‘Do you blame the governor for that?’: Trump targets Cuomo over high rate of coronavirus in New York

President smirks after governor demands federal support as state's number of cases tops 25,000

Donald Trump appeared to ratchet up tensions between the White House and state officials who have demanded federal support to combat the coronavirus by singling out New York Governor Andrew Cuomo over the state's rate of infections.

During a Fox News town hall, Dr Deborah Birx suggested that New York's transmission rate is much higher than in other parts of the country because of density issues and more foreign travel, including people returning to the US who weren't screened before travel restrictions were in place.

The president interrupted, saying: "Do you blame the governor for that?"

Dr Birx ignored him.

The president also suggested that Governor Cuomo — whose state is facing a critical shortage of medical supplies — should have purchased that equipment several years ago instead of relying on emergency federal relief. He said: "It's two-way street and [governors] need to treat us well also. They can't say, 'Oh gee, we should get this, we should get that.'"

On Tuesday, the governor's growing frustration with the administration came to a head, as he warned that the state is two weeks away from the crisis overwhelming its resources.

Governor Cuomo didn't mention the president by name but demanded that the federal government release a stockpile of 20,000 ventilators and invoke a war-time law to rush the manufacturing of medical supplies. Otherwise, thousands of New Yorkers will die.

FEMA is sending 400 ventilators to New York, though it's far short of the thousands the state needs, the governor said.

He said that if the White House doesn't send ventilators within weeks, "You pick the 26,000 people who are going to die."

The governor said: "The president said it's a war ... then act like it ... They're doing the supplies? Here's my question: Where are they?"

New York's rate of new infections is "doubling about every three days" with the total number of cases reaching 25,000 on Tuesday, he said.

The state's initial estimates of 110,000 hospital beds has spiked to 140,000 beds, though the state has only 53,000 beds available. New York also needs an estimated 40,000 intensive care unit beds.

He said: "Those are troubling and astronomical numbers ... The apex is higher than we thought and the apex is sooner than we thought. That is bad facts."