Video, Audio, Photos & Rush Transcript: Governor Cuomo Announces President Trump Has No Plans to Send Federal Agents to New York City

VIDEO of the Governor's remarks is available on YouTube here and in TV quality (h.264, mp4) format here.

AUDIO of the Governor's remarks is available here.

PHOTOS are available on the Governor's Flickr page.

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

Beautiful day in New York City. My mask matches my tie. Always a good way to start the day, even if it is coincidental. We have from my far right, Commissioner Tony Annucci, who is the Commissioner of New York State Department of Corrections. Tony has been with me from day one. He has done an extraordinary job. It is one of the hardest positions in state government I think - running the corrections system. And Tony has done an outstanding job, so I want to thank him. It is a pleasure to be with him today. To my immediate right, Melissa DeRosa, Secretary to the Governor. To my immediate left, Gareth Rhodes, Deputy Superintendent of the Department of Financial Services. Kelly Cummings, to Gareth's left, Kelly as you know is Director of State Operations and she has done a remarkable job.

You know this is been a stress test for governments all across the country. Government had to perform. It was not about just talking, right? It was not about rhetoric and pontification. It was about performance. That's what government is supposed to be able to do. We lost sight of that for a long time. Government became a political exercise and if you took the right political positions than you did your government duty. No, no, no government has to work. It has to operate. It has to function. And we've seen under this COVID stress test what governments could actually perform and what governments couldn't perform. All those logistical things, setting up testing sites, coordinating labs, doing the contact tracing - it was hard. Government never had a challenge like that before, not in my lifetime, and I'm very proud of the way the employees of New York state government responded and I'm proud of Kelly Cummings leadership.

Let's talk about today where we are. We are at day 145, a bright sunny day. Good news, all good news. 706 hospitalizations, lowest since March 18th. Number of deaths, 13. We don't want to lose anyone obviously and they are in our thoughts and prayers, but that is also good news relative to where we were. Three day average of lives lost is down to eight. That is good news. Number of tests yesterday, 69,000 tests. 811 positive, that's a 1.1 percent positive rate. That is also good news.

You look across the regions of the state. You see all good news. You see a little tick in the Capital Region. You see Albany, Capital Region, we had just about 30 positives from one July 4th party: one party, 28 positives. You understand why we say one bad event, one bad group, can be a real problem. One party, 30 people. Remember what we went through in New Rochelle. One super spreader, first hot spot in the United States. One person can make a difference. But all the numbers are good.

You look across New York City, likewise, all the numbers are good. Because it's good, we then say good news. Data is clear. We congratulate New Yorkers because they climbed the highest and hardest mountain, and we are on the other side. The big caution, the but is but we don't want to climb anymore mountains. It was not fun. It tested the character of the people of the state. It tested the competence of the government. And New Yorkers did it, but we don't want to do it again.

And we're wary of new threats that are on the horizon, and that is the bad news is the concerning trends that we're seeing around the country - primarily. It is important that we learn the lesson of what we have gone through. This is not that COVID descended on us yesterday. It's been six months. In New York, we were ambushed. The virus came from Europe. Nobody knew, nobody told us. We woke up one morning and the spike was already happening. We were ambushed.

That's not where we are today. It's been six months. We know what COVID is about. We've been talking about testing and tracing and quarantine. It's been 6 months. Let's at least to learn the lesson of the past six months. Let's learn the facts of the past six months. We are still having this same inane political discussion. "Well, you should reopen, reopen right away." No, no, that was never the question and now we have six months of experience to know what happens when you do that, right? It wasn't about do we reopen or not. The question was always yes, you reopen. Of course, you reopen. You re open as quickly as you can, but you have to be smart in how you reopen. You have to follow the science and the metrics. You still have today people who are operating politically suggesting "Just reopen. Just reopen."

Even President Trump isn't saying that anymore. And he was the main booster that theory, right? And we see what happens when you rush a reopening. We have the proof of six months of experiments. Some states reopened right away. Some states, New York said, "No, let's do a phased reopening. Let's study the metrics and let's do it intelligently. And in the long run, that will be better because if we just reopen immediately, we run the risk of the virus going up and then we have to close." That is exactly what has happened. It's not a question political theory - "He said, she said, conservatives say this, this one said." We have the results - we went to the laboratory, we tested it. New York began reopening May 15th. I said at that time we expect the virus may go up which you start reopening. Why? Because the activity's going to increase. More activity, more spread. We started reopening - you know what happened? The number went down. It didn't go up. It went down. I was wrong. To the positive, I thought it was going to go up, the number went down. Because it was a smart reopening, because we're on top of it, we're studying the data, et cetera.

