Washington - New York Governor Andrew
Cuomo said on Tuesday he would not abide by any order that US President Donald Trump might give to reopen his state in an
unsafe manner during the coronavirus outbreak.
"If he ordered me to reopen in a way that would endanger the
public health of the people of my state, I wouldn't do it,"
Cuomo said in an interview with CNN.
Trump said on Monday he believed he had "total authority"
over states in terms of the US coronavirus response, a stance
that is not supported by the Constitution and was immediately
rejected by legal experts and some governors.
Cuomo said any such order would set up a constitutional
challenge between the states and the federal government that
would go to court.
"And the worst possible thing he could do at this moment -
to act dictatorial and to act in a partisan, divisive way," he
said, referring to the president's impending bid for re-election
in November. "Keep the politics out of it."
Cuomo said the country's founders had already settled the
matter.
"We had this argument. It was done a long time ago. People
by the name of Hamilton, and Jefferson and Madison and
Washington. And they concluded this. They wrote a document
that's called the Constitution of the United States."
"It says the federal government does not have absolute
power," said Cuomo. "It says the exact opposite of what the
president said. It says that would be a king."