Audio & Rush Transcript: Governor Cuomo is a Guest on NBC's Today Show with Gabe Gutierrez

Earlier today, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo was a guest on NBC's TODAY Show with Gabe Gutierrez to discuss his trip to Savannah, Georgia, and New York State's response to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

AUDIO is available here.

A rush transcript of the Governor's interview is available below:

Gabe Gutierrez: Savannah is one of several cities in Georgia that issued a mask order in defiance of the state's governor. we travelled here with New York's governor, Andrew Cuomo, who came here to deliver supplies and testing advice, and he's worried that visitors to his state might bring back the virus.

Gabe Gutierrez (voiceover): From coast to coast, nearly every state is seeing a rise in coronavirus case.

Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear (clip): We are in a war against this virus.

Gabe Gutierrez (voiceover): The sun belt now hit especially hard.

Vice President Mike Pence (clip): The outbreaks across the sun belt are serious.

Gabe Gutierrez (voiceover): Cars lined up at this new Dallas testing site before it even opened.

Resident (clip): You can't have too much testing.

Gabe Gutierrez (voiceover): California, with nearly 400,000 cases, is on pace to become the country's biggest hotspot. Florida has seen more than 10,000 new cases a day for nearly a week straight.

Resident (clip): We should have stayed quarantined longer, honestly.

Gabe Gutierrez (voiceover): The state deploying its first mobile hospital in response to the pandemic as ICUs filled up. Some residents now leaving. Back in April, New York saw more than 800 COVID deaths a day. Now that number has dropped to eight.

Gabe Gutierrez: Why head down to Georgia today?

Governor Cuomo: Georgia has a real problem. A lot of the states do.

Gabe Gutierrez (voiceover): We spoke one-on-one with New York Governor Andrew Cuomo on his trip down to Savannah.

Governor Cuomo: It's only a matter of time in my book until you see the New York infection rate go up because people from the other states are coming to New York and they're now bringing the infection rate.

Gabe Gutierrez (voiceover): Months ago, thousands of volunteers rushed to New York to help fight the virus. Now the stat has sent personal protective equipment to Georgia, test kits to Texas and medication to Florida.

Governor Cuomo: I never thought it would be this bad. Increasing in 40 states. New York State did a quarantine. We have a quarantine against 20 states.

Gabe Gutierrez: Is that quarantine possible to enforce?

Governor Cuomo: It is imperfect.

Gabe Gutierrez: President Trump has doubled down on his opinion, his assertion, that the reason we're seeing this skyrocketing number of cases around the country is because of the increased testing. To that you say what?

Governor Cuomo: Than why are we seeing increases in hospitalizations? That has nothing to do with testing. More people are going into hospitals. Other countries are now quarantining America. That's not what America's supposed to be about.

Gabe Gutierrez: In New York the percentage of COVID tests coming back positive is about 1 percent. Here in Georgia, it's about 15 percent.