Look at the states that rushed to reopen, and look at what is happening. Look at our curve versus their curve. It's undeniable. So, why are we still having the same political argument? We know that rushed reopenings don't work and the states that rush to reopen are now reclosing. That's another new COVID word by the way. I don't think there is any such word as reclosing. I'm sure Zack will point out that I used a word that doesn't exist, reclosing. It's a new word in the State of New York. I just proclaimed it a new word. They are reclosing. How did that help the economy? It didn't. It set the economy back. You look at where this country is versus other countries on the globe. We're behind the other countries. We got the virus from Europe, Europe now has the virus under control. They're quarantining us because they did a better job. So, learn the lessons and let's stop this non-productive political debate that is still going on in this state and in this country. No politics - follow the facts. And that's what we did from day one.

We do face a threat from the states that rushed the reopening and were not ready. You turn on the news you listen all day, there's still problems in testing. States don't have tracing operations. States have some counties opening, some counties closing, some counties have this plan, some counties have that plan. They rushed the reopening. They were not ready for the reopening, or they just were not competent enough to handle the reopening because it was rushed. And we're seeing that increase, it's undeniable, and it is a threat to New York. We now have 39 states with an increasing threat. We know that this virus travels. We know that. We know we are not an island in the State of New York. We know that we cannot hermetically sealed the State of New York in our own little bubble. So, when you see the virus going up in these other states it poses a threat to New York. Our quarantine enforcement is serious, and I want people coming into this state to know that. States have never done border control before, we had to scramble, it was another COVID first. But we have police at airports when you land, there is a police officer there, you have to fill out a form as to where you're going. It is illegal to leave the airport without filling out the form. And then we can follow up from the form. We have some people come to New York saying, "Oh I didn't know that there was a quarantine." I don't know how they did not know there was a quarantine. There is a quarantine and we are serious about it.

At the same time, we stand ready to help our fellow Americans and the other states. I have said very clearly, anyone who needs help, anytime, anywhere we will be there. Why? Because first of all, it's the right thing to do. I sat here and I said to people across this country who watch the briefings, "We need help." I said, "Please help us." New York was in the midst of the crisis, I asked for doctors and nurses from across the country to come help us in our emergency rooms. 30,000 people volunteered. I mean how awesome is that? Think about that - 30,000 nurses and doctors who knew the threat. If you're a nurse or a doctor you know the threat about working in an emergency room, right? It's not like you're going in blindly. 30,000 people volunteered. I mean how beautiful? How generous? How courageous? I'll fly to New York and I'll go into your emergency rooms. I said, at that time, we will never forget what people are doing for us. And I said at that time we will repay your gratitude. New Yorkers mean what they say and New Yorkers are an honorable people. When we will never forget and we'll be there for you, we mean it. I represent New Yorkers. The words came out of my mouth. I said them on behalf of all New Yorkers and we are going to honor what we said.

We will be there for you and we're working with governments now: Atlanta, Houston, Savannah, we're working with other governments, whatever they need. We understand they're struggling. We understand the pain. We were there and anything we can do, that's the right thing to do. Also, practically, we know that if we don't control the virus in the other states that we are then in danger of dealing with the second wave. Not the second wave they talked about which was a mutated virus comes back. It's a second ricochet of the first wave so, we're still in the first wave but the wave bounced to the West coast and is now bouncing back like a wave in a bathtub and that's our quarantine, etc. So, we understand that we have a self-interest in all of this and the expression I like to use: A virus anywhere is a virus everywhere. That's what we should have understood. That's what we should have understood when we first saw the virus in China. It was in China and it was a matter of days before it was here and by the way it was a matter of days before it was here.

Also, we are monitoring a second threat which is the rising Covid rates among younger people. You look at the age brackets, it's basically flat or down except for one group: 21 to 30 years old. And it has picked up four points; that is a significant increase in a short period of time and we know why. We have been talking about it. You can see it on the news, you can see it in the newspapers, you can see it in social media. It's not hard to understand what is going on. It's hard to deal with it but it's not hard to understand what's going on. You get groups of young people, it's warm, they've been locked up for a long time, we like to socialize - I get it. You don't socially distance, you don't wear masks, the virus spreads and it is happening.

