President Donald Trump is attacking New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo again over the coronavirus pandemic.

During a virtual “town hall” with Fox News on Tuesday, Trump spoke about how he’d like to reopen the U.S. by Easter, comparing the number of flu deaths to those from COVID-19. Medical experts have urged continuing social distancing and keeping non-essential workers home, while Trump has argued that the economic impact could be worse.

“We can’t have the cure be worse than the problem,” Trump said Monday. “We have to open our country because that causes problems that, in my opinion, could be far bigger problems."

Earlier Tuesday, Cuomo said New York will see the peak of coronavirus cases sooner and higher than expected, with as many as 140,00 hospital beds and 30,000 ventilators needed within 2-3 weeks. Cuomo urged Trump to use the Defense Production Act to order companies to produce ventilators.

“FEMA says, ‘we’re sending 400 ventilators.’ Really? What am I going to do with 400 ventilators when I need 30,000?” Cuomo said. “You pick the 26,000 people who are going to die because you only sent 400 ventilators.”

“The president said ‘it’s a war, it’s a war.’ Then act like it’s a war."

Trump said Cuomo was “very nice," but criticized the governor for “complaining."

“He had a choice. He had a chance,” Trump told Fox News on Tuesday. “He refused to order 15,000 ventilators."

The Daily Beast reports the president then showed Fox News Bill Hemmer a printout of an article from The Gateway Pundit. “It says that he didn’t buy the ventilators in 2015 for a pandemic, established death panels and lotteries instead," Trump said, paraphrasing the far right-wing blog known for publishing conspiracy theories.

“I’m not blaming him or anything else,” Trump continued, “but he shouldn’t be talking about us. He’s supposed to be buying his own ventilators. We are going to help.”

According to The New York Times, the “panel” Trump referenced may be the New York State Task Force on Life and the Law, which studied the state’s available ventilators for a 2015 report giving hospitals guidelines on how to decide who to ventilate and who to effectively let die during an emergency. The task force said that, in the worst-case scenario of a flu-like pandemic, New York could be short by as many as 15,783 ventilators a week at the peak of the crisis.

President @realDonaldTrump: New York Governor Andrew Cuomo refused to order 16,000 ventilators back in 2015 for a pandemic! pic.twitter.com/QXVlZIH61h — Team Trump (Text TRUMP to 88022) (@TeamTrump) March 24, 2020

Trump repeated comparisons to influenza to make his case for loosening guidelines on social distancing despite other states, including New York, issuing stay-at-home orders and requiring non-essential businesses to have 100 percent of its workforce from home.

“We lose thousands and thousands of people a year to the flu. We don’t turn the country off. Every year. When I heard the number—you know, we averaged 37,000 people a year. Can you believe that?” Trump said. “This year we are having a bad flu season.”

“But we lose thousands of people a year to the flu,” he continued. “We never turn the country off. We lose much more than that to automobile accidents. We didn’t call up the automobile companies and say, “Stop making cars, we don’t want cars anymore.’”

Cuomo has not responded to Trump’s comments, but the two have repeatedly clashed on a number of issues beyond the coronavirus pandemic. Trump, a Republican, has previously claimed New Yorkers are leaving the state “like never before,” while Cuomo, a Democrat, has accused Trump of inciting hate and doing “nothing but tweet” when it comes to gun control.

Last month, Cuomo met with Trump at the White House to negotiate an end to the Trump administration’s decision to prevent New Yorkers from enrolling in Global Entry and other “trusted traveler” programs. Hours before the meeting, Trump suggested he wouldn’t allow New York residents to have access to faster border crossings and shorter airport lines unless it benefits him personally. Cuomo also irked the president when he signed a law preventing presidential pardons for state crimes, including his associates like former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort.

New York needs 30,000 ventilators.



It will be the difference between life and death.



The federal government must provide these ventilators.



Only the federal government has the power to deliver. — Andrew Cuomo (@NYGovCuomo) March 24, 2020

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