New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo wants President Trump to know he’s not a king.
Appearing Monday evening on MSNBC, the New York Democrat hit back against Trump’s claim that he has complete control over when states reopen and said that the premise violates the Constitution.
“I don’t know why the president said it. I don’t know why he would take us down this path because it’s the exact opposite of everything he’s been trying to say,” Cuomo said, pointing out that Trump showed a video featuring various governors praising the administration for working with individual states at the same news conference.
“It’s not legal. It’s a total abrogation of the Constitution,” Cuomo said. “The Tenth Amendment specifically says ‘powers to the states.’ Alexander Hamilton, all the Founding Fathers, talked about the power of the states and how repugnant it would be for a federal head to say that they have eminent authority.”
“The Constitution says we don’t have a king,” the governor continued. “That is a king. We didn’t have a king. We didn’t have King George Washington. We have President George Washington.”
Cuomo went on to highlight how the president never instituted a national lockdown and left that power up to individual states to decide on instituting stay-at-home orders.
“Now the reopen should be ‘total authority’ after we just talked about bipartisanship? That makes no sense,” he said.
The governors of New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Delaware announced on Monday that they plan to work collaboratively in order to reopen their school systems and economies. A handful of West Coast states also indicated they’d work together on reopening their region.
Responding to a question about the collaboration earlier on Monday, the president said reopening states was not up to governors but “is the decision of the president,” despite Republicans’ traditional support for states’ rights.
“The president of the United States has the authority to do what the president has the authority to do, which is very powerful. The president of the United States calls the shots,” Trump said at the Monday news conference. “If we weren’t here for the states, you would’ve had a problem in this country like you’ve never seen before.”