To young people, this is not the time to fight for your right to party. I respect your right to party. I fully respect it. I would enshrine it into state law if you want to know. You have the right to party but let's be smart about it, right? There is an attitude that young people are immune. You are not. 21 to 30, the virus can kill you and if it doesn't kill you, you can bring it home and give it to someone inadvertently and it can kill them. So, they are laboring under false pretenses and I've had dozens and dozens of conversations and I've heard the most inane responses they just don't know the facts. They are dealing with assumptions that are just not true. So first, the local governments have to step up and do the enforcement job. I understand it's not politically popular. I understand it's hard. Some parts of the state, we have health personnel and local health personnel who have gone in who have been accosted - I understand that - but you have to enforce the law. Just because people don't like the law that you're enforcing doesn't mean you don't enforce the law. Send them with a local policeman. If you need help, we'll get you help with the state police but we have to enforce the law and the local governments have to do it. New York City, NYPD has to enforce the law, not just the Sheriff's Office. When New York City wants to enforce the law, you know who enforces it? The NYPD. Enforce the law. State Liquor Authority and the State Police are going to step up their efforts dramatically, but they can't do it without the local police. I have said that from day one. Also, we need to get the facts to the young people who are participating. And they need the facts. And we are going to start a video ad campaign that is targeted to young people to communicate some of the facts and the misimpressions that they have. Can you run the ad, please?

And the President said if there was a change we would have a conversation first. But, I'll stay on top of this and monitor it and we'll see where we go from here. But, so far the president has not said anything different than we had on the conversation. In the meantime, New York City must focus on quality of life and essential services. The rationale used in Chicago was crime. We have had a crime increase in New York City, we have to get on that, the homelessness, the graffiti. So we have some work to do here in New York.

Long term, for New York City, we will need a significant effort to restart the economy and I've said that from day one. Reimagine the economy, rebuild the economy. You have a lot of people who left New York City when COVID was at its height. You then have this transformation in the economy where people were home for four or five months working from home and they were introduced to a new way of doing business and you're seeing businesses across the country starting to modify their behavior. Maybe I don't need to be in the city. Maybe I don't need all that commercial space. Maybe I can have half my work force work from home. Maybe I can stay in my summer house and work from my summer house and not pay the New York City income tax.

So this is a very delicate moment that we're in. You put on top of that the crime increase, put on top of that the scenes of looting that we've seen, put on top of that issues with the homeless, issues with graffiti. It's a bad combination that we're going to have to address. Now, one thing at a time, we have to get through the current crisis, which is dealing with COVID. And we have to make sure there's no second wave, er cetera. But we're going to have work to do to restart and rejuvenate the economy. There's no two ways about that.

One of the best things we've done is the amount of testing that we have done. You look at these other states that are still having trouble on testing. They're having long turnarounds on testing. Testing is your eyes and ears in this situation. Everything is anecdotal without testing. You have the number of hospitalizations, but that is a lagging indicator and it's too late when the hospitalizations are going up. The testing was the only facts to tell you where you were today, and you need facts, you need guideposts the plan your strategy. We test more than any state, we test more than most countries.

We've also tested, we do so much testing that we can refine the testing and we can test subgroups. We tested our subgroups of essential workers, because I was always worried we made essential workers continue working that we put them in harm's way. Essential workers were below the level of the overall community. New York City the overall community is 19.9. Fire department was 17. Transit workers, 14. Health care workers, 12. NYPD, 10. Why is the fire department high? It's fire department and EMT workers, so the EMT workers are really on the spot, right? They're the ones who are showing up. Look at the health care workers, 12 percent. How can the health care workers be at 12 percent when overall in New York City it was 19? How can people working in an emergency room have a lower infection rate? They're dealing with positive people all day long. How can that be? Because these work, these work. That's why and that's why New York State was the first state in the United States to have a mask order.

But, we've done more and more testing and we did testing in DOCCS facilities - Department of Correction facilities, okay? I've talked enough, press test. You're the press, this is the test. We tested incarcerated rated individuals 55 and over. How many individuals are there in the state prison system that were 55 and over? See, you like to ask questions but you're not so good on the answering questions. Any guess? Come on. How many? 39,000 were 55 and over. And why 55 and over? Because COVID affects older people more. What was that percent positive? How many people, percentage wise, how many people of the 3,900 tested positive? How many? Three percent. Any other bids? How many people? What's your number?

77 positives out of 3,900 people tested, which is 1.9. So, I just want to applaud Commissioner Annucci and I want to applaud Kelly Cummings. This is a congregant population, 55 and older, they were all asymptomatic by the way, because symptomatic people had been tested. These were asymptomatic people, the entire population. So that was a job really well done because again these congregate facilities are where we've seen a lot of trouble. So very good because we are New York tough, smart, united, disciplined and loving.