Rush Transcript: Governor Cuomo is a Guest on the Ellen Degeneres Show

Earlier today, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo was a guest on The Ellen DeGeneres Show.

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

Ellen DeGeneres: Over the last couple of months our first guest leadership has not only help to the State of New York, but also the whole nation cope with these uncertain times, please welcome the Governor of New York Andrew Cuomo.

Governor Cuomo: Good to be with you. Thank you, Ellen.

Ellen DeGeneres: Thank you so much - thanks for your leadership and thanks for taking the time, you are a very busy man. And everybody loves you right now. I think that you can feel the love from us, but you have always been honest and upfront about the information, and we have needed that. You must feel how necessary what you are doing is for all of us right now.

Governor Cuomo: Well, thank you. The situation became so bizarre so quickly, Ellen. What we were asking people to do was extraordinary. I mean, lock yourself in your house, close your business, don't go out. Just think about it. So, government really doesn't have the ability to enforce that. The only way to get it done was relieved to give people the facts, explain the situation, and then they had to agree to do it. It was almost a voluntary compliance. And New Yorkers can be a difficult, cynical bunch. And I knew that we were asking them to do extraordinary things. So, I just laid out the facts and said, "Here are the facts. This is what you need to know. I recommend this and this is why." But I needed them to buy in, especially given the degree of difficulty that we were going to have to actually implement these things. And people are smart, if you give them the facts and they know, they trust the facts and they trust the person who is giving them the facts, they will do the right thing. And that's what the people in New York did and I think that's what you have seen across the country.

Ellen DeGeneres: Yeah, yeah, exactly. Especially in New York because it was a hot spot early on. And now the state is doing well, right?

Governor Cuomo: Right now, the numbers are on the way down. We still have more higher number of cases than just about anywhere else. And also, interestingly, now, they are now discovering that we were all looking at China. By the time we acted on China, the virus had been out of China and had gone to Europe. And the virus that came to New York came from Europe, not China. And much earlier than we even thought.

Ellen DeGeneres: Yeah, yeah, I am hearing that possibly in California it was here in October.

Governor Cuomo: Well, you know, we were hearing about it. There are so many lessons to learn when we go back and do the retrospective on this. But we were hearing about it in November, December in China. Global pandemic. Yeah, the virus gets on a plane and it goes to Europe and it goes to New York and California. So, there is no time to delay in a situation like this. And I think we all have a lot to learn from this, because by the time we actually acted and enacted travel bans, we were closing the door on the barn and the horse was already gone. I think that is clear.

Ellen DeGeneres: Yeah, yeah. It is so devastating, because I think that nobody really thought about a pandemic except maybe Bill Gates. But you know, there a lot of people who didn't know that this was a possibility. And then, it is a whole new level, because we haven't had this for 100 years, but it is the economy that is affected in a different way. We did not realize the effect that it is going to have on everything. And it is hard to wrap our heads around how we are all going to get back to some sense of normalcy.

Governor Cuomo: Well you're right. Global pandemic, if you look at the textbooks, they've been talking about a global pandemic for a long time. But they've been talking about a lot of things for a long time. You're right, we've never had it so it was never actualized for us. We didn't really fully experience what it was like. Then it happens. No one's been here before. It's a scramble for everyone on every level. This action that we're taking is unprecedented and we don't even know what the future is. Which is probably the first time in my lifetime that we've been in this situation. No one can tell you what's going to happen one month, two months, three months down the road.

It's all uncharted territory. You have to keep moving forward, take the next step, be the most educated as you can in the next step. It's a very difficult time when people are basically out of control, nobody can give them answers. Nobody knows that the future and the only hard point you have is at one point we'll have a vaccine and then you can really be safe when we have the vaccine, but we don't know if we're going to have a vaccine for 12 months or 14 months or 18 months.

Ellen DeGeneres: But then we also have the vaccine for the flu and people get vaccinated for the flu and they get the flu anyway.

Governor Cuomo: Yeah, or they get a mutation of the flu anyway. At one point, we'll have a vaccine for this virus. The virus may mutate, come back in a mutated form and you would need a vaccine for that, but you'd be starting with the first vaccine. There's no doubt that the vaccine is going to be very helpful and I think give people comfort. What I'm wondering is when people actually have comfort again. We can say, just the way we needed buy in to close down, you're going to need buy in to open up. I can stand up and say, "don't worry, it's safe. Everybody get back on the subway and get back on the buses." It's not going to be that easy.

They started to reopen China and people were very slow to come back. They now get the severity of this issue and they're going to have to believe that the danger is abated before they resume life as usual. Especially in a city like New York, where it is all about the density. We had the cases coming from Europe and nobody knew, but the spread it's like fire through dry grass because you can't socially distance in New York. You can't walk down the sidewalk and be socially distant. You can't ride the subway and be socially distant. Los Angeles, California it's a different geography, different density.

