Just a couple days after President Donald Trump said he and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo were "getting along," the gloves came off Tuesday morning.
Cuomo went on the offensive in a pair of TV appearances, pushing back on Trump's assertion - contrary to the 10th Amendment - that his "authority is total" in making states roll back their stay-at-home orders to re-open the economy.
"The president basically declared himself King Trump, right?" Cuomo said on MSNBC's Morning Joe. "And all that annoying federal-state back and forth our founding fathers went through, he just disregarded that ... The governors are in charge because the president put them in charge. This is a total 180 from where the president started."
Cuomo added on NBC's Today show that "We don't have a king. We have a president."
This comes on the heels of Cuomo launching a multi-state coalition to re-open the economy, a northeast megalopolis consisting of the top economic development official, health official, and each governor's chief of staff from New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts and Delaware.
A Western States Pact was announced among California, Washington, and Oregon for a similar effort.
However, Cuomo and the other governors were adamant on Monday that they will proceed with caution, following the best medical advice and scientific data before sending more people back to work.
Trump bristled at the notion in a fiery Monday evening press briefing, and then took a shot across the bow on Twitter Tuesday morning.
" I got it all done for [Cuomo], and everyone else, and now he seems to want Independence!" Trump tweeted. That won't happen!"
Cuomo said Trump would cause a "constitutional crisis" by trying to force states to overturn their stay at home orders, and that "if he pushed it to that absurd point, then we would have a problem."
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.@NYGovCuomo: "If [Trump] says to me 'I declare it open' and that is a public health risk, or it's reckless with the welfare of the people of my state, I will oppose it." @WillieGeist pic.twitter.com/fYiM1eJ2P9
- Morning Joe (@Morning_Joe) April 14, 2020Cuomo's been calling daily, even hourly, begging for everything, most of which should have been the state's responsibility, such as new hospitals, beds, ventilators, etc. I got it all done for him, and everyone else, and now he seems to want Independence! That won't happen!
- Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 14, 2020