Co-host Joy Behar asked why Cuomo thinks Trump seems so threatened by doctors and scientists. In a conversation with Bob Woodward, Trump adviser Jared Kushner said that they were "getting the country back from the doctors."
"Joy, I don't think it was just that. I think it was worse than that, frankly," said Cuomo. "I think what they were saying was they wanted to deny it. Politically they didn't find it advantageous so they were going to deny the virus, and the doctors were inconvenient and facts were inconvenient, and science was inconvenient because their political plan was to leave it to the states, let the states handle it which was bizarre to me. This is a national pandemic. How does the federal government not handle it, but leave it to the states? It was primarily Democratic states if you remember early on, 'Blame the states.' The president's position was going to deny it because it was inconvenient and could hurt the economy, and they would just -- the doctors and the facts disrupted their political agenda, Joy. That's what it was all about."
He explained that it was clear the Trump administration wanted to lie to the American people.
"The doctors were telling the truth, and that was the problem," he explained.
Whoopi Goldberg agreed, saying that doctors aren't political, they just tell people the facts as they learn them.
"Coronavirus is now the third leading cause of death in America, and you say, and rightfully so I think, but I'm going to ask you, you're holding [Trump] responsible for every death in New York from COVID. I'm going to say to you, why?" she asked.
Cuomo corrected her and said he's holding Trump responsible for every COVID death in the whole country.
"First, Whoopi, because he lied about it," said Cuomo. "He lied about it from day one. They had that memo in January from a person, Peter Navarro saying millions are going to die. They lied about it, and they knew that millions were going to get infected and that hundreds of thousands were going to die. That's the first reason. The old book says don't lie, right?"
His second reason he said was that the Trump team was flat-out incompetent.
"He keeps talking about the China-virus, China-virus, China-virus, trying to demonize China," Cuomo continued. "The virus did not come here from China. The virus came here from Europe because he wasn't paying attention and the virus left China, went to Europe. January, February, March we had 3 million people coming in from Europe. Italy, France, Spain. That's where the virus came from, and he never knew that, and he never said it. No, this is a -- this is all on his doorstep, and it still is, and the most obnoxious -- you know that 110,000 people more are going to die because you won't wear a mask, and your own neurosis keeps you from wearing a mask? All of your advisers say at least tell the American people to protect themselves. Wear a mask, and you refuse? I mean, how? How crazy."
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