Politics is NEVER in short supply for the Big Apple…
Donald Trump, who was born in Queens , New York…Made his money as a New York Real Estate guy, lives in Washington , D.C. and will retire to Florida seems to NOT give a shit about his home town, which has the most number of virus testing hits in the country…
All that is complicated by the normal political push/pull between the New State Government and the New York City Mayor….
For weeks, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has mostly played nice with the Trump administration, taking a calm and measured approach toward the federal government — even as New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio has lashed out at Trump for neglecting his home town in a public health crisis.
The differing temperaments between the two officials – Cuomo with a cool executive air bordering on aloofness, de Blasio with an us-against-them pugnaciousness – provided a stark contrast to people outside the tri-state area who were just tuning in to New York’s growing coronavirus crisis.
That appeared to change on Tuesday, when Cuomo directed the full weight of his fury at the administration as the spread of coronavirus in his state threatened to spiral out of control.
“The president says it’s a war,” Cuomo fumed, his voice rising at a press conference at the Javits Center, the massive Manhattan convention hall now being turned into an emergency hospital. “Well then act like it’s a war!”
Faced with New York’s need for 30,000 ventilators to keep virus patients alive when the spread of the virus peaks – which could happen in as soon as two weeks – the federal government has sent 400 from its stockpile.
“You pick the 26,000 people who are going to die because you only sent 400 ventilators,” an angry Cuomo demanded.
But within a day – after a mollifying conversation with Trump — Cuomo was back on his steady course.
“It’s something our team is working on with the White House team and I want to thank the president for his cooperation and his team for their cooperation,” Cuomo said on Wednesday, referring to the supply-chain problems facing New York’s medical authorities.
Cuomo’s calculation seems to be that a softer approach would get him further with a president known for being susceptible to flattery….
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De Blasio has been less delicate with the president, consistently berating him for a slow federal response to the spiraling health crisis. “The fate of New York City rests in the hands of one man. He is a New Yorker. And right now, he is betraying the city he comes from,” the mayor told reporters last week.
In other appearances, de Blasio has labeled Trump his generation’s Herbert Hoover for his response to the pandemic and accompanying economic crash.
As the first cases of coronavirus hit New York, both men sought to avoid panic, encouraging New Yorkers to go about their lives while taking sensible precautions. They even held a dual press conference at the beginning of the month.
That was a rare occasion for two men whose dislike of each other is well known to their New York constituents. De Blasio, who won a longshot bid for mayor in 2013, fashioned himself the progressive alternative to Cuomo’s brand of centrism, but the governor seemed to delight in undermining him at every turn. In their six years in office, they’ve feuded over matters as grave as the spiraling homeless population and dire conditions in the city’s public housing and as trivial as the fate of a single deer found in Harlem….
image….NY Post.Com
States update: New York’s rate of hospitalized people has slowed in recent days, a possible sign the social distancing is working…
Axios…