During a guest spot on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” program, Cuomo got real with hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski, warning that New Yorkers should stock up on supplies and get ready for the worst of the outbreak.
“My plea is, and pardon me if I'm a little emotional, but I'm living with this 24 hours a day and I'm seeing people die all around me,” Cuomo said. “The science people, the government professionals have to stand up and look the President in the eye and say this is not a political exercise.
“This is not press relations. It's not optics. The tsunami is coming. We know it is. Now is the time to gather supplies, do the preparations because it's too late the day before. If you have not done the work before the storm hits, it's too late to do it once the storm hits. And the storm is coming.”
During his guest spot, Cuomo called New York the “canary in the coal mine,” when speaking of the number of deaths COVID-19 has caused statewide.
“You're going to see this moving across the country. Anyone who wants to say this is New York alone, that's a political, partisan, divisive view and it's exactly wrong. And I hope the president gets -- I heard your clip about the 4,000 ventilators (provided by the federal government),” he said.
“What they still don't get is how to run a government, how to plan an operation. This virus has been ahead of us from day one. We've been playing catch up from day one. That we're doing in New York is we know the apex is still two, three, four weeks away depending on whose projection model you use. Prepare for the apex. Have the materials for the apex. That's when the system is going to collapse.”
Cuomo said that he “can see the storm coming,” can “see the forecast,” and that he is “living day-by-day.”
“I follow projections. I follow science. I follow data. I don't have instinct. I don't have a gut. It's not about emotion," he said. "The storm hits, according to McKinsey and Cornell and the Gates Foundation, the storm hits in two weeks, three weeks.
"This is what I'm going to need if you don't want to see a total collapse, and let's focus on getting that. Everything else is baloney to me. I can't decipher the daily mumblings of the President.”
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