out of the distribution process.

“It is nothing but the vindictive behavior of a lame president trying to [take] revenge on those who oppose his policy, ”she said in a statement. “If the vaccine release comes in the twilight of a Trump administration and the president wants to play games with people’s lives, we will sue and we will win.”

Cuomo has rejected Trump’s involvement in distributing a vaccine, which is unlikely to be available until Biden’s inauguration on Jan.20.

“The federal government on Covid ran out of details and was downright incompetent in administration,” Cuomo said on MSNBC. “[He’s] unnecessary because I think it will be up to the Joe Biden administration. ”