People are going to really have to feel comfortable before they go back to normal, that's for sure, if there ever is a back to normal - or a new normal, as we talk about.

Ellen DeGeneres: I think that's the thing, it will be a new normal because I can't imagine what it's going to be like - even when we have the vaccine, I think we've all become so scared of all the different symptoms. They keep surprising us. There's all these new things that you hear about that we didn't know that were the headaches, were the fever, or the asymptomatic, blood clots - it's just keeps surprising us in different ways, right?

Governor Cuomo: I think that's for sure. And look, you'll have it in the back of your mind always. Well, what's the next one going to be? What's the next public health risk? Is this coronavirus coming back? Is it another virus coming back? There's going to be a form of PTSD I think for a generation. It was after 9/11 happened in New York. Everybody was affected by 9/11. You heard a bang in New York for 5 years afterward and everybody jumped. It just introduces into your psyche a whole new fear.

Ellen DeGeneres: Yeah, right. Okay, we have to take a break and then we're going to talk some more with Governor Cuomo.

And we're back - Andy, yes?

Andy Lassner: Yeah, I just wanted to say one thing - a lot of Ellen's staff, myself included, some of the producers, Lauren and Johnny and Mary, we're all native New Yorkers and I can tell you that across the board, my mother is 82, sitting in her apartment in Manhattan, and across the board what we keep hearing is what a great job you're doing bringing comfort to these people. And it is so important at a time where there is a lack of some honest information coming out to have someone like you, and I think it's why you've resonated across the whole country because people can tell honesty and we appreciate that.

Governor Cuomo: Well thank you.

Andy Lassner: Absolutely.

Ellen DeGeneres: I just want to say that Andy is my producer and he's only allowed in the garden because we're socially distancing so he can only talk from the yard, that's why he's out there.

Governor Cuomo: No, I noticed him out there. I was going to say something that I thought better of it. But thank you for your nice words. Look, as I said in the beginning, we needed people to buy in, so I wanted them to have the facts and I wanted them to have the information and I also wanted to communicate that this is not a governmental issue. It's a social issue. It's a personal issue. People are afraid, people are anxious. They've never been here before. They have all sorts of pressure they've never had before. You know we have domestic violence going up, we have mental health issues going up. This is an extraordinarily stressful time and it is for everyone, so I wanted people to know that I feel it also. I'm going through it in my life. I'm worried about my family, I'm worried about my mother. And then you're in this hellish situation where you can't even go see the people who you love who you want to reach out. I can't even go see my mother - she gets offended when I say it, but she's a senior person. I'm out there, I'm moving around, who knows what I get exposed to. I can't even go see her. You're afraid to hug someone. You're afraid to kiss someone. At this time when you need comfort probably more than you've ever needed it. It is like a hell where you are isolated not just in your home, you are isolated personally, at a time when you need some association and you need relationships probably more than ever. So it just works on so many levels and it's so upsetting and disturbing, and again, nobody can tell you when it ends, how it ends. So it is, look, we've never been through anything like this. I think, Ellen, we're actually better on the other side. You talk about the World War II generation, people who have gone through real crises in their life and you learn from them and maybe it hardens you and you come back better, but it's going to be life-changing, hard, disruptive and we will never be the same. I just hope we're better for it.

Ellen DeGeneres: Well, I can tell you one thing. We have to take a break. But I can tell you one thing. Just, you are a calming voice in this. Like Andy said, even though it is all disturbing news and it is all sad, we watch you and feel better listening to you because we know it's the real truth and we are getting comforted no matter how bad the news is because this is coming from you.

Ellen DeGeneres: We are back with the Governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo. So, you had a meeting with the President last week. Let's hear how that went.

Governor Cuomo: Swimmingly.

Ellen DeGeneres: All right, you do not even need to - Go ahead.

Governor Cuomo: The President and I don't have a warm and fuzzy relationship. He is not much of a fan of my politics and we have been going back and forth for many years now and that's okay. But we sat down, we had a meeting about this issue of testing, which is going to be very important going forward. Nobody really understands it. Nobody has really done it before. We have to bring this testing to a scale that has been unheard of, and there has been a lot of back and forth. Does the federal government do it? Do the state governments do it? Et cetera. And, in truth, we both have to do it because we both have responsibilities. So, I just wanted to sit down with them and sort of figure how do we do it? Who does it? What do I do? What do you do? And let's just cut to the chase on this. It was actually a good conversation, and look, credit where credit is due, I know that the President's people they are not my biggest fans, and that is okay. But we actually did what we were supposed to do, Ellen, and I think that is important because nobody really cares what the President thinks about me or what I think about the President, right? Who cares about all these emotions in politics and all this stuff? Just do your job. Do your job. So that is what we did. We have a good template going forward. We are going to work to double the number of tests in this state which is a big deal because the testing is the only matrix you have to move forward. When do you reopen, how fast do you reopen, where do you reopen. The only gauge you have as you go through this is if you're testing and you're actually watching what happens to the infection rate. So as you're moving towards reopening, are you moving that infection rate? Are more people getting infected? To do that, you have to do testing. So it was a productive meeting, and we have a game plan, and I think we have a game plan not just for New York but for California and all the other states.

