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Coronavirus News: Days after Twitter jabs, President Trump thanks, compliments Gov. Cuomo

ByEyewitness News WABC logo

Monday, April 20, 2020

President Trump thanks, compliments NY Gov. Andrew Cuomo

President Trump took a few minutes out of his daily press briefing to thank and compliment Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

NEW YORK (WABC) -- Days after he criticized Andrew Cuomo on Twitter, President Donald Trump thanked New York's governor during a White House press conference and even called him a "good-looking guy."

On Friday, during Cuomo's daily press briefing, the president tweeted that Cuomo should spend more time "doing" and less time "complaining." He said he wants to see less talk and more action.

Cuomo fired back and called the president "disrespectful" and suggested he get back to work.

However, on Sunday, the president sang a different tune when he showed a part of a clip from Cuomo's press conference from earlier in the day where Cuomo said in part:

"The federal government stepped up and was a great partner, I'm the first one to say it. We needed help and they were there....State and local governments were fantastic. The hospital system was fantastic. New Yorkers were fantastic. That is an undeniable fact. Look at what they said was going to happen. Now the line up here, the actual line is down here. What do you owe the variance to? Heroic efforts on behalf of people as facilitated by government, federal and state."

The clip ended but the president said the excerpt from the video stopped before "the good part."

"Andrew had something else to say that was really nice, but we won't go through that," Trump said. "It was really a good statement. You want to put the rest of it up or do you not have it? I just think it's so good because it's bipartisan. This is not about Democrats and Republicans. This is about a thing that hit our country, the likes of which has never happened to us before."

Trump went on to thank Cuomo for his statement earlier in the day and acknowledged that Cuomo and New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy are working together and doing a great job.