During Monday's annual speech to the Business Council of New York State, Governor Andrew Cuomo spent most of his time talking about the successes of his first seven years in office.

"We tackled every problem and we changed the basic trajectory of the state of New York," he said.

Cuomo also weighed in on a topic that's dominated American front pages and talk radio in recent days. 

"We spend all this time now with this silly debate, Colin Kaepernick, should you kneel or stand? Or the football players? Meanwhile, people's lives are in danger in Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands," the governor said.

With issues like potential cuts to health care, recent floods in the south and the storm damage to Puerto Rico impacting millions of U.S. citizens, the governor repeatedly blasted President Donald Trump for instead focusing much of his attention on criticizing NFL players who choose to kneel during the national anthem. 

"Tweet 'Let's all go volunteer and help Florida. Let's all go volunteer and help Texas.' Tweet 'Let's all make a donation to the people of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands because they are American citizens,' " Cuomo said. "That would be a great tweet as President of the United States."

Several of the lawmakers in the audience agreed with Cuomo that the president's focus should be on more pressing matters. 

"It's truly a distraction and quite honestly, it's feeding into the cynicism that I hear from people on a regular basis," said Assemblyman John McDonald (D - Cohoes).

"I think if all of us that are in elected office focus on what we were elected to do and let all the noise be just that, noise, we'll be fine," said Assemblywoman Carrie Woerner (D - Round Lake).

Others took a different view. 

"Here you have people who are living the American dream making all kinds of money and they can't respect the flag?" asked Senator Betty Little (R - Glens Falls). "They can protest anything they want to, but that's not the way to do it."

Questioning whether Trump may be purposely trying to distract Americans from other issues like Puerto Rico with his tweets, Cuomo once again urged the president to place his priorities away from the NFL.

"That's a life and death issue, and New Yorkers want to do everything we can, and it's personal for New Yorkers, but we need the federal government to act," Cuomo said.