Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Sunday seized on comments from White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows that the coronavirus cannot be controlled, accusing the Trump administration of capitulation amid the ongoing pandemic. 

Meadows on Sunday said, "we can't control the virus" amid rising cases in parts of the country. New York, too, is seeing COVID cases in parts of New York City, the Hudson Valley and Southern Tier regions. 

The nation over the weekend saw record-setting days for new COVID cases.

"They capitulated. They surrendered. They surrendered without firing a shot," Cuomo said in a conference call on Sunday. "It was the great American surrender. Americans don't surrender. And they didn't even put up a fight and what we learned in New York was if you put up a fight you would have won because New York won. Other states won also."

New York is continuing to use its cluster approach to stamping out new coronavirus cases on the local level without a broader shutdown of the state's economy like in March and April. 

The state's positivity rate including those "hot spots" on Sunday was 1.35% out of tens of thousands of COVID test results. Twelve people have died and hospitalizations due to COVID are 1,015 patients. 

But Cuomo on Sunday focused his criticism on the Trump administration. The governor has increasingly criticized the president's handling of the pandemic in recent weeks, which has killed more than 215,000 Americans since March. Cuomo last week said he and President Trump have not spoken "in a while."

"Trump's theory: preemptive capitulation," Cuomo said. "Don't even try. Just surrender preemptively. President Trump, Commander-in-Chief, gets attacked by an enemy and his policy: preemptive capitulation. That's what they did and now we had 217,000 people dead because of preemptive capitulation."