Ellen DeGeneres: Yes because you can say you're going to have all that testing in one state but then another state opens early like Georgia or Florida or these people that want to start opening businesses, which I mean, all these businesses that aren't really essential like tattoo parlors or you know whatever. I guess if you are really in into tattoos it's essential but, you know, they're opening these businesses. What happens when these people decide to travel to another state that we have stay at home, so I mean it's just dangerous to allow that to happen if people come to us.

Governor Cuomo: There's no doubt about it and that's why we try to operate, in the Northeast we're operating with seven states as one coalition precisely for that reason. If Connecticut opens its beaches all the New Yorkers will go to Connecticut to go to the beach. So you have to coordinate and we have about seven states that are working together to coordinate. California is coordinating with neighboring states because people are so desperate to get out and do things that they will go to the next state. In theory Georgia is far away from New York but if someone was really desperate for a tattoo they could now be going to Georgia to get their tattoo. How you get a tattoo and socially distance I'm not really sure. You're supposed to stay six feet away. I guess you could get a tattoo if you had a really long needle and very good aim to probably get a tattoo from six feet away but I wouldn't want that tattoo anyway.

Ellen DeGeneres: You know what, you're giving tattoo artists a challenge. They're going to start developing these six-foot long needles and that's exactly what I was going to say is they're going to start using six-foot long needles, and why not?

Governor Cuomo: You just need good aim. You could do it with very good aim.

Ellen DeGeneres: Right. That's true. You're challenging them. All right, we'll take a break. More with the Governor after this.

Ellen DeGeneres: All right, we're back with Governor Cuomo. Can I say that I am a "Cuomosexual?" You know that that's going around, that people are saying they're Cuomosexuals.

Governor Cuomo: I think that's a good thing. I don't think it's a bad thing.

Ellen DeGeneres: It's not a bad thing. People are in love with you. It started with Trevor Noah but it includes your brother Chris. You're both Cuomos. I enjoy both of you very much.

Governor Cuomo: Yes, but you enjoy me more. Didn't you say that earlier?

Ellen DeGeneres: Yes.

Governor Cuomo: Yes.

Ellen DeGeneres: Yes, I can say that right now because I'm talking to you but then when I talk to him I'll say he is my favorite. It's like I know you have this competition with who the mother loves more and I understand all that but you're both charming. You're both adorable. Now you've obviously already had this relationship that's adorable but do you think this brought you closer together because he contracted COVID-19?

Governor Cuomo: No, you can't be closer than I am with my brother Chris. We have been all our lives. He is my best friend - my little best friend - but we have a very special relationship. I just felt bad during that whole coronavirus thing. I mean one of the peculiar, hellish facts: he's sick, his wife gets sick, he has the kids in the house and I can't even go to help. That's one of the bizarre things here so I have my brother sick and whatever they say, well, you're young, don't worry - you still worry and he had it and I couldn't even get close to him and nobody could go over the house to help. It really is so miserable this situation in so many ways. He's better, he's good. His wife is better. Now his son has it, which is what happens, it just works it's way through the family. Talk about guts, the day he got diagnosed with it, he went on air that night. That took real guts. I don't care how strong you are, they call you up and they say, "You tested positive for coronavirus," you have to have some butterflies in your stomach. He went right on the air that night and I think he did a great public service because he shared it with people. He took the mystery off it and he showed what it was like every step of the way and we actually had some fun with it so it all worked, thank God.

Ellen DeGeneres: Yeah, it really did. It worked in a way that made it more personal when you know somebody or somebody that you watch and you feel like you have a relationship with them. You can see the pain in his eyes, you can see when he had a fever. He looked so sick. Anyway, I just think that you're amazing. When you run for president, I will be behind you all the way, because that's going to be exciting to watch you run.

Governor Cuomo: No comment.

Ellen DeGeneres: You're supposed to say something now.

Governor Cuomo: No comment. I'm Governor of the great State of New York and I'm happy.

Ellen DeGeneres: I do think that will happen at some point and I think it'll be a great thing when it does happen. Thank you so much for all you're doing. Thanks for taking the time to talk to me and send my love to your little brother and tell him I'm very happy he's feeling better. My love to the family.

Governor Cuomo: Thank you, Ellen. Thank you very much. Pleasure to be with you.

Ellen DeGeneres: Thanks, nice to be with you too. My love to the boyfriend.

Governor Cuomo: Stop there.