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New York Gov Andrew Cuomo (D), one of the strongest advocates of Congress providing state governments financial aid to help deal with the fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic, called Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s idea of allowing blue states to go bankrupt “politically repugnant.”

McConnell (R-Ky.) on Thursday suggested that states can declare bankruptcy amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Cuomo, meanwhile, has been a harsh critic of congressional efforts thus far to deal with the economic fallout from the pandemic, saying that it hasn’t done anything for struggling state governments.

Much of the US economy has been cratering due to extreme lockdown conditions across most of the nation to try to slow the spread of the virus.

In the United States, there have been more than 800,000 reported cases, including 46,379 deaths, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The area in and around New York has been the epicenter of the pandemic for weeks.

“One of the dumbest statements of all time,” Cuomo said of McConnell’s suggestion. “Mitch McConnell, they’re talking about bringing back the economy and then he says states should declare bankruptcy. How does that help the national cheat? States should declare bankruptcy and he then says this is a bailout to the blue states which is a really offensive statement.

“What he’s saying is the blue states are the states that have the coronavirus problem. Why? Because the coronavirus problem is basically a function of density, and urban areas have more density, and those are cities and cities are blue,” the governor added. “They are Democrats. So why should he bail out the blue areas. I mean, it really is offensive. You talk about one issue where you think you can get past partisanship and pettiness and now you talk about helping communities where people are dying and you say they are blue states? No.

“The coronavirus attacks Republicans and it attacks Democrats. It doesn’t ask someone are you a Republican or are you a Democrat, and normally in emergencies, Chris, this is the one time when you saw the federal government put the Politics aside,” Cuomo said during an interview with his brother, CNN host Chris Cuomo, himself a COVID-19 survivor. “A state has a hurricane and the state had a flood and they got federal funding because you didn’t play Politics with that. McConnell is the exact opposite and that’s why I said all along they should have insisted that the state funding be in this bill and when they signed this bill, they passed this bill which is small business. They took care of airlines and they took care of all these industries which is fine.”

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