Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Sunday continued to ratchet up his criticism of President Donald Trump, comparing him to a neighborhood racist.
“Every neighborhood has one,” Cuomo said in his remarks this morning at the First Baptist Church of Crown Heights in Brooklyn.
“The scared, small man in the house with the high fence and the shiny mailbox, afraid of people who are different, afraid of people who are a different religion, who speak a different language, who come from a different place. The person threatened by the diversity, who then uses anger to hide his fear. But New York quells the fear, and New York overcomes the naysayers, and New York rises above.”
Cuomo and Trump in the last week have been locked in an escalating feud. On Monday, Trump at a fundraiser in Utica mused about a potential challenge from Cuomo in 2020, saying those who do run against him “suffer.”
On Wednesday, Cuomo mocked Trump’s “Make America Great Again” slogan, drawing controversy when the governor suggested America was “never that great.”
Cuomo later walked those comments back amid the firestorm and critical tweets from the president.
The week was capped with Cuomo and Trump posting tweets attacking each other — and the governor in particular vowing he would not relent in his criticism of the president.
“As we sit here today, we are in the midst of that struggle,” Cuomo said. “And we say, Mr. President, you are not taking this nation back in time. Because we believe our best days are ahead of us, not behind us.”
Cuomo’s escalating criticism of Trump over the last several months has come as he faces a Democratic primary challenge on Sept. 13 against Cynthia Nixon.