New York Governor Andrew Cuomo lashed out at Donald Trump on Wednesday morning, saying during a press conference about Tuesday's deadly attack in New York City that the president's morning tweets 'play[ed] into the hands of the terrorists' by dividing Americans.

Both Cuomo and New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio said Trump hasn't called them to offer his assistance or encouragement following the killing of eight people on a lower Manhattan street.

Trump complained hours earlier on Twitter that Sayfullo Saipov, the Uzbek national who plowed a rented truck through a bike lane full of cyclists and pedestrians, entered the U.S. through a program that uses a lottery to award immigration visas.

'The terrorist came into our country through what is called the "Diversity Visa Lottery Program," a Chuck Schumer beauty. I want merit based [immigration],' Trump tweeted.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is going to war against Donald Trump, saying his morning tweets about immigration in the wake of Tuesday's terror attack 'play ingo the hands of terrorists'

New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio said he hasn't received a call from Trump since the terror attack, and Cuomo confirmed the same thing

The State Department's Diversity Immigrant Visa Program awards visas mainly to people from countries that are under-represented in the U.S.

More than 4,000 Uzbeks won the right to apply for immigrant visas that way in 2015 alone.

Cuomo was outraged at Trump.

'The president's tweets, I think, were not helpful. I think they were not factual. I think they tended to point fingers and politicize the situation,' he said.

Cuomo correctly pointed out that the legislation creating the visa lottery 'was a bipartisan law' – backed by both then-Democratic Congressman Chuck Schumer and former Republican Rep. Al D'Amato, both New Yorkers.

Schumer is now the Senate minority leader, the most powerful Democrat in Congress.

'You play into the hands of the terrorists to the extent you disrupt and divide and frighten people in this society. And the tone now should be the exact opposite,' Cuomo insisted, 'by all officials on all levels.'

'This is about unification, this is about solidarity, this is about normalization, this is about protection, and the last thing it's about is politics – period.'

President Trump lashed out at the immigration visa lottery program, which awards visas mainly to people from countries that are under-represented in the U.S.

Sayfullo Saipov, the Uzbek national who plowed a rented truck through a bike lane full of cyclists and pedestrians on Tuesday, was admitted to the U.S. in 2010 under the State Department's Diversity Immigrant Visa Program

Hours after Saipov struck, Trump tweeted that he had asked the Homeland Security department for a heightened vetting program.

'I have just ordered Homeland Security to step up our already Extreme Vetting Program. Being politically correct is fine, but not for this!' Trump tweeted Tuesday night.

An agitated De Blasio declared on Wednesday that Trump's approach is wrong-headed.

'We support vetting of individuals. We support very thorough vetting, [but] not of groups of people just because they belong to a group,' he said.

'There should be very, very careful vetting of anyone where there's an indication of concern. But not because of their religion. Not because of their country of origin.'

Shattered bicycles are seen here on the West Side Highway bike path where eight people were killed and 12 more injured

De Blasio didn't say how he would propose deciding which applicants for immigrant visas should be examined more closely than others.

Both De Blasio and Cuomo said that while Trump administration officials have been in touch with them, the president himself hasn't picked up the phone.

'I received no call from the president,' Cuomo told reporters.

'Not from the president directly, no,' De Blasi added.

Both men were contacted by Acting Homeland Security Secretary Elaine Duke, they said, who asked what federal government resources they needed.

De Blasio said he also took a call from White House homeland security adviser Tom Bossert.

'Both offered any and all help to New York City in this moment, and said they would be 100 per cent available to us in any way going forward,' he said.