Logo

Sign up for our special edition newsletter to get a daily update on the coronavirus pandemic.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo and President Trump will meet Wednesday at the White House to discuss what role a fierce focus on revitalizing New York’s infrastructure can have in jump-starting the state’s coronavirus-battered economy.

“This is one of the things I want to talk to the president about,” Cuomo said during his Tuesday press briefing at the New York Stock Exchange in Lower Manhattan.

“You want to restart the economy, you want to reopen the economy? Let’s do something creative,” continued Cuomo. “Let’s do it fast, let’s put Americans back to work, and let’s make America better. It is common sense.”

Cuomo earlier in the briefing cast the focus as a way to kill two birds with one stone: finally tackling long-delayed infrastructure projects at a time when many are clamoring to get back to work.

The governor specifically highlighted the massive Penn Station overhaul, the transformative reconfiguration of LaGuardia Airport, the revitalization of the rail tunnels beneath the Hudson River and the expansion of the Second Avenue subway line as projects on his wish list.

“The time to fix the hole in the roof, we have a saying in Queens, is when the sun is shining,” said Cuomo. “The time to do this work is now, when you need the jobs and the volume is low.

“That’s one of the things I’m going to talk to the president about tomorrow.”

The White House summit will mark the second meeting between Cuomo and Trump amid the pandemic, which has alternately cast them as political rivals and unlikely allies.

But since the first meeting last month — which Cuomo labeled “productive” — the relationship has hit a pair of bumps, with Trump telling The Post that “bailouts” to “blue state” governments like New York’s were unfair, and Cuomo pinning responsibility for a widely criticized nursing home policy on Trump.

Critics of Cuomo’s policy that ordered New York nursing homes to take in COVID-19 infected patients — which has been blamed for leading to as many as 5,000 deaths — should “ask President Trump” about it, the governor said last week.

“Anyone who wants to ask, ‘Why did the state do that with COVID patients in nursing homes,’ it’s because the state followed President Trump’s CDC [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] guidance,” Cuomo insisted to reporters.

Trump official Michael Caputo shot back on Friday, “Leadership is about good and sound judgment. Gov. Cuomo exercised misguided leadership. He’s responsible for this nursing home problem, and the deaths are on his hands.”

Comments
anonymous profile image
Powered by RoundtableBuilt on infrastructure designed for real-time media. Learn more at RTB.io.© Roundtable 2026. By using this site you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy