Audio and Rush Transcript: Governor Cuomo is Guest on Let's Get After It with Chris Cuomo

Earlier today, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo called into Let's Get After It with Chris Cuomo to discuss the novel Coronavirus.

AUDIO is available here.

A rush transcript is available below:

Chris Cuomo: Now, I am doing something that I rarely do today but it is for your benefit. My brother, as you know, is the Governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo. Obviously, I do not cover him because that is ridiculous. He is my best friend so I am not going to cover him. But New York State is a very big testing ground for what is going on with Coronavirus, and he has been very much out in front of it and he has been giving information and it is important. I want to bring him in just to get a feel for how you deal with something like this as a leader in charge of a situation where there are such huge amounts of unknown and such fear. So, the Governor is joining us now. Are you there?

Governor Cuomo: I am here.

Chris Cuomo: Alight, thank you big brother. I appreciate you being with us. So, first thing, just help us understand what you believe the realities are right now at play in your State, and what you know about the situation in the country with Coronavirus.

Governor Cuomo: Okay, first. Did you say that Eastern Time you were going to be on at one o'clock in the morning today?

Chris Cuomo: One A.M., so technically Wednesday morning I will do Super Tuesday coverage.

Governor Cuomo: Okay, I love you but I am going to take a pass then on watching you this evening.

Chris Cuomo: That's okay.

Governor Cuomo: Okay, look. I think in your introduction you made a couple of good points. Government now, at times of an emergency you see the purest distillation of government. And you are right. People want credibility and trust in the government. They want to know that what the government is saying is true. And second, the government has to perform. It has to be competent. This is about capacity. This is not about concepts. It is not about rhetoric. Either government figures out how to handle this situation and do the test and do the quarantine and get all the health departments unified, or it doesn't. There is no politics to this. If anything, the politics confuses it because people want the information. They want to know that it is truthful information. You are at this time in this country where you have political hysteria and it seems like everything comes through a political filter - our news comes through political filters. We self-select our sources of news. But that is repugnant to this moment.

They do not want political spin on Coronavirus. They want to know the facts and they want to know that government can handle it. And that is what - those are my focuses in New York. Get the facts. Not political facts. Talk to the best medical professionals. You mentioned Dr. Tony Fauci. I have been speaking with him, World Health Organization, CDC, my own Health Department here where I have some really great talent. Just get the facts and then find out what people want to know. Not political people, not pundits, what I get from people. You know when I am walking the dog, when you are at a grocery store, when you are at a bake shop. What do people come up and ask when it is unfiltered? And what do they need to know? And I put those two things together, the best medical information with what people need to know.

New York is in many ways at the forefront here of dealing with this in many ways because of our size, our history. We are the international gateway. So, of course we are going to be seeing these things first and we are. Today, we had our first case of what they call community spread. Community spread is when you can't link the case to a proximate or determinative point.

Chris Cuomo: Right, but that is how most things get spread right? If we were just dealing with the Flu, it is all community spread. You do not know where people got it.

Governor Cuomo: That is exactly right.

Chris Cuomo: So, people should not be afraid when they hear community spread.

Governor Cuomo: That is right. Part of what is going on is there is such a hyper focus on each case. It is inevitable that you are going to have a community spread. It is inevitable that you are going to have a high number of cases. Now, we try to track down each one because you want to limit the exposure wherever you can. But you are dealing with all sorts of random variables, right? We had a gentleman today who lives in Westchester, who was working in New York City, no apparent connection to any country. So, yes someone came back from Korea or someone from Italy that he ran into and he ran into, and he got infected. So, you can't track back every case, you do the best you can, but at the same time you're honest with people: Of course there's going to be community spread, of course there's going to be more cases testing positive - that is to be expected. We have this manic focus on each case - Chris, it's going to be dozens and dozens and dozens and dozens of cases. That's what is going to happen.

Chris Cuomo: Why do you say "dozens and dozens," and in answering that, how confident are you about the information you've been getting from the federal level about when they knew about this and what they can help with?

Governor Cuomo: Look I talk with everyone - I've spoken to Vice President Pence who's in charge of the task force. There was a conference call yesterday, but I rely on the medical professionals - I am anxious about filters. I don't want filtered information - this is a medical situation. I want pure medical information.

Chris Cuomo: What do you think happens with the politicians?

Governor Cuomo: Well I think part of it is everyone hears it through their own lens, and then you might get their bias. This might have political ramifications - you have an election going on and then you have this major health situation in the middle of it - and by the way, you have political accusations, right? The President's people say, the Democrats are making it worse than it is; the Democrats say the federal government is understating it - and that's toxic right now because you're living your life, your kids are going to school, you want to know what we're looking at and even this situation you have politicized through these two different polar extremes. So I guess - I want to hear from the medical professionals, I want to hear it directly. I speak to them all to see if somebody has something different. World Health Organization has people in China who are dealing with that, and then I convey, I communicate exactly what I hear factually from the medical community.

Chris Cuomo: But how do you figure out what to tell people without freaking them out because they're in the business of even Fauci who - you know just to be open with the audience the Cuomo family has known Fauci for a long time, not just because he's Italian - and the idea that they are in the business not of panic but of worst case scenarios and preparing you for what this could be. How do you figure out how to calibrate what you're told?

Governor Cuomo: I just - I tell it the way I hear it. I do calibrate to the worst case scenario. That's what I prepare for. I take their worst case scenario and I scale up to that scenario. Prepare for the worst, hope for the best. But my job is to be able to say to the people of the State of New York - we anticipated the worst case scenario, we fully mobilized our government and we are doing everything we need to do to protect against the worst case scenario to the best you can, and then hopefully the trajectory is less than that. I also, the calibration of expectation - we're in this time period, frankly with the coverage of this situation, "Oh my gosh, there's a new case." Everything breathless. "First community spread." I've been saying this from day one - you are going to see this happen. It is inevitable. It is mathematics by the way. Just look at the number of people who are coming in and going out, look at the transmission rate of this virus, and it's going to happen. And don't be surprised and don't be upset when it does. "Well community spread," of course it's going to happen. I was on with a journalist the other day - I said, "I'll wager you today whatever you want, we have a community spread case in the next several days." It's inevitable, and I think people need to hear that, especially now -

Chris Cuomo: But they're worried about it shutting everything down, that you're going to see all the schools closed, and nobody's going to go to movie theaters and there's going to be a domino effect of nobody traveling, nobody going out, nobody spending money and the economy starts to get hit and then it becomes something that gets remembered for a long time, and people like you remind people of the swine flu, H1N1 rather, and they closed 100 schools for that, and people died and all that but it passed. I guess with this one the x-factor is they don't know if it's seasonal. What's the best information they're giving you on what they think happens when it warms up?

Governor Cuomo: They can't tell you if it's seasonal or not. But let's go back to your point, you're right. We have gone through this before. We went through H1N1. We went through Ebola, which by the way is a much more frightening virus than this. We went through SARS. We've gone through this a number of times. We just dealt with measles in the State of New York. So, we have done this before. There is much more tension and fear around this. I'm not exactly sure why, but what makes people afraid? People get afraid when, A: "I don't believe what I'm being told. I don't believe the information I'm getting. I think these guys are politicizing everything and they're not telling me the truth." Or B: it's the truth and it's incredibly terrible. That's why people are afraid. So, answer A: here are the facts. I stay away from criticizing the President. They try to say all day long, "well you blame this, blame that." I won't go there. I'm just giving you the facts. These are the facts on A. B: well maybe the worst-case scenario is devastating. No, the worst-case scenario 80 percent of the cases will self-resolve, the remaining 20 people will get ill but the mortality rate the CDC says is 1.2. It was 2 percent in China. The average flu is 0.6 percent.

Chris Cuomo: So, it's twice?

Governor Cuomo: It's twice the average flu, but see what the President's point was I think was look, the average flu kills a large number of people. Last year, 34,000 people died from the flu. 34,000.

Chris Cuomo: It does not inspire confidence when he says, "nobody knew that. Nobody knows that the flu -." I have to be honest. It doesn't inspire confidence when everybody in the information business knows that that's true. But to be fair, when I interviewed Fauci last night and he gave me that 80 percent breakdown number, just so you understand at home complete transparency, Fauci says 80 percent will have coronavirus not know it, be asymptomatic and get better, meaning you'll just know that you were sick, you didn't know that you had coronavirus. Then you got that 15 to 20 percent where people have to be hospitalized. Within that number, you get the old and the compromised, and then you start to get your lethality index. So, I listened to Fauci I said, "That's great. Thank you very much for putting that out there. That's really helpful context." My brother texts me and says, "now you believe it. When I told you that three days ago you dismissed it." And I did think at the time you were trying to make me feel better, because I am the panicker. I am the person who panics and believes that this is going to be bad, and there's a case in New York City, and I'm already sick. I'm immunocompromised, and I'm going to be next. So, Andrew gave me these numbers just to keep it in check, and I did not have it register until Fauci said it, but maybe that's proof that we trust the clinicians more than the politicians.

Governor Cuomo: Well, yes. So, it's A and B. And look, I wouldn't call yourself a panicky personality. Let's put a nice word, you are an anxious -

Chris Cuomo: I am anxious.

Governor Cuomo: You're an anxious personality. Look, the conversation we had as brothers, right? Forget journalists, governor, blah, blah, blah. As brothers, this is exactly what I said to you. The problem is people don't the information that their getting and whether or not they can trust it: A. B: the way they make it sound in the newspapers is coronavirus is a death sentence. Neither is true. Yes, it's going to spread. Yes, it's inevitable. That's the comparison to the normal flu virus. You know, 15,000 hospitalizations in New York State. 15,000 people with the flu.

Chris Cuomo: Do you have the capacity for flu and coronavirus? What are you going to do when people start getting sick and they need to be somewhere.

Governor Cuomo: Yes, we do, and we're building that capacity. That's why I track the numbers so carefully, you know, because you want to know what the denominator is. Let's say we stay with the 80 percent, 20 percent, and the 1.4 to 2 percent. The question becomes really a health system management issue. Do you have the capacity to handle the 20 percent of the people who might need hospitalization?

Chris Cuomo: On top of the flu.

Governor Cuomo: On top of the flu. That's a legitimate question that government has to gear up for. Here's the other task for government. Increase your testing capacity because as you're playing detective after each one of these cases, well the person was on the airplane, well, the person went to school the next day. Now you're increasing the universe of people who need to be tested who might be exposed.

Chris Cuomo: And they wouldn't let you test, early on. The federal government, the CDC was playing games with them wanting to process all the tests, which was making you lose time of doing your own detection.

Governor Cuomo: Now see, you just did what I said we should not do.

Chris Cuomo: Well you said you shouldn't do it.

Governor Cuomo: When you said the CDC was, no no. I said, we, collective we.

Chris Cuomo: You said we shouldn't do it. We as the leaders, I'm the journalist, I'm in the business of testing power.

Governor Cuomo: No, CDC. Testing. That was the CDC was playing games? What's your basis for that statement?

Chris Cuomo: I interviewed the commissioner of health for New York State, and he said yes we can test. I said but then why aren't you testing? And he said well the CDC has to give you clearance to test. And I said well have you asked for clearance? And he said yes. And I said have you received the clearance. He said no. I take that as an unnecessary delay.

Governor Cuomo: Well you said, playing games.

Chris Cuomo: That's a game.

Governor Cuomo: What's the game?

Chris Cuomo: Why wouldn't they have said yes, test?

Governor Cuomo: Because the CDC is saying we're doing the testing, the uniformity and conformity of the test is very important and until we're sure the state has a test that is bona fide, we're not going to authorize the state. That could be a very reasonable position.

Chris Cuomo: Bona fide just because it's Latin doesn't make it any more impressive. Who cares if you get some false positives, at least you wind up capturingI'd rather you have more cases and you watch people getting better and going home and maybe they had coronavirus, and maybe only 90 percent of them did, which would be a huge off rate, for most test protocols, but at least we'd know what we're dealing with and you get to see people getting better.

Governor Cuomo: Alright look, I don't want to give you a tough time on your own show. You'll tell Mom, and then Mom will be annoyed at me.

Chris Cuomo: I feel like I'm slapping you around on this right now, to be honest.

Governor Cuomo: Oh you think you are? I'm letting you off easy because I don't want Mom calling me.

Chris Cuomo: I'm just telling you that the board is lighting up right now saying your brother sounds very smart but he should stay away from crossing swords with the master. That's what they call me on the show.

Governor Cuomo: My little brother, baby brother. So much more to learn.

Chris Cuomo: The master. El Rey, sometimes they call me. The king. We both know what they call me. My favorite part is that they call you now that too, which is the only time you started caring about it, by the way.

Governor Cuomo: No, it's when it became just a societal insult, and they raised it to the entire heritage.

Chris Cuomo: Yeah I played that well.

Governor Cuomo: Yes, perfect. Let's get back to this point, though.

Chris Cuomo: Please.

Governor Cuomo: The CDC, I spoke to the Vice President about it, the CDC accelerated the approval where New York State can now test.

Chris Cuomo: Good.

Governor Cuomo: Now, government performance, capacity, we have to increase the testing capacity. When we started, it was about 27 tests per day. We want to get that to 1000 tests per day.

Chris Cuomo: How do you do that?

Governor Cuomo: So we're bringing in private labs, etcetera.

Chris Cuomo: Private labs? What about cost, because I know you're really sensitive to this. And again, it's not because he's my brother. You can go and you can look online about what he's been arguing about this. So people aren't going to have the money for the test, there's a number out there that's it's like three grand, to get tested. So, what can government do, with the companies, to not have somebody priced out of getting tested?

Governor Cuomo: I'm glad you asked. You inadvertently just threw me a softball. But you didn't know that it was a softball when you threw it.

Chris Cuomo: Well, why? I've never said, I mean you know, you haven't done anything yet, so how soft a ball is it?

Governor Cuomo: Oh yes I have, yes I have.

Chris Cuomo: What have you done?

Governor Cuomo: See, once in a while, you should actually read about what I do. I know I'm not a national official and I know I'm not in a presidential race, so that makes me basically irrelevant in life. But I just passed a regulation that said the test must be paid by the insurance company, and no copay, because we need people to take these tests and we don't want to create a financial burden.

Chris Cuomo: What if you don't have insurance?

Governor Cuomo: That's what your big brother did. Then, well, we have, 96 percent of the people in this state have health insurance coverage. 96 percent.

Chris Cuomo: What if you don't?

Governor Cuomo: Great job, Big Brother, thank you very much I appreciate it.

Chris Cuomo: Don't hurt yourself patting yourself on the back.

Governor Cuomo: If you don't, the state will pay.

Chris Cuomo: How does that work, though? So, I come in I don't have insurance. I say I need to be tested, they say do I have insurance, I say no. Now what happens?

Governor Cuomo: You will be tested and the state will pay for the cost in the event you have no insurance because it's a public health risk. I want you tested no just for you, I want you tested because I might see you and I might be exposed to you.

Chris Cuomo: I think that's very smart. How many states is that true in? Is everybody doing that?

Governor Cuomo: I know not everyone is doing it. I know - a little self-serving, arrogant New Yorker - I think we were the first state to do this. But again, we are the tip of the spear on many of these issues because of our position, because of the size, because we have New York City and the density of New York City and you're talking about the spread of a virus. You want to be more careful in dense areas and New York City's one of the densest places in the country, obviously, so we have to figure out these things earlier than most other states.

Chris Cuomo: You know, when it comes to terrorism, when it comes to things that are designed to scare - not that this is, but it will by just its natural circumstances, it will scare people - you say don't stop living your life. Go out, do what you're supposed to do, the message of terrorism is to try to get you to stop doing what we ordinarily do when enjoying our freedoms. This is a little different, right? Because how do you balance wanting people to live life, spend money, you know, work, do all these things with not creating more access to contamination?

Governor Cuomo: That's B. That is, okay let's say you gave me the honest information, A. B, how bad is this going to be? Hey, Chris, if I thought this was going to be terrible, I would tell people to stay home. I would shut down the schools. I would shut down movie theaters. I would say you shouldn't go in place of density. I would say that. I mean, I'm talking about your kids, my kids. That's why I'm here, right?

Chris Cuomo: Should you shut down schools if you have a case in the school like the Westchester guy?

Governor Cuomo: They closed a school this morning on their own because of the fear factor.

Chris Cuomo: Are you all right with that?

Governor Cuomo: I think it was the fear factor because, again, go back to Dr. Fauci's point. Let's say it's a 1.4% mortality. Okay, it's twice the flu. And by the way, they get the 1.4 extrapolating from China which was at 2% and then they reduced the 2%, which even China got it down below 2 when they improved their healthcare system. Our healthcare system is much, much better than the healthcare system in China. In New York, we have one of the best healthcare systems on the globe. So, they're saying 1.4 which is sort of like the extrapolating from the China number. It might even not be 1.4, but even if it's twice the flu - we don't want to lose anyone - but it's a situation that is manageable in the scope of things.

Chris Cuomo: So, let me ask you one more quick thing about coverage. One is employers. You don't have sick days, sorry. If you want to stay home, stay home, but you're not getting paid. That is an emerging concern for people. What can you do about that?

Governor Cuomo: The only thing I find offensive in this discussion is you really are so unformed about what I'm doing. I am proposing a paid sick leave bill, first of all, that would give everyone paid sick leave. If a person is sick, let them stay home.

Chris Cuomo: Is this in general or is it designed for this?

Governor Cuomo: I'm sorry, you interrupted me. That's in general.

Chris Cuomo: Well, you were kind of going on. What about coronavirus, specifically? Because it's happening right now. See, you guys like to do things because you arrive at some idea that this is a good thing to do, but it doesn't always meet up with the current reality. Right now, you have coronavirus. People are afraid to go to work if they feel sick, they don't want to get other people sick, but they may not get paid leave. What can you do now to help people who are in those employment situations? Keyword: now.

Governor Cuomo: See, I purposely let you go on so long to dig and dig and dig and put yourself deeper in the hole. What I have done for now is I have proposed a law where the employer must pay the employee if they are quarantined and must protect the job of the person while they are in quarantine. Boom. Drop the mic.

Chris Cuomo: Good. No, good, good. Look, I think that's really important because people are worried about that.

Governor Cuomo: Alright, jump out of the hole. Come back out.

Chris Cuomo: No, I'm just telling you, that is, I keep hearing from people saying, "Hey, you know, my employer doesn't give me paid sick leave. So what am I going to have to take vacation days?" So I think that that's a good thing for you to address.

Governor Cuomo: Yeah, I heard that because I hear concerns also because I talk to people and I'm almost as quick as you are.

Chris Cuomo: Well, but you're very insulated. And I think people should understand this, very often, when there is any, and this is very rare, but when there is a point of any type of consternation between me and the Governor of New York, usually it's about, well we can settle this right now. He happens to have eight State Troopers that follow him anywhere he goes and it is amazing how confident someone can become about their capabilities to threaten you when they have lots of people with weapons standing around them. So I just want people to understand that this sense of confidence that you have in this conversation is largely a sense of separation from the actual source of the threat.

Governor Cuomo: I understand, I understand, I watch Discovery Channel. I understand how the young lion wants to defeat the old lion. I have always been a better athlete, I have always been stronger than you are. I know it's tough for you to deal with, but it's also the reality. And we're at a point in life where we just have to accept the reality, and that's okay. Because one day I will be gone and then you will be the lion.

Chris Cuomo: God forbid. You're all I have left.

Governor Cuomo: But that's many, many, many years from now.

Chris Cuomo: Well listen, I am not like that. I am all about lifting up. I will share one story about that you have to enjoy your life and you have to have perspective on things. I give you this story, ladies and gentlemen of America and beyond. My brother is my guy. Right? Used to be the triangle of pain, was my father, my brother and I. And I would be the moderator between some epic contests of basketball and other types of creative jousting. Now it's just me and Andrew. So I decide to do him a huge solid. Huge by any metric. He has a boat, he's a great boater, he's taught me everything I know about boating. He got me into fishing, right. So there's this whole legacy thing going on. He has a vessel that he is struggling to control. It's very long, very thin. There's something that every boat this size has called a bow thruster. Very expensive. Very difficult to install. I, as I surprise for him, have it installed so that he can stop smacking his boat all over the place like it was a bumper car. He, upon learning of the bow thruster being installed in the boat, sells it. Now, that is a complete commentary on how this dynamic works. I am the giver, he is the rejecter. Just so you understand.

Governor Cuomo: I cannot believe -

Chris Cuomo: And on that note, I would like to thank the Governor of New York --

Governor Cuomo: No. Let me just say - I can't believe you told that story, first of all. But second of all, it's because I am a connoisseur of my equipment. The vessel -

Chris Cuomo: Does connoisseur mean cheap in this context?

Governor Cuomo: No, no. First of all, don't touch my stuff. That's what it comes down to.

Chris Cuomo: It was a gift.

Governor Cuomo: I purposely - I don't want you altering my stuff. That's what it is.

Chris Cuomo: It was a gift! I improved it. I improved what you had.

Governor Cuomo: We'll continue this conversation later, in private.

Chris Cuomo: Listen, Andrew, Governor Cuomo is on top of this. It's important. His state matters. It is going to be symbolic for what's happening around the country. It's important to know that our leaders are on it. Brother or not, I'm proud of what he's doing in the state with this. We need to get out in front of it and be early and be confident about it so that people don't fall prey to panic. And I love you and I appreciate you talking to me about this today. I know you're very busy.

Governor Cuomo: My pleasure. I'm proud of you my brother. Thank you.

Chris Cuomo: Thank you. Thank you very much. I'm just trying to be like you, except for the boat thing cause I believe in safe navigation.

Governor Cuomo: Yeah or the basketball thing or the superior athletic ability that I possess.

Chris Cuomo: I seethat you are laboring under some type of virus. Not Coronavirus, but it is attacking your frontal cortex.

Governor Cuomo: It's just delusion.Accept reality.

Chris Cuomo: Alright have a nice time. Here's the one thing -

Governor Cuomo: Facts matter.

Chris Cuomo: Good luck to you. Good luck to you going forward and leading the state. Here's the nice thing ladies and gentlemen, it's my show. It ends when I say it ends.

Governor Cuomo: BOLO. Be on the lookout, we'll be coming for you.

Chris Cuomo: Please hang up on the Governor. Please. Please hang up on the Governor.