Cuomo Slams Divisive Politics Amid NY's Coronavirus Crisis

NEW YORK CITY – Governor Andrew Cuomo ripped into divisive politics after Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell vowed to stand opposed to "blue state bailouts" for areas hard hit by the new coronavirus.

McConnell said in a radio interview that he would stand against federal bailouts, instead suggesting that the states should declare bankruptcy. In a news release put out by his office, he repeated the assertion under the headline: "On Stopping Blue State Bailouts."

"What states have done, many of them have done to themselves with their pension programs," the release said.

"There’s not going to be any desire on the Republican side to bail out state pensions by borrowing money from future generations.”

Cuomo hit back in an interview on MSNBC Thursday night.

"It is just one of the dumb ideas of all time," he said about the bankruptcy suggestion.

He continued, "If you want to get the economy running, do you really want to have states across the nation declaring bankruptcy? Do you want to see that stock market go through the cellar? Let a state or a couple of states declare bankruptcy. Do you want you want to see the economy in this nation suffer in a way that it won't come back for years? Let states declare bankruptcy.

"From an economic point of view it is bizarre. And then to say that reimbursing states for coronavirus cost is a bail out of the blue states, these are states that lost thousands of people."

The governor added that if coronavirus doesn't stop divisive politics, nothing will.

"It's not red or blue. Is there a moment in this country in Washington where these guys are going to stop playing politics? Even with people who died in coronavirus, he's going to say, "Well they died in blue states, so they're Democrats."

"I mean, they're Americans who died. Just at one point this corrosive partisanship has to stop, and if it doesn't stop when it comes to coronavirus. It'll never stop."