De Blasio Blasts Trump For 'Betraying' NYC With Sluggish COVID-19 Response

President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence Visit The Federal Emergency Management Agency Headquarters

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio's administration is through asking nicely for aid in its battle against the novel coronavirus.

De Blasio has for weeks been calling on the federal government to provide aid to the city with military support and additional hospital supplies.

With the city seeing a rapid daily increase in COVID-19 cases and coronavirus-related deaths, many officials believe President Trump is still not taking the issue seriously.

"The fate of New York City rests in the hands of one man," de Blasio said Thursday. "[Trump] is a New Yorker, and right now he is betraying the city he comes from. We are the front line. We are going through more than almost any place in the country. [...] How on Earth is the president sitting idly by and not activating the forces that could help us?"

De Blasio's comment came after the president and Governor Cuomo appeared to patch up their own coronavirus-related feud. Trump responded by committing the Army Corps of Engineers to the state and sending the USNS Comfort, a hospital ship, to New York Harbor to provide up to 1,000 additional hospital rooms.

Trump and de Blasio have yet to make such a breakthrough.

The mayor has repeatedly made reference to the 'insulting' fact that the U.S. military continues to work on Trump's border wall on the U.S.-Mexico border, despite many states allocating all their resources to fighting the pandemic.

De Blasio says New York is in a dire situation, "weeks away" from running out of hospital supplies.

Infectious disease experts believe the peak of the outbreak in New York won't arrive until late-April.

Photo: Getty Images


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